Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I’ve read this few a few times and I can’t see for what exactly you (think you) are being overcharged. You don’t say that you are being charged for WNP to HRY over and above what you have already paid to get to FOG; is that what’s happening?
You seem to be suggesting that as the default fare excludes zone 1 you should not be paying for zone 1, but as you *are* travelling through zone 1, the fare is payable.
I now discover that the option to add cards is off the side of the screen on my mobile and when I open it my 60+ card is already on there, with the option to top it up!
Well that was painful. Passed from the photocard department to the Oyster Dept, waited for about 10 minutes to be answered only to be passed back to the p/c dept. I could barely hear the assistant. She gave me a wrong email address to reset the password of, which unsurprisingly didn’t work and she didn’t know her way round the TfL app. Then she got me to try entering only the last 10 digits, before she claimed that 60+ cards can’t be added to the TfL go app, and that there is a separate photocard app.
“For example, the 60+ Oyster is not valid on London North Western services from Watford Junction and Bushey, but it is valid on the London Overground Lioness line services. Similar issues apply with Shenfield, Cheshunt and others.”
But isn’t that an issue with PAYG generally?
Thanks. Pretty sure I added my 60+ to my Oyster web account as soon as I got it too. Fairly sure I’ve previously seen journey history on there. But nothing there now. I’ve tried adding it but the no printed on the card is not 12 digits (it’s 4 letters followed by 4 numbers) and if I use the number I discovered from my photocard account it says it belongs to someone else. The journey history is on the photocard account though. Clearly the two accounts aren’t linked.
I’m just remembering that I lost my card previously and ordered a replacement. I wonder if that’s anything to do with it….
This is all a bit mind boggling. There’s no sign of my 60+ card in the Oyster app or on the Oyster web site. I logged in to my photocard account and it showed a 12 digit number (that is not printed on the card) but when I tried to add that on the app it said it’s registered to someone else!
The Oyster app has the corresponding 12 digit no, but says the card is first gen and so won’t work. The card had the “D” on it, which I understood to mean that it’s not first gen.
Interesting. I can’t advise, but some thoughts:
One can use contactless at Maidenhead, which I presume is cheaper than paper tickets. No idea how you would (elegantly) obtain a contactless extension, though.
If you swiped out with contactless having swiped in with Oyster then it seems likely you’d be charged a maximum fare and would be entitled to a refund, but it seems plausible you’d technically be travelling without a ticket once you got to zone 3. I wonder what fares would be used to calculate the refund.
The TfL journey planner suggests GWR from Paddington for the quickest journey.
What wouldn’t it make any difference to? If you touch in/out in zone 1 then a pink swipe would achieve nothing, but of you swipe pink and then go on to travel through zone 1 and out again without swiping, I think you’d be charged the lower fare.
Oyster PAYG is not magic. Introducing it does not automatically reduce fares – the fares are set by whoever is running the trains, and to some extent the law. Writing to your MP to ask him/her to get fares reduced is asking directly for what you want. Introducing Oyster PAYG would increase convenience, but that’s not your primary aim – ask for what you actually want.
Let’s hope that ITSO smart cards and/or contactless will be introduced soon. The former is conceptually like Oyster and both work by swiping the card to open the gates, but the *technology* does not determine the fares.
The fares are charged based on what zones you pass through or are assumed to have passed through. Witness the pink readers at various locations (eg Canada Water, Stratford, Blackhorse Rd) that are there so you can tap to show you changed there and therefore did not go through zone 1. A Z2-3 ticket is not valid for journeys that go through, end in or start in Z1.
Thanks. On https://content.tfl.gov.uk/60-plus-london-free-travel-national-rail-map.pdf it says:
“An extension or other travel ticket must be purchased before travel to stations on these routes.” Isn’t an extension an Oyster extension?
Also, why does the TfL website give me the option to top up my 60+ card? What use is that if I need to get a non Oyster ticket to go outside the area of validity?
That appears to contradict what GA says:
https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/tickets-fares/daily-tickets/oyster
The 60+ card map provided by TfL says of the GA route north of Enfield Lock “An extension or other travel ticket must be purchased before travel to stations on these routes.”
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/60-plus-london-free-travel-national-rail-map.pdf
That’s a pity. As I changed at Tottenham Hale the system could deduce that I used GA, but I take your point about LST. This anomaly renders the whole Hertford East branch as unreachable by PAYG for 60+ card users.
“The ticket machine cannot offer the PAYG fare because that is only available when using the PAYG system.”
Sorry, but that sounds like a circular argument. It cannot offer the PAYG fare because it does not.
It seems technically possible for it to take £2.90 off me (ironically it would have been via my contactless card) and then put that £2.90 onto my 60+ card as an Oyster top up / fare extension.
Thanks. I was quite happy to use contactless (and I swiped my bank card at Rye House) and I realise I only *need* to use my 60+ card to open a ticket gate where necessary.
If, as you put it, my 60+ card is an off-peak season ticket, what I needed to do was like the old extensions that used to be possible.
I’m guessing people confronted with the choice between £6.90 and £2.90, aren’t going to opt for the former just to avoid having to swipe out at Enfield Lock, yet the machine doesn’t offer a way of paying the £2.90, tempting people to dodge the fare.
