It wasn't, since the airline decided it wanted to be the final arbiter and not even give OP the chance.

In transit means you’re not leaving the air side of the airport.

Nope, the British government website specifically says the exception applies even if you click the "I will pass through immigration control before I leave the UK" part of their "do I need a visa" wizard, which you'd know if you clicked the link I provided in the other one you replied to.

but it actually means ‘airside of the airport no need to go through passport control’ in air travel terms.

Also, if this was actually the case, then for example China wouldn't be able to call its 6-day TWOV scheme that allows people to visit the cities they transit, well, TWOV. The T stands for Transit. As long as you have a ticket entering and a ticket departing to a different place, it's transit.

But without NTA guidance it's not possible to be definitive.

Now I'm curious why there hasn't been any guidance from them. Surely there've been a few audits where this has become an issue... right?

I can't help but think that maybe this should be slowed down for overseas postings so that there's time for these lessons to be passed down.

Do you think everyone did well in tests in their grade?

I think they do well enough to pass, or they get held back.

You are much slower and worse at math than us,

Am I? My last career involved a lot of statistics, and I wouldn't have gotten it if I was.

If you have ever taken a second language course in a non-alphabetic country, you will know that our language is a completely different language.

I spent 4 years of secondary school and two years of university in China. I learned Chinese. By the time I returned to the US to finish my university degree I was able to communicate in that language to almost the level you're writing, without a translator. I had to, half of my first two years of university courses (EDIT: while I was still in China) were in Chinese.

Even if you go through all of the standard graduated tests it's not difficult nor comprehensive

In my state back home, the road test to get a full license consisted of maybe 5 blocks of driving, two of which were on the town's "busiest" street, and parallel parking. That is "hilariously lax".

It's just that we Japanese people can't access English websites and information.

We have to use translators because we can't speak English.

Even though English is a mandatory part of school starting in 3rd grade?

Yeah, they announced this with like 1-2 months' notice. From the way the announcement is worded, if you already have one you can keep using it, but no word about what happens when your current card expires, and new accounts will have to go Olive for Visa debit.

That’s incorrect a standard SMBC account comes with a visa debit card if you request it.

They haven't for a few months now.

誠に勝手ながら2023年11月22日（水）より、SMBCポイントパック、SMBCデビット、三井住友カードの一部券種(※)の新規お申込受付を停止させていただきます。

新規受付停止する商品・サービス

SMBCデビット

Fun fact: they specifically cite the introduction of Olive as one reason they discontinued regular debit cards.

Some of these stereotypes are hard to avoid, for sure. Although some of them may be coming from a different perspective that doesn't work for looking at Japan. For example, I'm looking at everyone talking about how you'll "never be seen as Japanese" and I'm thinking- between my friends, my auntie who married a local, settled down, had a kid, and naturalized, and the families of some of the kids I work with as an ALT, it seems so alien. Did they have some difficulties that a purely Japanese family wouldn't? Sure. But the way some of these people talk you'd think these people should be ostracized, and they're really not. In that case, I think "seen as Japanese" isn't the right angle- are these people seen as locals, members of the community, treated like the others? They are, for the most part, and that should be enough.

and convenience store clerks and cleaners are part of that team, and treated with respect for their hard work.

Now if only they were paid commensurate to some of the crap they have to put up with... 1000-1200 yen an hour isn't much these days.

according to politicians it will be a disaster if our population doesn't grow by well over 1% every year

It wasn't just the politicians, I remember back before the pandemic a common comeback to people complaining about expensive telecom services was "Canada's population is too small, the carriers don't have the economies of scale necessary to offer phone or internet service for cheaper".

And to explain why some people still go for the standard account despite the disadvantages: the standard account allows for a paper bankbook, Olive does not (you can grab your transaction records online instead). Older people still like having a paper record of their transactions.

I live in Japan and use e-cash, cards etc every day.

If you take out the e-cash (since you can't sign up for PayPay and the like without a Japanese phone number, which most visitors won't have) and places that only take Japanese contactless (QuicPay, iD, etc), then I'd say it's 70/30 in terms of cash vs card. You can go cashless, but you'll have to forego some things.

Although there's also a number of people who want to but can't because that isn't where the jobs are.

Wait, Olive is a third variety of SMBC? Or is it what a standard SMBC account is?

From the very top level:

There's SMBC Trust Bank and SMBC Bank. The first is Prestia. The second has the standard and Olive accounts.

SMBC Bank's two main account types now are standard and Olive. There's basically no reason to go for the standard account over Olive; you don't get a debit card, you get charged out-of-hours fees to use the ATM at night or on weekends, and you get charged for every bank transfer.

Olive is the only account type that gets you a debit card, comes with three free domestic transfers a month, and you can use both SMBC and MUFG ATMs for free 24/7.

The crazy part about Dr Disrespect is how many people still want to believe he didn't do anything wrong, and the lengths to which they'll perform mental gymnastics to justify it.

Oh yeah, zero.

That doesn't sound like zero...

The point is about having an English language site, so that does come into it.

Higher per capita income doesn’t at all indicate any portion of that is spent on a specific niche site focused on russia.

It indicates there's more money to spend, especially given some of those niches are niches that people are willing to spend a lot on (have you seen how much furry artists and YouTubers make?)

But this back and forth has gone on for long enough.

BTW, Line Pay is ending in a few months.

Yucho makes it a separate application that people do get denied for, and there have been stories floating around of MUFG branch staff denying people who don't speak Japanese fluently if they're having a bad day, which is where I think that came from.

Ok, let’s assume that half that ‘other’ traffic is from other english-speaking countries.

Or other countries that teach English as a second language, them too. Far more countries teach it than Russian in school, that's for sure.

Maybe a disproportionate amount of payments come from these countries, as you say, but as far as I can see that’s a wild guess with no evidence

Not very wild, considering the rather large and given current conditions, widening difference in per-capita income.

Fun fact: there are countries other than the US. Many speak English.

Others

18.53%

As for currency, traffic volume and payment volume are two different things. Neither of your sources cover the amounts that Americans (as well as other foreigners outside the Russian sphere of influence) are sending to creators on Boosty.

I'm not lying, those are both true. But then again, given that comment history, I'm not going to get dragged into a back and forth like that.