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Why MTR, Why?

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  1. #1

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    Why MTR, Why?

    So traveling about with my young daughter when I realize I left her octopus card at home. I also had no cash on me.

    So I go to the customer service counter and try to purchase my daughter a one way ticket from Hung Hom to Tai Po and pay for it using my Octopus Card. No Go...the only way to purchase a train ticket is with cash

    So I guess you can use an Octopus card to buy almost anything in this city except a train pass?

    Why? They obviously have card readers at the customer service counter.


    On a separate note I did notice a sign indicating a monthly train pass for the East rail line....I think it was $420. Never knew that existed.


  2. #2

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    Octopus sucks. Hate it...


  3. #3

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    You're not very organised.

    chris_yang22, Mat and poundcake like this.

  4. #4

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    1) Does anyone know what the discount rate on an Octopus is? How much of the transaction does the merchant pay to be able to accept Octopus? I'm referring to merchants like 7-11, local bread shop etc

    2) Has anyone tried to get a a cash advance using an Octopus? I regularly carry $500+ on my card. I can foresee one day being desperate for some cash; I wonder if I could go to 7-11 or a mom and pop store to take out $250 out of my card. (Ofcourse I would be glad to cover the expenses associated with the transaction)


  5. #5

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    why could you go to heng seng or hsbc atm or bank of china/standard chartered/bea atm and get some cash, surely that isn't hard to do in the main concourse as hung hom has possibly the most number of atms in the entire mtr

    octopus cash system is one of the best smart cashless system in the world, where in the world can you use a single card can you pay a parking meter/car parks ( could be bad if you have no credit though), accepted in 90% of shops for small purchases, catch almost all forms of transport, photo booths, vending machines

    what do you mean by a train pass? are u referring to an regional mainland train as all mtr lines apart from shenzen mtr accepts octopus ( they have a shenzen tong card and you can get a twin shenzhen tong and hk octopus in a single card but they are both different accounts/system, not interchangable) ? btw, tung chung and west line also have monthly rail passes

    oyster in london is example on how bad a cashless system can be implemented.


  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by INXS:
    Octopus sucks. Hate it...
    octopus sucks where your exiting a car park with 3 or 4 cars behind you then you try to DOOT and instead it goes BEEEEP (insuffient money), even though it has 50$ deposit in it as well, thats when I hate octopus, other than that I love it.
    Last edited by wtbhotia; 13-05-2013 at 02:38 PM.
    INXS likes this.

  7. #7

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    You could have returned the octopus and bought two tickets from the cash.


  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by closedcasket:
    So traveling about with my young daughter
    If it were me I would have just carried her and used my octopus to get on the train.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by imparanoic:
    why could you go to heng seng or hsbc atm or bank of china/standard chartered/bea atm and get some cash, surely that isn't hard to do in the main concourse as hung hom has possibly the most number of atms in the entire mtr

    octopus cash system is one of the best smart cashless system in the world, where in the world can you use a single card can you pay a parking meter/car parks ( could be bad if you have no credit though), accepted in 90% of shops for small purchases, catch almost all forms of transport, photo booths, vending machines

    what do you mean by a train pass? are u referring to an regional mainland train as all mtr lines apart from shenzen mtr accepts octopus ( they have a shenzen tong card and you can get a twin shenzhen tong and hk octopus in a single card but they are both different accounts/system, not interchangable) ? btw, tung chung and west line also have monthly rail passes

    oyster in london is example on how bad a cashless system can be implemented.

    That's what I did...I went to an ATM....but I would have preferred not to have withdrawn money just to buy a $2 dollar train ticket....

    Yes, octopus is very good...just don't understand why you can't use money on a octopus card to buy a train ticket?? Seems strange.

  10. #10

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    Octopus card is great. If you complain about it, you probably have never tried to to use other payment methods on public transit in other cities.


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