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Price discrimation is a technical economics term used to describe how a monopolist can get as much money as possible out of people, so that everyone pays the maximum they are willing to pay.

Consider a university with “financial aid”. They get everyone to grant them access to bank accounts, tax returns etc. and then set tuition at the maximum they think the family can afford, “giving away” thousands of dollars to try and encourage those who could not otherwise afford the list price to come to choose their college.

Devon was on a business trip. Her employer will be paying for the tickets anyway.

I have noticed this too, in that a lot of friends from the US seem to shy away from buying oyster cards and get old paper tickets (and rip themselves off). Whereas friends from Europe, where many city transit systems have RFID systems, automatically recognise oyster cards as the defacto.

Also have noticed that a lot of North-American tourists, when they do get a card, don't realise that they have paid a £5 deposit on the card and discard them at the end of their trip.

I can't confirm this for tourists from other placed who's language I don't speak.

To avoid flattened visitors, there's even the consideration of "Look Left" crosswalk warnings: http://4everstatic.com/pictures/850xX/other/-look-left,-zebr...

I'm guessing this is on a one way road? With traffic driving on the left you'd normally want to look right to check you're not stepping into oncoming traffic (although you should probably check both ways on a normal zebra crossing as you'll be crossing traffic in both directions).

No, the warning can be seen on plenty of two way roads.

Huh, today I learnt.

I was curious so I looked at the identifiable image[1] in the article in google maps[2] and it seems that only some of the crossings have these notes - notably the one way street crossing has look left/right on the respective sides of the road and the crossing with the island has them on both lanes, but the crossing over the two way street has nothing. I can't say I've ever actually noticed these (which may be because they're less common outside London or because I just don't pay close enough attention to the floor at my feet when walking).

[1] https://cdn-images.postach.io/0bd25fcc-8ab1-40fe-8eef-bcafaa... [2] https://goo.gl/maps/LB8rj7FJNLw

Reminds me of two old Viz letters: "When crossing a one-way street, you only have to look in one direction before crossing."

"When crossing a one-way street, always look in both directions in case there is a furniture van backing up."

When I first went to London I bought an oyster card, it was 5 pounds iirc and the lady who sold it told me I could just give it back at the end of my trip and get that 5 pounds back. It's a small extra task to get it and figure it out, but with the tube being as ubiquitous as it is, it's worth investing a bit of time in. It's not like the tickets / ticket machines are any easier.

Also his existing card probably has contactless payments, so he could have just tapped his card.

Some, especially American, credit cards might add an extra currency conversion fee for each purchase abroad?

Sure but they'd do that whether you used contactless or not.

Contactless doesn't seem to be reliable internationally, as I discovered with a UK card in Norway.