Journey history has improved beyond all recognition since the early days of the Oyster system. As long as your Oyster or zip card is registered to a TfL account you can view details of journeys and topups for the last eight weeks. This is available through the TfL website and also using the TfL Oyster app. More details for Oyster follow, but first an overview of the history for contactless.
Contactless Journey History (and how to query a journey)
Unlike Oyster, contactless journey history remains accessible for a year. This is because it provides the detail justifying debits on your bank or credit card account. There are two views available. One is Payment History which displays the journeys making up a particular debit. This won’t change if extra information arrives, like a late touch or a confirmation of a missed touch. Instead, the new information will make up a new entry for the day any adjustment was processed and sent to your bank. The other is Journey History which displays the journeys made during each day. This will change if late information becomes available. On both displays you have the ability to query a particular journey, though it’s not obvious at first. TfL have kindly provided some screenshots to explain how to do this.
The first screen shows the overview for the selected card. Note that identifying information has been hidden. You need to click the button highlighted in red. There is a button to contact TfL about the card, but this won’t pass the details of a specific journey.
Next you come through to the journey statement. Note the tabs to switch between payment and journey view. For any journey you can click on the detail line as shown in red below. Don’t click on the date heading as that just hides the individual journeys for that day.
This brings you through to more detail about the journey, including all touches (yellow and pink readers). Crucially underneath the detail is a button to bring up a form to contact TfL about that specific journey. Again it’s highlighted in red.
The form confirms the journey and gives you a text box to make any comments. You can use this to add information about a missing touch (if the normal form doesn’t work) or to explain why you think the charge is wrong. Most importantly, do NOT enter your payment card details in the box. TfL already have them if they are needed.
Oyster Journey History
Oyster journey history looks similar to the contactless views above, although there is only one view. When you select journey history from the overview you have a drop down menu to choose the period to display. The default is the last seven days, with options for the previous 8 weeks ending on a Sunday or a custom selection. The history is displayed below the drop down. As well as journeys you will also see topups and any refunds picked up. For rail journeys you can click on the ‘+’ sign to expand and show all touches that make up the journey. An example view is below, noting that the prices relate to a zip 16+ Oyster card.
Oyster statement sent by email
There is also a facility to have weekly or monthly Oyster statements sent automatically by email. Sadly this doesn’t exist for contactless. In the right hand menu select “Card preferences” and you can choose the frequency between weekly, monthly or never. You can also choose to receive CSV or PDF formats, or both.
Hi Mike,
Is there still an option to receive a Oyster print out at tube stations?
Thanks
Kim
Hi Kim,
Sadly not. I believe it can still be done at the National Rail stations which perform Oyster transactions in the ticket office.
My Oyster card always says “You have 0 incomplete journey(s) eligible for refund.”, even if I do have an incomplete journey.
Is this feature for Contactless only – and if so, why does it display that message in the Oyster card page?
Hi Adam,
No, it’s for Oyster. Not all incomplete journeys are eligible for a refund without contacting the helpdesk.
Can anyone tell me how soon my Oystercard journey history will appear? I used my card today but my outward journey failed to register the touch in and I was charged maximum fair.
Hi Veronica,
It will appear tomorrow morning. If you made identical outward and return journeys there is a chance that they may auto complete the missing touch and queue a refund automatically. Otherwise you can let them know tomorrow.
Hello Mike
Last Friday afternoon, I travelled using my Oyster PAYG (with a Gold Card added) from Orpington NR to Charing Cross NR, took a bus (the bus journey triggering the expected auto top up) and later the same day went on the Tube from South Kensington to Embankment and then immediately on to Charing Cross NR to return to Orpington NR. My online Oyster journey history is fine, showing all the expected touches and fares, but for the return journey my Oyster app journey history shows only the South Kensington, Embankment and Orpington touches (skipping the touch at Charing Cross NR) and shows a fare of £1.60 rather than the correct £3.70. The app shows a total daily spend of £5.80 and the online version shows the (correct) daily spend of £7.90 – the £2.10 discrepancy is the difference between the fare shown on the app and what I have been correctly charged. Bizarrely, my PAYG balance as shown online and in the app are both correct and reflect that the correct fare has been charged. Any idea why the two versions are out of step?
Hi Reg,
I’ve no idea. I’d be interested to know what the helpdesk say. Both Oyster online and the app should be accessing the same online database, as far as I know.
Hello again Mike
I reported the problem of the mismatch between journey histories to the helpdesk and their reply is set out below (it goes on a bit!). I didn’t to resort to the solution the helpdesk suggested – the app history magically updated itself over the last couple of days to bring it into line with the Oyster Online history, without me doing anything.
“Thank you for your web form submission of 24 June regarding the mismatching information between your Transport for London (TfL) account and the TfL App.
I apologise for any confusion and inconvenience resulting from these circumstances and appreciate you taking the time to bring them to our attention.
The TfL App is essentially an extension of your online TfL account, rather than a wholly independent system with a separate set of records. Under normal circumstances, once your online TfL account is updated to reflect the latest travel records, these are then pushed to the TfL App as well for you to have remote access.
On occasion, data may only partially be pushed to the TfL App resulting in the inconsistencies you’ve witnessed. This is usually automatically corrected by our system within a couple of days as soon as the next update is pushed through and the older data replaced.
As you’ve clearly seen directly though, the mismatching information does not necessarily mean that an overcharge/undercharge has in fact occurred.
Should this occur anew, it is recommended to fully sign out of the TfL App, restart your smartphone and then sign back in. This should trigger our App to retrieve the records once more overwriting any older one.
If for whatever reason your records are still not being displayed properly on, please respond to this email at your earliest convenience to advise us of this. It would also be of great help if you could provide the following information:
The make and model of smartphone you’re using
The operating system currently installed on it – including the version number (found under your smartphone’s settings)
The version of the TfL App you’re using
Screenshots (if possible) of your travel records as displayed on your smartphone
We’ll then proceed to investigate in more depth to determine why information is not being displayed consistently across the two sets of records”.
Hi Reg,
Thanks for the update, very interesting.
Hello Mike,
Here is a good one:
Last week I travelled from Queens Road Peckham (overground service) to Goldhawk Road vía Whitechapel (Hammersmith line) making sure I touched on the pink card reader when interchanging. I used my contactless card for this journey.
I travelled from zone 2 to zone 2 crossing zone 1 using TfL services, so I thought I would be charged £2.40/2.90 for this journey.
I have been charged £4.
If I search this journey on the fare finder I got the same fare of £4. But if for example, I try to finish my journey at the previous station which is in the same zone 2 (Shepherd’s Bush Market) I got the usual fare between zone1-2 which is £2.40/2.90.
How is this possible?
Thank you.
Hi Carmen,
I’d contact the helpdesk and ask them to explain. The £4 fare assumes you start by taking a Southern train to London Bridge. This incurs the mixed mode premium hence the high fare. They seem to think you wouldn’t go the long way round to Goldhawk Road.
Hi
I took a journey on 2nd July from London City Airport to Paddington and as I had plenty of time I took a very convoluted route. I used Apple Pay and went as follows:
– DLR to Bank
– Northern to Moorgate
– Circle to Farringdon
– Thameslink to Blackfriars
– Circle to Paddington
There are 2 things I don’t understand:
– Although I touched in and out everywhere, it shows as an automatically completed journey on my TFL account with the following comment:
o To offset any travel disruption you may have experienced, we’ve charged you the minimum fare for this journey. Normally this would have resulted in a higher fare being charged.
– The charge was £4:30. Should it not be £2:80?
My TFL account shows:
13:08 London City Airport (yellow reader)
13:45 Moorgate (yellow)
13:46 Moorgate (yellow)
13:58 Blackfriars (National Rail) (yellow)
14:00 Blackfriars (London Underground) (pink – although this was at the entrance to the tube and was actually yellow!)
14:30 Paddington (London Underground) (yellow)
Do you think this is correct or perhaps I just broke the system?!
Hi Mak,
I think you might have hit a problem with the temporary arrangements at Moorgate. It’s certainly had trouble working out what journey you were making. You’ve been charged as if you’d gone via Woolwich Arsenal. I think it might have tried to charge you two journeys, hence the comment about a higher fare. You could try contacting the helpdesk via the link at the bottom of the page listing all the touches.
Last Saturday (29th June) I tapped in at Chiswick & caught a train to Waterloo. Due to a trespasser on the track at Putney we were held at Barnes Bridge for 90 minutes. When I eventually tapped out at Waterloo I got 2 £5.60 penalty fares. My journey history shows the system is assuming I failed to tap out from my journey from Chiswick and then failed to tap in on a journey to Waterloo. Understandable given the times I tapped in and out, but my Oster account says I have no incomplete journeys eligible for refund so I can’t apply for a refund on-line & I only have a PAYG mobile so it would cost more than the penalty fare to call them. I won’t be at a tube station until next Thursday, so I assume I can get one of the tube staff to refund both penalties then? I did get a Delay Repay refund from SWT so that’s something.
Hi Geoff,
The tube staff may be able to process the refund, but I’m not 100% sure. The helpdesk is a standard rate number these days so it would take quite a while to rack up the value of two maximum charges minus the correct fare. Or could you borrow a phone with included minutes from someone?
Thanks, but the last time I called them cost me all my credit just whilst I was waiting for someone to answer. I’ll try at a tube station and see how it goes. Why does it not show that I have any eligible incomplete journeys when my journey history shows a journey that I didn’t tap out from & one I didn’t tap in for – as they see it.
Hi Geoff,
I don’t know, but I imagine it’s to do with the fact that with two incomplete journeys you may be looking at combining them into one, and that may have been defined as beyond the scope of the online form.
Hi Mike,
I intend to travel from New Malden to Central London on Thursday. As I need to make several stops on the way (Covent Garden, Waterloo, Clerkenwell, Liverpool Street, St Pancras to name a few), would the overall cost of my journey be capped at £10.10 irregardless of whether I use the train for the whole of my journey, or the bus for part of it.
Hi Irene,
Yes, buses count towards the daily cap.
A couple of weeks ago I used my Oyster card, touched in at Denmark Hill, out at Blackfriars to continue home on Thameslink with my paper ticket. At Blackfriars I checked the display as the exit barrier opened, it recorded the right fare and balance. But a couple of days later I got my Oyster journey history statement which showed an unresolved journey. It is very worrying that these displays don’t show the actual balance. My wife was doing the same journey, used a different barrier at Blackfriars, and it also showed the right balance but failed to contact the Oyster central database so she also had to claim for a refund. We had to this by phone because, for some reason, the online system did not allow us to use this facility.
There was obviously a fault in the barriers at Blackfriars. We have now got refunds, but TfL blame GTR for the problem and vice-versa. I shall refer this to London TravelWatch if I don’t get someone to explain the fault and take responsibility. From now on I shall check by Oyster balance every day that I use it, and recommend everyone else to do the same. It is a most untrustworthy system. The idea of using a bank card for contactless payment horrifies me.
Hi Clive,
Sorry to hear about your issues. From what you’ve described there seems to have been a communications problem between Blackfriars NR and the central Oyster system. These do happen occasionally. I’m somewhat surprised that it hadn’t rectified itself by two days later as Blackfriars is a very busy station and it must have been causing lots of issues. The fault seems clearly to be the responsibility of GTR, although I’m not sure I’d go so far as to blame them. I have however alerted people in both GTR and TfL to see whether the blame ping-pong is appropriate.
Checking your travel history daily is a very good suggestion anyway, and one that I’d always recommend. I don’t agree that the system is untrustworthy, but when the occasional issue occurs it is important for the problem to be owned and resolved.
Hi.
Is there any way to obtain your Oyster card travel history beyond 8 weeks at all? I would need it for employment reimbursement for the tax year beginning April 2019.
thanks,
Karolina
Hi Karolina,
I’m afraid there is not. Going forward you can set up monthly emails on your TfL account, or if contactless is an option (full adult fares only) the history then stays online for a year. This is because it is justification for debits from your bank or card account.
Unsure whether this is a problem linked to the 60+ Oyster which I have but over the last few months a journey starting after midnight in this case after midnight on the 31st October is shown as occurring on the 1st December.
Although this is not a problem on a 60+ Oyster if the same thing is happening on a normal oyster it could cause charging problems.
I copy the details from my latest weekly read out.
Date / Time
Journey / Action
Charge
Balance
Sunday, 01 December 2019
£0.00 daily total
00:20 Bus journey, route U5 £0.00 £0.00
Sunday, 03 November 2019
£0.00 daily total
23:59 Bus journey, route U5 £0.00 £0.00
22:09 Bus journey, route U5 £0.00 £0.00
Saturday, 02 November 2019
£0.00 daily total
00:39 Bus journey, route 350 £0.00 £0.00
21:43 Bus journey, route 350 £0.00 £0.00
14:16 – 14:46 Paddington [National Rail] to West Drayton [National Rail] £0.00
£0.00
13:21 – 13:55 Chancery Lane to Paddington (Bakerloo, Circle/District and H&C) £0.00
£0.00
13:12 Bus journey, route 17 £0.00 £0.00
12:16 Bus journey, route 63 £0.00 £0.00
11:21 – 12:07 Elstree and Borehamwood [National Rail] to Farringdon £0.00
£0.00
09:15 – 10:15 Paddington (Bakerloo, Circle/District and H&C) to Elstree and Borehamwood [National Rail] £0.00
£0.00
08:47 – 09:14 West Drayton [National Rail] to Paddington [National Rail] £0.00
£0.00
Friday, 01 November 2019 £0.00 daily total
01:29 Bus journey, route N222 £0.00 £0.00
00:08 Bus journey, route 222 £0.00 £0.00
Thursday, 31 October 2019 £0.00 daily total
21:54 Bus journey, route 222 £0.00 £0.00
Hi Malcolm,
It didn’t happen on 1st November, have there been other occurrances and is it always 1st December? I’ll pass the details over to TfL anyway.
Mike
It has certainly been happening all this year all involve bus journeys. On the months missing it is because the return journey was made prior to midnight examples are
Out 31st December 21:43 return showing as 31st January 00:38
Out 31st March 21:34 return showing as 1st May 00:13
Out 30th April 20:34 return showing as 30th May 00:20
Out 31st May 22:00 return showing as 1st July 00:59
Out 31st August 21:19 return showing 1st October 00:40
Still happening on journeys after midnight
Monday, 30 December 2019
£0.00 daily total
00:37 Bus journey, route 350 £0.00 £0.00
Saturday, 30 November 2019
£0.00 daily total
21:16 Bus journey, route 350 £0.00 £0.00
Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for this, I’ll pass it over. I can actually see a pattern here, it’s when the journey is made after midnight on the 1st day of a new month.
Hi Malcolm,
Please can you provide details of the bus route involved in your other late night journeys.
is it possible to get a printout of the cost when I used oyster to travel on the 18th Sept 2019?
Hi Anne,
Sorry, that’s too far away. Oyster travel data is anonymised after 8 weeks in line with the agreed fair use of data.
Mike
The bus routes involved will be either 222, 350, U1, U3 or U5 to return home.
So either operated by Metroline West or Abelio West London.
Thanks Malcolm,
The info has been passed on to the team investigating.
Hello, what if I travel before 4:30 and then throughout the day as well? Is the system smart enough or does it treat 0:00-4:30 as the previous day, meaning any capping calculations will only start from 4:30? Thank you
Hi Daniel,
The PAYG day runs from 0430-0430. If you start a journey before 0430 and end it afterwards then it will count towards capping for the previous day. Only journeys started after 0430 count towards that day, including journeys started between midnight and 0430 the next day.
I see, thanks!