Does railsmartr.co.uk support google wallet for e-tickets?

[bubieyehyeh]

Does anyone know if railsmartr.co.uk supports google wallet for e-tickets?

There website says: "The eTicket comes in both a PDF and in a PKPASS format. You can use the PKPASS on iPhones and iPads."

I'm aware I could use PDF but as a android user my preference is to use google wallet for the e-tickets, but I don't know if it support PKPASS format.

 

[alistairlees]

According to Google’s own support pages Google wallet does not support pkpass

Save and use flight or event tickets - Google Wallet Help

You can store digital copies of airline tickets or event tickets with participating airlines and event ticket providers. Add a ticket to Google Wallet You can buy your ticket through any of the

support.google.com

 

[bubieyehyeh]

thanks.

 

[YorkC]

The Passes app on Android will import pkpass files if useful.

 

[Watershed]

The Passes app on Android will import pkpass files if useful.

There are several apps which will do this and will then allow you to add the pkpass to Google Wallet.

 

[JaJaWa]

Weird that Google Wallet hasn't added native support for Passbook files, it's meant to be an open format. Microsoft Wallet on Windows Phone (remember that!) had it.

 

[tornado]

i always found pkpass a bit clunky

suprisingly the Avanti app is one of the slickest for buying UK train tickets. I've set it up to use 1 touch of my fingerprint on my smartphone unlock button to pay using Google Pay, and 1 more click to send the tickets to google wallet. no more faffing around with credit card details every time.

i had a look around a few months ago and very few TOC apps have this magic approach of Google Pay + Google Wallet.

 

[Adam Williams]

Weird that Google Wallet hasn't added native support for Passbook files, it's meant to be an open format

Google would rather merchants used the Google Wallet API.

To be fair to them, it offers a vastly superior UX to what iOS has in the form of pkpass/pkpasses support. Problems you get with Apple's approach:

• Poor support for pass bundling in general - e.g. if you download a pkpasses archive to an iPhone you can't open it from the file browser, it literally only works in Safari
• Limited browser support on-device - e.g. Chrome on iOS won't support pkpasses files at all, and only supports individual pass files (useless for split ticketing)
• Limited support for customers booking on a desktop device/laptop and having the passes sync across to their phone (this only works if you book on a Mac)
• Entirely undocumented limits that you only run into during development - e.g. no more than 10 passes can be bundled together

Very half-baked feature in general. I'm normally on board with open standards, but not when they're just bad.

i had a look around a few months ago and very few TOC apps have this magic approach of Google Pay + Google Wallet.

Obviously not a TOC app, but TrainSplit should support both of these properly.

 

[penguin8967]

i had a look around a few months ago and very few TOC apps have this magic approach of Google Pay + Google Wallet.

The SWR app is pretty much identical to the Avanti one and also supports this (same app all First TOCs use).

 

[bcarmicle]

Very half-baked feature in general. I'm normally on board with open standards, but not when they're just bad.

Is that a problem with the pkpass standard itself, or with Apple’s implementation thereof? (I realize Apple own the standard and therefore because only iOS really supports, when you generate PKPASSes you have no choice but to work around iOS’s bugs, but still…)

 

[tornado]

In general, the best option is the one that involves the least clicks, and user interaction, to purchase a ticket. The beauty of google pay is that you can use a credit card without entering any digits, once fingerprint authentication is authorised.

it actually takes me less time on an Android phone to buy a ticket than a website these days.

 

[Adam Williams]

Is that a problem with the pkpass standard itself, or with Apple’s implementation thereof? (I realize Apple own the standard and therefore because only iOS really supports, when you generate PKPASSes you have no choice but to work around iOS’s bugs, but still…)

Bit of both really. Given the spec is file based you'll always have trouble getting it from a desktop device to a phone. Some of the limitations (e.g. the arbitrary 10-pass limit, the files not being openable by anything except Safari) are down to Apple's flawed implementation

 

[JaJaWa]

The Safari bit doesn’t sound right - most (/all) of the Passbook files I have are from the relevant booking apps or attached to emails, none of them had any issues loading.

 

[Adam Williams]

The Safari bit doesn’t sound right - most (/all) of the Passbook files I have are from the relevant booking apps or attached to emails, none of them had any issues loading.

It's correct for .pkpasses files. I strongly suspect you've been opening .pkpass files - which do work when loaded from emails/file manager/other apps.

 

[miklcct]

i always found pkpass a bit clunky

suprisingly the Avanti app is one of the slickest for buying UK train tickets. I've set it up to use 1 touch of my fingerprint on my smartphone unlock button to pay using Google Pay, and 1 more click to send the tickets to google wallet. no more faffing around with credit card details every time.

i had a look around a few months ago and very few TOC apps have this magic approach of Google Pay + Google Wallet.

I find it no difference replacing "Google Wallet" with "whatever wallet app on Android which supports .pkpass file".

As .pkpass is an open format I highly hope that retailers support it instead of some other proprietary APIs.

 

[tornado]

The visual display of tickets was rather ugly in the pkpass app I used.

Also Google Wallet flashes up your ticket on the notification screen a short while before you need to scan it at the gate. I guess a pkpass app could also do that if it actually read the times on the tickets, but mine didn't.

 

[miklcct]

Also Google Wallet flashes up your ticket on the notification screen a short while before you need to scan it at the gate. I guess a pkpass app could also do that if it actually read the times on the tickets, but mine didn't.

It also depends if the retailer has put in the time in the pkpass or not. I have noticed that my app shows notification for pkpass from some retailers but not the others.