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Hi Lauren,
That’s opened a can of worms, so to speak. I’ve tried a few ticket selling sites, most of which didn’t want to sell me the correct ticket. The one which did work was southeasternrailway.co.uk, but that points out that it’s cheaper to go all the way to Waterloo and change onto the Underground there. Perversely you pay more for each zone that you want to use the Underground. So the fare is now £16.50 with the railcard. You can put Sloane Square in as the destination on Southeastern, but the ticket will be to Zone U1 London and can be used to go to any zone 1 tube station from either Vauxhall or Waterloo.
I did try South Western Railway’s website, but they wanted to charge singles each way, which hit the £12 minimum fare in the morning and was thus more expensive. Another site didn’t seem to understand what I wanted and was only selling tickets to Vauxhall.
You can also try buying the tickets at a ticket office, but make sure that the route is “via Surbiton” rather than “Any Permitted” which allows you to go via Virginia Water.
Hi Lauren,
As has been mentioned, Weybridge is beyond the contactless area at the moment, and sadly isn’t included in the extension planned for next month. Your options would appear to be:
Weybridge to Zones U123 London is £26.40 return (£17.40 with railcard)
Weybridge to Wimbledon is £12.60 return (£12.00 with railcard) plus 2x£3.70 PAYG singles.So, thanks to the £12 minimum fare before 10am, you’d be better off buying the through return.
Also to Si,
I’m aware that train companies are revising fares for the introduction of contactless. It seems that normal fares are being aligned with PAYG, including singles being half of the appropriate return. SWR are also abolishing their evening and Sunday fares on lines with contactless.
Luton Airport Parkway is the current limit of contactless on the Midland Mainline.
Phase 1 of Project Oval will be ready, from a software point of view, on December 3rd. The actual golive date is being controlled by the DfT who will probably want to make a big bang announcement. Currently they say by the end of this year.
Phase 2 is likely to be sometime next year, or even 2025, given that phase 1 was supposed to be ready earlier this year. That will include SWML to Farborough and GEML to Witham according to current plans. These do change from time to time though.
It may depend on whether there are any fares priced with the walking interchanges in mind. Ware to Bayford is only available via London, meaning that if you wanted to make the journey via Hertford you’d need two tickets, or two PAYG fares. Ware to Stevenage is available via Hertford, but it may depend on whether the fare is different to the sum of the two singles. The same consideration will apply to other pairs. If the train companies want through fares to be available using PAYG and those interchanges, they’ll have to ask TfL to set up new OSIs.
Hi Chris,
As Andyboy says, it is possible to use phones without requiring verification. Might be an idea to check that out.
If the bank refuse to pay the charge then TfL will probably blacklist the device. If it’s not registered to a TfL account I’m not sure what then happens. It can probably be sorted out with a call to the helpdesk. They should cancel/refund the charge once it’s explained that it was supposed to be a zip card being read.
I’m with you on not understanding how this all works. I did try it once on a bus, but I’m very wary of using systems that I don’t fully understand.
Hi Jacek,
It’s going to be a combination of a zonal cap (1-2, 1-3, 1-4 etc) and an extension fare for each direction from that zonal boundary to/from Windsor. I’m having trouble understanding how they are working these out, and I’m waiting on a response from TfL after a trip I made to Marlow. I think it’s going to be an error because the cap should be £19.20.
If you click on the link in your journey history relating to the return journey from Windsor where it says “Contact us about this journey” you could ask them to explain how the cap was calculated, and whether there were extension fares involved.
A brief holding update. I made a journey to Marlow in the evening peak having already capped at zones 1-5. The extension fare charged on the way to Marlow took the whole charge for the day upto the off-peak cap for Marlow. This was not what was expected at all. Nothing further was charged on the way back. I raised a query on the charge for the specific journey from my contactless account and am still waiting for a response. It’s been a lot more than 10 days, working or otherwise.
Well I am surprised there. I’d be asking Monzo how long they leave pending transactions which aren’t collected. My own experiences with a variety of credit cards is no more than 5 working days.
It’s up to you though.
Hi Bryan,
That’s an interesting journey. It uses an extra train, but cuts off quite a chunk of mileage by avoiding West Hampstead.
You may get lucky on one occasion and get them to allow a refund, but I wouldn’t repeat it until they decide, if they do, to add the alternative route.
To request the alternative routing you can use the help and contact facility on the TfL website. They may well have to consult with SWR and get agreement, so it won’t be a quick process. It would be beneficial to give them as much information as possible, including approximate journey times, to persuade them that it is worth considering.
Hi Alan,
Just catching up here. I hit a similar brick wall when I asked for the MJT multiplier for each potential journey along with the zonal coverage that they supply at each fare change. As I understand it, TOCs have requested that details are no longer quoted outside the zonal area to avoid people gaming the system. The TfL Web page has subsequently been cut back to show duration across 11 zones whereas it used to go up to around 20 zones.
I did have some success in that I managed to get their website amended so that it no longer said that no refunds would be given if the maximum time was exceeded.
I’m currently chasing a query about contactless extension fares which I fully intend to take to London Travelwatch if I don’t get appropriate transparency.
Please do let me have any updates to your correspondence.
Hi Chris,
I do sympathise with your situation. Can you please confirm whether the second transaction has now dropped off your account?
Hi Alan,
No, off-peak day travelcards are not valid on anything before 0930.
The confusion may be because buses count towards the off-peak cap at any time, though I don’t think they should.
Hi Noor,
The exact route depends on which Bow station you start from, but in each case the alternative route will avoid zone 1 and bring the peak single fare down to £5.10.
Rather than avoiding Canada Water or Whitechapel you need to change there and touch the pink validator before picking up the train to Clapham Junction. You then change there for an SWR service to Surbiton.
Hi Michael,
1) An RPI is entitled to ask for the railcard expiring on the date recorded against the discount. If that is the railcard then it would be advisable to have it to be sure of no problems.
2) Some staff will expect the gold record card to set the discount, but they can easily see the travelcard and it’s expiry date on the Oyster card. If you want a guaranteed hassle free experience then have the record card with you.If you don’t want to have to carry the railcard with you, you can ask them to update the expiry date to be the annual travelcard.
Hi Chris,
TfL have confirmed that there was a problem earlier in the week. They didn’t divulge how big it was. Everything is expected to be rectified overnight tonight, if it hasn’t already been so.
Thanks Chris (and Phil),
It would appear that your return to contactless has co-incided with an almighty glitch at the TfL end. I’ve asked some questions. I would say that this is unlikely to be repeated and is not necessarily an indication that earlier problems are still around. I fully understand your nervousness though.
Hi Michael,
Sorry for the delay replying. I don’t know for certain, but I’d expect in this case that the additional premium would apply. If you make the journey, perhas you could let us know.
Hi Matthew,
When you switch from one cap (zones 1-2) to a further out one (Gatwick) then the journey that takes you there will be charged in full, until you reach the new cap.
It is just possible that in the second case (Underground and Thameslink journey) the back office calculation might recognise that the Underground part ought to be treated as part of the cap. If this happens then contactless will charge the rail only fare straight away, while Oyster will queue an adjustment to be credited back the next time you use the card, but only if it’s a normal adult card. The reason I can’t say for certain is that the extension fares charged by GTR have been fiddled to avoid an unintended consequence of the really cheap fare between East Croydon and Gatwick Airport. If you have the time then it’s always worth stepping back a train at East Croydon so you can touch out and back in again and split the journey into two journeys.
Hi Chris,
This is not good. Have you asked TfL what is happening? Perhaps send them a screenshot of your pending transactions. You could also ask your bank whether there is anything they are aware of, just in case it’s at their end. I’ve never seen anything like this occur on my card. Can you disclose who you bank with and whether it’s a debit or credit card?
The 10p authorisation is a separate issue. As you say, it’s made when the card hasn’t been used recently for TfL travel. Usually it is replaced by the correct figure for the whole day. I am aware of an annoying glitch with Curve where the 10p gets treated as a transaction and the full amount is reduced by 10p at the end of the day.
As you say, if it’s happening with people travelling from Reading then it could be a serious drain on funds until it drops off.
The extension facility is available to most NR stations in the South East. Not all stations will sell to all destinations, but if there are direct services then you’ve a much better chance. I’d expect Gatwick to be available widely.
In reverse you need to buy a ticket to boundary of zone X. These are available at ticket offices, many ticket machines and some online retailers.
Popped into Bond Street just now. Yes it’s possible.
Select travelcard extensions on home screen.
Touch Oyster card.
Enter station name (just an M will offer Maidenhead).
Add Railcard selection.
Select single or return and pay.Hi Colin,
Outside the zones PAYG fares are not generally cheaper than paper tickets. They are also much more expensive if you have a Railcard because you can’t add a discount to a contactless card.
You also can’t use contactless in conjunction with a travelcard, so please don’t try what you suggest. You must use the same card or device at both ends of a PAYG journey.
Hi Michael,
Yes, I believe that is possible. I’ve not done it myself, but I’ve seen mention of National Rail tickets available and the ability to buy extension tickets for an Oyster card with a travelcard loaded on it.
I’d be interested to know how it works if you do use that. I’d go for Bond Street personally as that has direct trains to Maidenhead.
