Oyster Card - weird

dzug1

Thomask wrote: »

Thanks for your contributions everyone.

Anyone managed to solve my OP?

Post #5 gave you your answer

millie

I live in Birmingham but my son now lives in London so I will be travelling there quite regularly so I have an Oyster card which I registered online. I purchased credit online last week. I had to choose a station that it would activate at when touched on the reader. I chose Euston because the NR train that I use arrives there. The auto top up did not work and I had to pay for a top up at the ticket office. Since I have been home I have checked my journey history on the online web site and there is a choice of readers I could hve used at Euston, I chose Euston NR thinking that was the correct one National Rail. I apparently went through the one called Euston LUL thats why it did not work. Does anyone know how I get my money back for this failed top up? Of course I will know better next time

dzug1

millie wrote: »

Does anyone know how I get my money back for this failed top up? Of course I will know better next time

I believe it's automatically refunded if not picked up by a week after purchase.

Thomask

isasmurf wrote: »

It's very relevant.

To work out what's happened here, you need to go backwards.

Your evening journey from Uxbridge - Kings Cross PAYG cost £3.5
Your bus journey cost 90p
Total so far £4.40
Check against Z1-6 travelcard (with YP Railcard discount) cap £4.20
You've paid more then the cap so your Oyster is now capped at an Off-Peak Z1-6 travelcard fare.

Add on the peak morning fare of £3.50 to your off-peak cap of £4.20

Total £7.70

My first journey was taken early in the morning, meaning I'd 'broken' the opportunity for my Oyster Card to cap at an offpeak rate for that entire day, correct?

dzug1

Thomask wrote: »

My first journey was taken early in the morning, meaning I'd 'broken' the opportunity for my Oyster Card to cap at an offpeak rate for that entire day, correct?

Yes - it was cheaper to charge you an off-peak cap and add on the single peaktime journey than to charge the peak cap. At least that's how I read it.

Thomask

dzug1 wrote: »

Yes - it was cheaper to charge you an off-peak cap and add on the single peaktime journey than to charge the peak cap. At least that's how I read it.

As great as that is, doesn't it defeat the purpose of having 2 different caps?
ie. If you can hold off from taking your first journey before 10am TFL will reward you by charging a lower capped price for the day

Otherwise when would the PEAK cap be applied? The system has given me a single journey cost plus the cost of an off peak cap - both totalling less than the peak cap!

Thomask

Buuuuuuuump

gner_ex

Thomask wrote: »

Hi

Can anyone explain the following:

I have an Adult Oyster card with a Young Person's railcard loaded against it (no relevance as journey was not started in off peak but strange scenario so thought I'd mention it).

I took a trip today during peak time (about 9:05am) from Angel (zone 1) to Uxbridge (zone 6). It was correctly charged at £3.50. I then took a bus about lunchtime and was charged 90p, again correct. At about 4.45pm today I took a trip from Uxbridge to Kings Cross and was only charged £3.30 and the Oyster card then capped! Great for me, just bizzare. So it's capped at £7.70. The only mention anywhere in the TFL booklet of a '£7.70' price is the daily cap for zones 1 - 9 (not 1 - 6) when started in OFF peak time!

Any thoughts?

Remember peak and off-peak are defined differently on Oyster PAYG compared to travelcards.

gner_ex

DoctorOcta wrote: »

4. National Rail went private in the 80s. At the time it was agreed that ALL tickets that were shared with the public transport system would be retained so that the paying public would not have any issues. This is why if you have a season ticket on an Oyster card, you can use ALL NR in London.

5. Pay as you go (payg for simplicities sake!) was introduced in 2003. NR decided NOT to be part of the scheme and to continue charging the prices they wanted to charge. There was nothing that could be done for the customer, cos as they are private companies, they can do as they wish.

6. There are SOME routes that do allow payg – the most common at the moment being the London Overground (orange lines).

7. Extensive discussions between the NR companies and the Mayor’s office have meant that from Jan 2009, 99% of all routes will accept payg.
<SNIP>
18. If the bus reader DOESN’T work then the driver needs to let you on. If he charges you then call Bus Customer Services and they can sort him out. Same thing with inspectors – they have to prove you DON’T have a ticket – you don’t have to prove that you DO.

19. If you want to go out of your Goldcard Zones – you need to see where you are travelling. Is it a payg friendly route? Is it NR? Do they accept payg? If they DO accept payg then all you need to do is top up with a few quid to make the journey (when you touch out you will be charge bout £1 for an extension – varies depending on Zone). If they DON’T then you need to buy a paper ticket from the relevant NR company. (see points 4-7 for reasons)

Anything else Oystery? this should be made into a pamphlet!

Octa, in the nicest possible way, parts of the bits I have highlighted are complete rubbish.

National Rail is a brand, NOT an operator. All the TOCs (train operating companies) are part of ATOC, Association of Train Operating Companies. Whilst the TOCs are private companies, they are franchises, and as such have to abide by ATOC's ticketing policies. If there was a political decision that all London tickets could be purchased by buttons, the TOCs would have to abide by it.

In actual fact, the reason that (initially) TOCs didn't join Oyster was BECAUSE they had to charge the fairest prices for the customer. Fare increases are strictly regulated, and they couldn't (for example) just adopt the Oyster fares willy nilly. This changed in January 2007, with the creation of London Zonal Fares on National Rail - note the prices on this link are out of date now.

The initial National Rail lines that accept Oyster PAYG were in fact the lines where a fare is shared with London Underground, example Finsbury Park to Kings Cross. As you say, with the Silverlink Metro franchise passing to LOROL (London Overground Rail Operations Ltd) a decision was made that all stations would accept Oyster, and around the same time, Oyster PAYG was offered on the C2C franchise (lines out of Fenchurch Street to south essex) and various other infill sections (for example, the whole of West Hampstead Thameslink to Elephant & Castle on the FCC Thameslink network.

The original reason for the delay is that ATOC etc are working on a much better smartcard design, using ITSO technology, which is a level above Oyster, and it was intended that this would be done instead of Oyster (and then the London Underground oyster system upgraded to match).

Buses... that is dangerous advice. If the drivers reader seems not to work, you should wait to be told what to do by him (which may be to sit down, or to be given a (free) paper ticket. Buses in London (and tubes/trains nationwide) are able to issue penalty fares (forget the money saving expert stuff about a penalty being unenforceable; this is a specific piece of legislation) so do be very careful when sitting on a bus without any proof whatsoever that you are entitled to be there.

Point 19 - not quite right. This was toughened up last year. If you are travelling beyond your zones, you must ensure that you touch in and touch out at a PAYG compatible station. Lets say you have a Z1-3 travelcard on Oyster, and you travel from Alexandra Palace to Morden. You don't need to touch in at Alexandra Palace (and indeed, cannot), and could then change cross-platform at Highbury, and again cross-platform at Stockwell. If you then touch out at Morden, you will be charged a penalty.

What you would need to do at this station is ensure that you touch in AND touch out at places that accept Oyster PAYG. You could for example go out then in again at any of the stations within the zones you have (if you went via Kings Cross for example, you would touch when walking out of the Kings Cross suburban station, then touch-in again to go into Kings Cross St Panc underground station. In actual fact, the Victoria Line platforms at Highbury have oyster readers, for this very situation.

What you can NOT do is enter the system by touching in at a NONE osyter PAYG station (Ilford is a good example of this), then touching out at a station beyond your zones.

Also re extension tickets, ensure you as for "Boundary Zone 4" to Reading (or whatever zone and destination, as these are often cheaper).

Finally, anyone who wants to avoid Ken Livingstone's surveillence society will be pleased to hear that you can still buy paper daily/weekly/yearly travelcards for the various zones, at any National Rail ticket office, and it is the same price as an Oyster travelcard.

Thomask

Buuuuuuuump