Tfl joining two journeys 25 October 2022 at 6:01AM in Public transport & cycling 8 replies 173 views

MrChips

Hi.

I recently travelled with my family to Gatwick airport using Thameslink from Finsbury Park.  We caught a train at 19.22 which is outside peak time and used contactless for the fare.

To get to Finsbury Park, we caught the tube from a station about six stops away on the Piccadilly line in zone 5.  We touched in to that station at about 18.45.

I can see from my card history we touched out at Finsbury Park at about 19.10 on the way to the national rail platforms.

Tfl have joined these two journeys together to make one long peak time journey, rather than a short peak followed by a longer off-peak journey.  I can understand that in general it is probably cheaper when two journeys are linked into one overall fare, but it definitely isn't in this case and between us it's cost around £30 extra.

Is this something we can get corrected if we get in touch with them?  If we'd used two different contactless cards we'd have been charged correctly so seems perverse if they charge us more just for using the same card.

KeithP

MrChips said:

Is this something we can get corrected if we get in touch with them?

Worth a phone call to find out, isn't it?

MrChips

Agreed - but I'm overseas at the moment so was just seeing if anyone more knowledgeable than me can confirm if I'm likely to be successful pending my return.

onashoestring

Does your card history also show you touching out at Gatwick ? 

MrChips

Hi, yes it does.

It shows:
Touch in at start point (Oakwood) at 1848
Touch at Finsbury Park at 1916
Touch out at Gatwick at 2017

spenderdave

Did you touch out and then touch in at Finsbury Park|?
There are various ways of contacting TFL online at https://tfl.gov.uk/help-and-contact/ - probably easiest is via the reclaim for an incorrect maximum fare even though it is not that in this case. When I have used this in the past it did take two or three days for them to respond but it was sorted very quickly then.

martindow

It seems likely that you might have the same issue when you return. 

Finsbury Park's layout means that you can change from mainline trians to the tube without passing through a gateline and there are just Oyster readers within the station which is presumably what the OP used.  I was going to suggest using different cards for the tube and Thameslink, but maybe that would only work if you left the station and then reentered with the second card which is not ideal.  Touching in and out with readers inside the station might generate incomplete journeys.  Something to ask TfL.

saajan_12

I've had multiple separate journeys including stations with OSIs which the system linked together and then decided I exceeded the max time. I contacted Oyster and they revised the fare based on them being separate journeys without issue. I now only contact via the website and they tend to email or phone back - much quicker than waiting through long call wait times. 

MrChips

Thanks for all the input.  I'll message TFL and report back.

Route home took us into Stansted instead of Gatwick, so no issues there (well not relating to TFL anyway - flight was 3 hours late and then a 1.5 hour queue through passport control so we had to get a taxi as the last train had left).