On 13 May 2008 David Cantrell wrote in
:

I would stop moaning about Oyster if TfL bothered to put vending
machines at convenient places in south London. Y'know, I bet that
people like Tesco would be happy to have Oystery ticket machines
in their shops (for a small cut of course) so that people could
renew their travelcards or top up their pre-pay balance. It
wouldn't be the first time a large public company had put its
facilities inside supermarkets because it was convenient for their
users - there's a post box inside my local Tesco.

On the other side from this it would be nice if the station vending
machines / shops could take money from an oyster card. Tokyo Suica
cards do this and it is very convenient. (Also great when working,
Suica == travel == expenses!!!)

--
Graham Drabble
http://www.drabble.me.uk/

On May 14, 11:39*pm, Graham Drabble wrote:
On 13 May 2008 David Cantrell wrote . uk:

I would stop moaning about Oyster if TfL bothered to put vending
machines at convenient places in south London. *Y'know, I bet that
people like Tesco would be happy to have Oystery ticket machines
in their shops (for a small cut of course) so that people could
renew their travelcards or top up their pre-pay balance. *It
wouldn't be the first time a large public company had put its
facilities inside supermarkets because it was convenient for their
users - there's a post box inside my local Tesco.

On the other side from this it would be nice if the station vending
machines / shops could take money from an oyster card. Tokyo Suica
cards do this and it is very convenient. (Also great when working,
Suica == travel == expenses!!!)

Ultimately, you will have a smart card which will be used to pay for
everything while storing your biometric details etc, and cash will no
longer be accepted. Then the authorities will know everything you've
bought as well as everywhere you've been. The card will be your permit
to exist, which can be revoked at any time. It's inevitable, but why
hasten the process?

In message
, at
23:39:59 on Wed, 14 May 2008, Graham Drabble
remarked:
I would stop moaning about Oyster if TfL bothered to put vending
machines at convenient places in south London. Y'know, I bet that
people like Tesco would be happy to have Oystery ticket machines
in their shops

On the other side from this it would be nice if the station vending
machines / shops could take money from an oyster card.

That was part of the plan, but as I understand it the financial rules in
this country would mean that Tfl had to become a "bank" and that was too
much for them.

In the mean time Barclaycard have stepped into the void with their
"onepulse" combined Oyster and pay-wave card. I have yet to see any
pay-wave enabled tills, let alone vending machines, though.
--
Roland Perry

On 15 May, 09:39, Roland Perry wrote:
That was part of the plan, but as I understand it the financial rules in
this country would mean that Tfl had to become a "bank" and that was too
much for them.

The official line was they couldn't find a partner (=investor), which
I took to mean the venture was considered unprofitable, which is what
will save us from MIG's future vision.

In the mean time Barclaycard have stepped into the void with their
"onepulse" combined Oyster and pay-wave card. I have yet to see any
pay-wave enabled tills, let alone vending machines, though.

The Oyster section isn't at all linked to the paywave or the Credit
Card parts. The paywave site has a pretty pathetic map of retailers:
http://www.visapaywave.co.uk/

(although one of them is a newsagents a few doors down from my flat,
so I may go have a look)

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

In message
, at
02:08:00 on Thu, 15 May 2008, Mr Thant
remarked:
On 15 May, 09:39, Roland Perry wrote:
That was part of the plan, but as I understand it the financial rules in
this country would mean that Tfl had to become a "bank" and that was too
much for them.

The official line was they couldn't find a partner (=investor),

But the investment would be needed mainly to qualify as a "bank", I
presume.

which I took to mean the venture was considered unprofitable, which is
what will save us from MIG's future vision.

Most e-cash seems to be "unprofitable", apart from closed systems like
Oyster. There are even in the banking industry those who think that
schemes like "pay-wave" are daft, encouraging lots of very small credit
card transactions.

In the mean time Barclaycard have stepped into the void with their
"onepulse" combined Oyster and pay-wave card. I have yet to see any
pay-wave enabled tills, let alone vending machines, though.

The Oyster section isn't at all linked to the paywave or the Credit
Card parts.

It's linked in the sense that there is an auto top-up facility for a
flow of funds from Credit Card to Oyster; but there's none in the other
direction.

The paywave site has a pretty pathetic map of retailers:
http://www.visapaywave.co.uk/

Thanks. (Although it's a ghasty over-flashed site, and the mapping is
very hard to use, and slow; you need to realise that several of the
categories are "zero".)
--
Roland Perry

Found an "interesting" problem with Oyster today. One of my collegues
has been over from the States and goes back today. He had a prepay
oyster which originally he bought with cash but he topped up with a
credit card.

Because he had used both cash and topped up with a credit card he
couldn't get a refund (well they would post a cheque to him).
Fortunately there was someone at work happy to buy it off him for
cash.

Tim.

On 15 May, 10:08, Mr Thant
wrote:
(although one of them is a newsagents a few doors down from my flat,
so I may go have a look)

I went in this place just now and there are no signs whatsoever and
the reader is hidden with a load of other clutter on the side of the
counter - it took me a while to spot it. So I can't imagine it's ever
used.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

On Thu, 15 May 2008 09:39:01 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In the mean time Barclaycard have stepped into the void with their
"onepulse" combined Oyster and pay-wave card. I have yet to see any
pay-wave enabled tills, let alone vending machines, though.

Subway sandwich shops and the newsagent's in St Katharine's Dock have
them. I doubt they'll be used very much when most shops seem to
charge the same surcharge as Chip and PIN, though, and I consider them
a big security risk compared with "electronic wallet" schemes.

I think there is space for a German "Geldkarte" style scheme but with
contactless cards, but only of the pre-charged variety and probably
tied to debit rather than credit cards.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

In message , at 19:16:25 on Thu,
15 May 2008, Neil Williams remarked:
In the mean time Barclaycard have stepped into the void with their
"onepulse" combined Oyster and pay-wave card. I have yet to see any
pay-wave enabled tills, let alone vending machines, though.

Subway sandwich shops and the newsagent's in St Katharine's Dock have
them. I doubt they'll be used very much when most shops seem to
charge the same surcharge as Chip and PIN, though

Lady Bracknell

A *surcharge* !!!

/Lady Bracknell

--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 13 May 2008 15:10:55 +0100, Peter Beale
wrote:
We had a short visit to Paris in January and got the 3-day Zones 1-3
Paris Visite ticket for €19 and used it extensively on Metro, buses,
Montmartre funicular. We managed to use 4 of the discounted offers - Arc
de Triomphe, Opéra Nationale, Bâteaux Parisiens, Grand'Arche de la
Défense - and certainly didn't regard them as "dubious" attractions, and
all in all thought it quite good value.

Yes, all good stuff, although I don't think I've ever used these
reductions.

On previous visits I have used
the "Carte Orange", notably while camping out at Maisons-Laffite, but I
think it is not available for less than a week - and now comes in the
form of "Navigo" (French for Oyster!) and costing more for those not
resident in Ile-de-France.

Yes, it's a week or a month (or a year for the differently-branded
"Intégrale"). Unfortunately it's still a fixed week (Mon-Sun) or
month. Even with the Carte Orange now officially available for
aliens, this "feature" prevents its use for long weekends, etc. I
don't believe it costs more for non-residents, however, except that
the card costs 5 euros and isn't replaced if lost...

Richard.