percysmith

I can't do that on my long-distance OT taxi runs cos I need them to print me a receipt for work claim, something they'd surely not do if I piss them off by insisting on card when they don't want to. I can't exactly force a receipt out of the printer.

In other cases, it'll be as pleasant as haggling over change. It's okay to prove a point, it's just you got to patiently wait out the driver until a police officer comes over. Not possible if you're with somebody or rushing to go somewhere.

P.S. it's a good fight to have with drivers with a bad attitude tho.

jg86

Hmmm true. but in the event you actually had no cash on you, and you waited for a taxi with a visa sign in the window, it's not as though you're being rude.

I realise it's unusual to have no cash on you, but it's not illegal!

percysmith

It'll be like taking a cab with only a $500 note. Taxis are only required to have $100 worth of change, and frequently have no more than that. If you're trying to take a ride with only a $500 note, you're meant to ask whether that's OK first. Unless it's a cross harbour tunnel ride, where the cabbie pays the tunnel toll with it to force the CHT to break the note for you.

Unlike many card merchants, cabbies are really sole proprietors who do pay for merchant fees out of pocket. Same as red minibus drivers. And they don't get to differentiate their services by accepting cards - cab rank rule.

As a compromise, I would think it's fair if they'd all have the equipment and let us use it all the time, so long as we pay 1% more to cover interchange fee. At least they have to pay tax on the proceeds, so they fulfil their fair share too. Though Octopus will never allow it officially cos then all the licenced public transport will ask for it also - maybe we can offer it to the drivers as tips.

percysmith

I was actually still in the office when I wrote the posts to jg86 just now. it was getting kinda late and I can't think straight so it was time to call it a day.

I decided to try the Autotaxi app again - Visa payment specifically requested this time. One call - no response. Again - nada.

I was walking out the door and about to catch a normal taxi when my phone rang and a screechy old cabbie asked where I was. I managed to get on his Fly Visa cab less than a minute later.

I haven't had such a fun cab ride home ever. The cabbie was a cracker. He's aware I'm gonna earn 20% of the ride back from my bank http://www.dahsing.com/en/html/credi...ards/taxi.html for this "what a great deal you get from your bank...."

We talked about the news on the Octopus today. I trotted out my Octopus if flagfall goes above $20 argument. He said "yeah...what a crock. Octopus will collect 1% before releasing the takings the next day".

"Not as bad as the 2% I presume I'm gonna cost you for this" feeling a little sheepish and wondering if I need to tip him
"Visa doesn't actually take anything. We get 100% takings for this."
"REALLY??!!"
"Yeah...there was another Fly Taxi Cabbie who got 8...8.25% takings debited by Fly Visa. When he found out he called up the office and asked why. They said [something about him being treated as a merchant rather than a taxi] and reimbursed the full amount back to him"

No interchange?! Now why won't all cabbies do this?
My cabbie didn't understand either. He agrees $18 is a bit too much of a nuisance for Visa but didn't understand why my cabbie wouldn't take Visa last night.

We were home. I wish I had more time with him. He took a long while keying in the meter amount into his terminal but once it's in, it took about 10 seconds to spit out a thermal receipt.

I'm gonna do this again tomorrow night!

But I'm really wondering if this trip was no interchange, or whether interchange is collected at some other level (e.g. Autotaxi subscription fees)

kaka

505 points or 33AM per can of coke is a lot of miles.
i might actually do this to top up my SCB account so i'm gonna get rid of it next month

ChrisLi

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To be honest, i think if octopus / visa can add advertisement into the mix and use the ad fee to cover the clearing fee it will be a win-win situtation.

And I think the clearing fee of visa to transportation company are around 1% instead of the normal 2%

jg86

sorry kaka not sure if i made this clear but this is only true if youve spent $4000HKD that month.

Hope you haven't blown your credit limit on a can of coke yet!

An interesting thing i noticed is if you buy some watsons shampoo/ shower gel for $34 you get 500 moneyback points... 125 asia miles if i remember correctly!

percysmith

By and large, excepting friendly cabbies like that one last night, cabbies are dyed-in-the-blood thieving cheapskate tax cheats.

I have a love-'em-and-hate-'em relationship with them.
On one hand they do get you from point A to point B effectively a lot of the time.
On the other hand they are a roving exhibition of all things crap about Hongkies - whinge about 80% taxis when it suits them, cheat when they can (prop up "out of service" signs at 8:30AM so they can service "caller adds $50" calls), bully like US banks (making police stop discounted taxis from HKIA). If I had a choice, I'd be taking KMB and MTR most of the time.

After last night's experience, I'll do Autotaxi every night, but with the Visa option only. Hopefully that'll make the taxi cos realise there's an advantage to having their drivers "live on the grid" to attract company overtime traffic like ours. And the Octopus-enabled co too.

Otherwise they're just another black market taxi co.

percysmith

You have to do 20 transactions a month to max out the offer right? According to the worked example http://www.standardchartered.com.hk/...tinum-card/en/ spending on 1/5 2/5 and 3/5 only earns you 500 extra bonus points not 1,000 bouns points?

So it's 10 pairs of transactions.

For each pair of transactions I get 500 points. That's 33 miles or roughly $3.30 dollars (using my $0.102/mile nominal value)

Last time for the Fastpay promotion I was earning $15 for every Wellcome visit...

I just find this promotion gimmicky and not worth my time. YMMV

jg86

I wouldn't be surprised if taxi drivers are quite keen to get the visa customers when they realise that on average they will most likely be spending more.

jg86

But there are so many things you want to buy everyday, it's not hard to make an extra transaction.

put it this way if you were making a transaction for $6 today and $6 tomorrow, - which card will get you more than 33 asiamiles? (And you get to keep whatever you bought for $6 obviously, so buy something you want)

and btw in my case i use airmiles to upgrade hkg-lon flights (return trips) which is worth a lot more than $7,000. So to me an asiamile is worth more than $0.102 but obviously it's different for everyone.

percysmith

You might need to reconsider your valuation, unless you're a GO or DM:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...-status-2.html

(upgrades definitely linked to status: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...ability.html#8)

percysmith

I don't usually use a full-on EMV Visa card for a $6 transaction two days in a row.

To do transactions which I might do everyday, it'll be food. My average dinner on my own's about $120.

At $120 x 2:
Shacom Plat: 60 miles
SCB Plat: 49.33 miles

kaka

i dont find award tix availability that bad. if course you wont get anything during holiday times tho. but those same times sometimes you dont get anything below K fare too, if not higher.

The only gripe is DPS, Y hardly opens up.

percysmith

Depends on class. In late April, I found DPS availability for 4 seats on 27-31 Dec in J .

But J to Aus isn't released until a calendar month before departure date..."flexible" travel schedule required (my parents' is not).