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
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,
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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.
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 … Read more
So my friend Geoff Marshall (of All the Stations fame) decided to try out some scenarios using contactless out to Brookmans Park. You can watch the video here.
Yesterday TfL announced their initial plans following takeover of the GWR suburban services between Paddington and Reading on December 15th. In contrast to any other TfL takeover, neither Oyster nor contactless will be available on day 1. To ensure a smooth introduction, contactless PAYG will be introduced from January 2nd 2020.
The big news though is that Oyster PAYG will NOT be valid between West Drayton and Reading. This means that adults with railcards, 11-15 and 16+ zip card holders will not be able to make use of PAYG. And holders of Apprentice, 18+ Student and Jobcentre Oyster cards will not be able to seamlessly transition between using a travelcard stored on the card to PAYG. On the plus side, under 11s accompanied by adults will be able to travel free, but only on the TfL Rail services.