Contactless Cards For Travel In London Are Working
This article entitled Tube Record Smashed Again has just been published on Modern Railways. This is the last paragraph.
Numbers on both days were boosted by ‘MasterCard Fare Free Friday’, through which holders of contactless MasterCard debit or credit cards could use their card to travel for free within the capital, with over 270,000 journeys made on 28 November under this offer. Passengers have been able to use contactless bank cards to pay for Tube travel since September, with 18 million journeys made using contactless payment cards since that date and usage reported to be growing at a rate of 12% per week.
The most significant bit is that the use of contactless payment cards is growing at an unheard of rate for anything.
So if it is so popular in London, when will I be able to use my contactless credit card for travel on Nottingham, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Manchester trains, the Newcastle Metro and local trains outside London? If these cities in the North want to rival London, they must give the passengers the easy ticketing system, they obviously like to use!
If any did bring in a contactless system for payment, I think it would be a long odds-on bet, that at least one of Mastercard, Visa and Amex would run a promotion to get people on the buses, trams and trains.
Another Fare Free Friday
Last week’s Fare Free Friday was a success, as tube usage was a record.
Another Fare Free Friday
So they’re doing it again.
If doesn’t effect me, as I have a Freedom Pass, so every day is free. My Mastercard isn’t contactless either.
It’ll be interesting to see, who benefits most from this marketing exercise!
Gluten Free Beer And Pizza In Berlin
For supper, I ventured into the non-touristy parts of Berlin to Yorckstrasse station to have supper at Cielo di Berlino,
It was a trip worth making.
Although it nearly did get embarrassing, as they didn’t take credit cards and much of my euros had been used up. Note that in Germany cash points don’t seem to be as numerous as they are in the UK.
Visa And Amex In Germany
When I arrived in Berlin, I needed to buy a ticket and as I’m a Nationwide customer, I have one of their Visa cards that converts local currencies immediately without charges to my statement.
But in many places in Germany the only card you can use in Mastercard. As I travel usually with just Amex and Visa, I would have been scuppered, if I didn’t have quite a few Euros.
Surely, if we are a united Europe economically, then all machines and web sites that accept credit and charge cards, should be m,mandated in EU law to accept all types.
A consequence of the German policy was at Berlin, the machine on the platform to buy tickets for the S-Bahn was blocked with Americans and Australians trying to buy tickets without a Visa card and no euros.
Obviously, because of the way things are going when in perhaps five years, many cities will allow contactless cards as tickets, as London buses now do, this is going to be an area, where the Germans will have to allow cards other than Mastercard.
Nationwide’s New Credit Card Statement
I received my on-line credit card statement from Nationwide yesterday and it has been simplified in their new web site, so that it is now very easy to see how much you need to pay for either the minimum amount or to avoid any interest charges. In the past, you sometimes had to guess the latter.
This means that I can get my cashflow more precise.
So are we going to see a features war between banks, as they make their web sites better to attract more customers?
After all, when you make a major purchase, like a car, a washing machine or a new partner, you carefully check out all the features! But unless you actually move your account, that’s a bit difficult with banking. Where is the test-before-you-buy feature? With peer-to-peer lending sites like Zopa and its ilk, you can experiment with a small sum, before you actually make the decision to move your savings there!
Certainly, unless they do something horrendous, I can see no reason at present to move my account away from Nationwide.
The End Of Cheap Credit Cards?
This question is posed in this article in the Daily Telegraph, as RBS/NatWest ends cheap introductory deals.
About time too, as why should I as a UK taxpayer and part owner of so-called bank RBS, subsidise the irresponsible debts of others?
What A Wunch Of Bankers
According to various reports, of which this article in the Mail is typical, the total cost of the PPI scandal is over £18 billion. That works out at four hundred pounds for every adult in the UK.
I got caught, in that when C died, I needed to get a new John Lewis credit card, as previously my card was a second one on her account. But Waitrose didn’t advise me to uncheck the box, if I didn’t want PPI.
I have since got all my money back, by just filling in a form and posting it to their credit card services.
Do Banks Design Systems To Trap Us Into Extra Payments?
Twice now in the last three months, I’ve been late with credit card payments. Nothing serious, but I got an extra charge of £12.00. I think it happened, as did the other one, because I tend to pay my credit cards all at the same time at the end of the month, when my American Express Card comes in and I’ve just had my pension payment.
So as I was flush at that time, I paid off most of the debt on the card. But apparently, I paid too early in the last accounting period or something.
The last time, it happened on another card, they phoned me to say why hadn’t I paid. When I said what about the extra payment they gave it back.
But how many of us, get caught out by rules, that need to be read by a lawyer with a fine tooth comb?
What would help, would be the ability to define your payment date on your credit card. I seem to remember doing this many years in the past. Zopa incidentally, allows this when you borrow and even allows you to change the date, due to a change of circumstances.
In some ways I’m getting my own back. For travel, hotels and large purchases, I now use my American Express card and for small ones, I now use cash. The problem is Waitrose, where their self-service tills don’t take cash. Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury, who both have better tills, do.
Rail Europe And Deutsche Bahn
In my trip, that i outlined in this post, i needed to book a sleeper from Munich to Paris on the night of the 12th of April. The oracle of all things rail, Seat61.com, recommended Rail Europe, so I tried that last night.
I don’t think I’ll be using that site again.
The main problem was that after choosing my ticket, the site seemed to get into a loop with Verified by Visa and in the end, the time limit to buy the ticket expired, with me not sure, if I’d actually bought a ticket or not. I haven’t had a debit on my account, so hopefully everything is alright,
Then, this morning, I tried to phone them to find out what had happened. After hanging on for several minutes, I got through and they couldn’t even find the account I’d created.
Another think about Rail Europe is they don’t take American Express, the card of choice for my travel.
I also wasn’t sure how they got the tickets to me. I think they are posted, which is not the best way to receive rail tickets if you might have left for Budapest.
So after trying to talk to the monkey for a few hours, I decided I had better talk to the organ grinder; Deutsche Bahn.
I chose the same ticket, at perhaps a few more euros, but at least I was able to get the ticket to my Inbox for printing easily.
Although, why you have to print seven pages for one ticket, I do not know. The British system of little orange cards is so more economical with forests. Incidentally, Easyjet did my flight out in one page.
So if you need to buy a train ticket to, from or inside Germany, I’d use the Deutsche Bahn web site. But isn’t this just the same as buying a ticket to Derby on the East Midlands Trains web site, as I did this morning?
Rail Europe may have failed to sell me a ticket, but they didn’t deduct money from my credit card account.
It was
Barclaycard On The Buses
Barclaycard are pushing their alternative to Oyster for London buses and tubes.
Barclaycard On The Buses
It will be interesting to see in a few years, if credit and bank cards actually replace Oyster.
The Anonymous Widower 