1. Many of the dairies and other shops around Wellington that sell bus tickets do not sell Snapper cards (yet). This includes the Card and Mag shop on LQ, Kirby's, and the StarMart on the Terrace. I ended up buying mine from the City Stop on the Terrace, which was a hike away and also hugely irritating as I had visited all the other merchants in the same half-hour lunchbreak.
Presumably
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tofulope bought hers at the dairy at the Railway Station. This means that of the 6-8 places which sell 10-trips within a 2 block radius of my work, TWO sell Snappers. This is NOT COOL.2. You can't top your Snapper up with your credit card unless you buy a Snapper Feeder to do it at home. This costs $25 plus 2%.
3. All the cutesy references to "your Snapper swimming out of money" are making me want to STAB. STABBITY STAB STAB.
4. While I think most buses have Snappers now, not all do. I still have a few clips left on my 10-trip, but if I am caught out more than those few times I will have to buy another 10-trip this fortnight, despite the $55 I have spent on transport ALREADY — because, despite having purchased something which CLAIMS to be THE WAY OF THE FUTURE and WHAT ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING, there is no guarantee that my little red card is an acceptable form of money on the transport I use EVERY DAY.
WAY TO PLAN FOR YOUR THOUSANDS OF BUS COMMUTERS, WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL. YEAH. NICE GOING.
* New ticketing system for Wellington City buses - introduced late July, no sales of current 10-trip system from late August, completely compulsory (except for cash fares) from late December. See Snapper.co.nz for more details.
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Comments
For one, it's completely unexchangeable with most of the other transport companies around the city. There's a 25% discount off the cash fare per ride, but you get charged for each trip you make.
The transaction fees are thusly: 25c for every top up in a shop (cash or eftpos only), or you can buy a Snapper Feeder for your computer (25%) and top up from your credit card, for 2% per transaction.
They're just putting the fares up as well, so I think I'm going to be paying in the order of $24/week for transport to and from work, plus whatever miscellaneous journeys I go on during the week.
The lack of interchangeability from company to company has always IMO been a huge pain in Wellington - can't get on an Eastbourne bus from Bordeaux to Courtenay Pl. because, hey, they won't take your 2-section tentrip! ridiculous. However, it's not actually a change there, so.
Transaction fees are shocking though! Really! (Although 25c is going to be a lot cheaper than 2% if you're adding on any significant amount of money...) (And an addendum that even if it says only cash or eftpos for shop top-ups, I'm willing to bet that some shops will do it credit card too - SMs have long accepted credit for bus tickets even though this is a theoretical no-no.)
Siiiiiigh.
It's a comfort knowing that SMs might accept my credit card - I mean, usually I can arrange to have money on EFTPOS rather than CC but it's nice knowing that I might be able to use my CC to top up my Snapper if I suddenly needed to go somewhere towards the end of the fortnight and had no money on it.
My bus on Friday night didn't have Snapper yet - and this is a regular bus route at 6pm on a weeknight, so. Maybe I will have to buy another 10-trip this fortnight after all (I have 4 clips left). *still all cranky*
Yeah, the Eastbourne thing is a right pain, and given that so many people in Wellington commute from the Hutt or Porirua-way, I srsly do not understand why they haven't figured out some kind of regional system out yet. Blah.
Hey, I still have a 2-zone and a 3-zone barely used from last summer, so I'm pretty annoyed myself. ;) Can't promise anything re:star marts - it really depends on how the system works - but there's a good chance, anyway.
Because of the fiddlyness of AKL geography, only integrated ticketing will make it convenient to use multiple trips in one journey, and thus persuade snobbish JAFAs to get out of their cars in a serious way.
I shall now sit here and be smug about living somewhere that has a good system (despite the occasional failure of the signs telling you how far away the buses are). And they keep working on public transport improvements too...
for example if you go one zone and forget to tag off on a bus that spans 3 zones you get charged $4 for the fare
a load a shit if you ask me snapper you suck