Oyster top-up

[Joannef]

I used to have auto top-up on my Oyster but I cancelled it when I was made redundant.

I have a small balance on my card and have just topped up online with £5.00 so I have enough to make a couple of tube journeys today. Can anyone tell me how quickly this £5.00 will be added to my balance - will it be as soon as I go through the ticket barriers? Oyster says the balance will be available from tomorrow, which isn't much help as I need to use it today! I thought it always used to do it as soon as you go through the barriers but maybe I am wrong.

Thanks.

[Tinuel]

Hi Joannef,

Usually it is as soon as you go through, never happened to me having to wait until the following day.
Try getting to the Tube station and test it, I am pretty sure you Oyster is fully loaded now.

[nomoneytoday]

AFAIK it's instant. The other alternate is to topup at a local newsagent or tube station :)

[Joannef]

Thanks for the replies.

[hansi]

I topped up at a newsagent a couple of hours ago and it hasn't shown on my balance yet. Should it go through overnight?

[Joannef]

When I topped up online last week it didn't go through until the next afternoon! Instead as I needed to use my Oyster, I had to top up using one of the machines in the tube station.

[hansi]

I thinks it's different if you top up online. I think you have to nominate a station where you have to put your card on a reader and it updates. May that's what will happen to mine too, topped up at a newsagent.

[surreysaver]

If you do it online, it has to upload during the night to the machines at the tube station.