Oyster and National Rail

My son stumbled across a little known oddity of making a same station exit last month.  He touched in at Crayford and after a few minutes was informed that the line was closed because of a fault.  He touched out and I drove him to nearby Slade Green where he touched in on the validators.  Further along the line his card was inspected by a Southeastern RPI and he was told it wasn’t validated.  Thankfully the RPI responded to my son’s protestations by scrolling back through the journey history and he noticed the Crayford to Slade Green journey.  He decided to let my son carry on, and on touch out at London Bridge an incomplete journey was recorded.  I called TfL the next day and they refunded the overcharge.

What actually happened was a mystery to the customer service staff at TfL, Read the rest of this entry »

The Fares Guide section now has pages for the 2020 fares and the fare finder is also showing the updated fares. Other pages will be updated where necessary over the next day or so.

News has leaked out that TfL are to change the Oyster card deposit at some point in the new year.  The date hasn’t been agreed yet, but it is NOT linked to the new fares.

When this change takes place the £5 refundable deposit will be replaced with a £5 fee.  This is to encourage use of contactless payments for short or infrequent visits to London.  The good news is Read the rest of this entry »

At 2pm this afternoon TfL locked everyone out of their online accounts pending a password reset.  All you need to do is click on the forgotten password link and enter your registered email address.  If that address exists on the system you’ll be sent a link to enable you to set a new password.  Once done everything will work again.  While locked out, all Oyster cards and contactless cards will still work for travel, and topups can be made at stations and ticket stop shops.

The beginning of this story dates back to August when a number of TfL accounts were accessed maliciously using a list of email addresses and passwords stolen from other companies.  Where people have re-used the same password on multiple sites the hackers were able to get in.  TfL spotted something was up because there were suddenly a large number of invalid logins using email addresses that didn’t exist on their system.  The online system was taken down immediately, limiting the success of the attack, Read the rest of this entry »

The final PAYG extension for the year, covering Welham Green, Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City went live on Tuesday.  As with Luton Airport Parkway, only contactless payment cards and devices are accepted, not Oyster cards of any variety.  The full range of paper tickets are also still available and may well work out cheaper at times, especially at weekends.  At this time there is also no capping, so if travelling a lot in London you could well be better off with a normal travelcard.

I’ve now had confirmation from TfL that the payment changes to auto topup have been postponed until next year.  So all that’s currently happened is the raising of the threshold to £20.  I’d still recommend always ensuring that you have plenty of funds available on the linked bank card and make sure the emails from TfL don’t go into a spam folder.

In amongst all the election stuff and other sensational news stories, the Mayor released his decision on fares for next year.  It’s pretty much as expected – bus, tube, dlr, most London Overground, most TfL Rail and National Rail inter-available single fares all frozen for the 4th year.  Other National Rail fares and caps/travelcards all rise in line with DfT advice to the TOCs which is an average of 2.8% this year.

Arrangements for the TfL Rail extension to Reading are confirmed with Freedom Passes, Veterans Oyster cards and under 11s free travel commencing on December 15th, but only on TfL Rail services.  The contactless only fares for stations beyond West Drayton to Reading will start on January 2nd and will be valid on both TfL-Rail and GWR services.  Buried in the small print in the annexes is the news that daily and weekly capping will be supported.  Hopefully that also means that capping will be extended to the contactless only sections of GTR services.

Anyone using auto topup on an Oyster (or zip) card will have received an email yesterday.  The key points are:

From Sunday 17 November 2019, the Auto Top-up threshold will change to £20. From this date, your Oyster card will be topped up with your chosen value when your balance falls below £20.

You will also see Auto Top-up charges more quickly in your bank account. If we are unable to collect payment for your Auto Top-up, your Oyster card will be stopped.

I have seen some comments already on other forums expressing disgust which I must say surprise me somewhat.  My first reaction is great, or why has it taken so long.  At a stroke it will solve the issues with auto topup at Gatwick Airport and Victoria platforms 13/14.  There might still be problems at Paddington HEx platforms but they will be reduced and TfL probably thought increasing the threshold to £25 was a step too far.

The second paragraph appears to be somewhat draconian, but it is in fact similar to the current procedures.  At present the auto topup amount is requested as part of an overnight process the day after the credit was applied to your Oyster card.  Back in the day many details of touches were only transferred to the central system overnight, but that has long since been superceded by transmission within 30 minutes.  Again, it’s perhaps surprising that TfL have taken this long to update the auto topup process.  Remember that the credit is applied to the Oyster card and can be used immediately, meaning that TfL take a revenue risk.  By claiming the funds quicker they reduce the risk.

The big change is that TfL will no longer send an email if a collection fails offering you the chance to correct the issue within a few days.  This is a shame, but is almost certainly due to increasing misuse of the system by fare evaders.  You won’t actually lose the upto £20 legitimately on the card, but you will have to liaise with the helpdesk to regularise the issue.  It should also be noted that you won’t be trapped in the system if your card is stopped as exit gates are programmed to allow exit on stopped cards.  The key is to always ensure that your account has enough money to cover your £20/£40 topup at any time.

Finally, if you aren’t happy with these changes you can always deactivate auto topup.  And if you pay full adult fares then using a contactless payment card/device is a better solution than auto topup anyway.

The press release from TfL outlining the extension of PAYG to Reading from Jan 2nd 2020 certainly raised a number of questions and talking points. I’m not going to cover discussion about zones and Oyster here, but rather concentrate on the cards which will and won’t be accepted. Nothing changes between London and West Drayton, so this list solely applies to people using stations between Iver and Reading inclusive, and only on TfL Rail services. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday saw the launch of contactless payment at St Albans City, Harpenden and Luton Airport Parkway on the Thameslink route. Note that it is not accepted at Luton or beyond. With contactless payment already accepted on the shuttle bus from Parkway to the Airport* it means that Luton becomes the 4th airport accessible from Central London using just a contactless payment card.

At the time of writing TfL still haven’t made the fares available either on their single fare finder or my fare finder (yellow button at the top of every page).

As with Brookmans Park, only contactless is available at these stations. No Oyster cards are valid at all. The full range of paper tickets are still available and will sometimes be cheaper, particularly at weekends when super off-peak tickets are valid. In the main single fares will be cheaper on contactless which is particularly useful for the airport. Remember that these out of London contactless extensions are for convenience first, rather than value.

The other important point to note is that there is currently no capping when making journeys that start or end at the three new stations. Depending on the other travel made within London a day travelcard may well work out cheaper.

*Although the shuttle bus accepts contactless payment cards, it does not accept American Express at all.