West - What is the point of the credit card payment system at SEATAC?

I park at the garage at SEATAC. They now have a system where you can pay on the way out. I rather liked the old system. There would always be a machine free and there was never a lineup getting out of the place.

Now it seems that most people are going for the pay with a credit card option at the gate. Can someone explain how this is better? Why did they change to this? I'm at a loss as to the benefit. I found it less convenient when I had to do it.

All of the lanes are now credit card/paid so I'm stuck waiting behind people when I want to get out of there. It's driving me nuts. Can someone clarify why they are doing this?

46 views and no comments. I guess everyone else is as dumbfounded by it as I am.

I agree it's idiotic and probably comes down to the pay kiosks back in the garage being poorly understood or ignored by customers, then creating backups down at the tollbooths.

In the old days you'd line up at the tollbooths for 10 or 15 minutes to get out of there because everyone was paying, laboriously, by credit card. This whole very expensive and complicated pay-in-garage system was implemented to fix that. It worked great for awhile. Now I line up at the tollbooths waiting for the clowns ahead of me to pay, laboriously, by credit card... just like before.

I do think the in-garage kiosks are hard to figure out if you're new to them, and usability is so poor a lot of customers just say the hell with it.