gbs

Just got back from 4 days in Hong Kong. Thank you to everyone for all the information I got from this forum..it really helped plan my trip. I just wanted to let everyone know that we got an Octopus card and the airport, and were able to pay for it with a credit card. Our refund was given in cash, but at the information kiost, the do now accept credit cards.

rkkwan

Really? Hm, I wonder how are they going to stop the very cost-conscious Hong Kong citizens to rack up a lot of FF miles or rebates from various credit cards...

Xenos

rkkwan

I don't understand why they should care, so long as people are spending money on their Octopus cards??????

rkkwan

Octopus should care, because they need to pay a fee for credit card transaction. You may say it's cheaper to do it electronically than handling cash, but the problem is that locals will run up a lot of credit card purchases of Octopus credits, just to turn around (probably after 3 months to avoid the HK$7 fee) and get cash out of the cards. So, Octopus still need to handle cash, one way or another.

The credit card companies also care. It's the same kind of loophole with the Wal-Mart shopping card last year. After many FF get tens of thousands of FF miles by purchasing Wal-Mart gift cards, just to get cash out; the credit card companies have to cramp down on such purchase, and don't give FF miles, or rebates, or bonus.

Xenos

But I thought there was a non-refundable deposit of $50 on Octopus cards and the maximum stored value was $1000. You would need to be getting exceptionally good rewards from your credit card company to make it worthwhile losing 5% of your initial outlay every time you cashed one in.

Xenos

Sorry, I just looked up the Octopus site and I see the $50 deposit IS refundable when you cash in the card, so it would make it very worthwhile indeed. Good scam!

I understand that they are about to launch a similar card in London. Wonder if that will work the same way.

rkkwan

Yes, the $50 has always been refundable. And from last year, they start charging a $7 fee for returning card within 30 days of issue, because they're seeing too many cards in circulation and too many people getting and refunding cards all the time. [Can't remember the exact number, but I think they've had like 15 million cards in circulation, while the whole population of HK is just 7mil.]

That's why I wonder why they will let people use credit card to get the Octopus. That's going to expand the number of cards in circulation, not reducing it.

There are special personalized or memobiia cards that cost $70 and are non-refundable. There are also systems to link a personal Octopus to a local credit card account - but I don't know the detail how that work with rebates/FF miles cards.