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Unfortunately it resulted in a pair of incomplete journey charge, because the time between the entry at Hackney and the exit at Willesden Green exceeded the maximum journey time, as the result of joining.
There are two concourses at Oxford Circus. One for exits 1-4 which are entry only, the other for exits 5-8 which are exit only, that meant I must exit at the concourse for exits 5-8 and enter at the other concourse.
I tried the reverse journey (touched the platform reader after alighting a Great Northern train, changed at West Hampstead and exited at Willesden Green) the past weekend and there was no problem.
A refund has been given after I contacted the customer service.
I’ll use two cards if I plan to do such journeys in the future.
Sunday, 05 October 2025 £9.00 daily total
21:29 – 21:40 West Hampstead Thameslink [National Rail] to Willesden Green £1.90 £14.85
21:40 Touch out, Willesden Green +£2.75 £14.85
21:32 Touch in, West Hampstead [London Underground] £0.00 £12.10
21:29 Touch out, West Hampstead Thameslink [National Rail] £0.00 £12.10
21:29 Touch in, West Hampstead Thameslink [National Rail] £4.65 £12.10
20:28 – 21:29 Gatwick Airport to West Hampstead Thameslink [National Rail] £7.10 £16.75
21:29 Touch out, West Hampstead Thameslink [National Rail] +£1.85 £16.75
20:28 Touch in, Gatwick Airport £8.95 £14.90
20:28 Oyster helpline refund, Gatwick Airport +£9.30 £23.85This reason is I avoided breaking the OSI by means of tapping in and out at the Underground station, because the tap in at the Underground station would reopen the journey rather than starting a new one, and when I tapped out the fare would be adjusted to the fare from Gatwick to West Hampstead (Underground).
However, this record looks like the existence of OSI overruled the fact that a same station exit between 0-2 minutes is cancelled within 45 minutes, which can prove problematic if one accidentally enters the wrong station among a set of OSIs to start his journey.
I also tried entering a station before 09:30, realised that it was too early and exited immediately (where a peak maximum fare was charged) and re-entered after 09:30, and the correct off-peak fare was finally deducted.
I would have used KeyGo for the Thameslink leg if I knew I would travel this route to prevent problems, but unfortunately I was trying to catch a Southern train for Clapham Junction (for Kensal Rise, where a through Oyster fare was cheapest) and the train door was closed in front of me.
I think you can buy Elstree & Borehamwood +Bus with a Travelcard issued by National Rail which has Elstree & Borehamwood printed as the origin (Elstree & Borehamwood – London Zones 1-6), to satisfy the requirement that the station must be printed on the rail ticket.
You can’t buy PlusBus with Oyster. However, KeyGo supports PlusBus fare at Gatwick Airport and charges the equivalent of an Oyster fare for your train journey.
The records suggested that there was a wrong extension fare set at £4.15 between Zone 2 and Leighton Buzzard, from the following observations:
The return journey was charged at £4.15
The outbound journey was capped
When £4.15 was taken off the outbound journey, the result was a Zone 1-2 cap at £8.90So the system charged a Zone 1-2 cap and the extension fare both way.
There was no overcharge as the default fare for my journey (Heathrow Terminal 2 & 3 to North Acton) did not involve zone 1.
The London bound EL platform was closed on the day I travelled because of engineering works. The readers on the Underground platforms were yellow.
Some (but not all) are used in the National Rail timetable and also ticket retailing systems, like ZEL for Elephant & Castle (Underground) and ZCM for Chesham.
The route via Paddington does not involve an OSI at Paddington, as the Circle line station is in the same paid area as the Elizabeth line station.
I expect TfL will fix this once they are notified about this loophole.
Does anyone have documentation about how it actually works? Can I only get a service delay refund if I stick to the original route no matter how long the delay is, even if the service is totally suspended? The reason that the helpline told me that I was not eligible was because I didn’t travel on the Weaver line.
Unfortunately I can’t rely on the right of NRCoT because the delay caused to my journey due to the service suspension was below an hour.
But is it allowed for a pink reader touch to INCREASE the fare? I have thought that it can only decrease the fare, not increase it.
I am not, in principle, against fare increase, but it’s the amount of increase that has angered me, with more than 10% for every single off-peak journey outside zone 1, some up to 15%! These fares were the cheapest fares in the rail network and were once actually competitive with buses.
Overseas in Hong Kong, metro fares have to be increased or decreased according to a formula. Over the past decade or so there has been minimal increase for the cheapest single fares, with some cheapest concessionary fares for one-stop journeys totally frozen for nearly a decade, with the other, more expensive, longer journeys make up the bulk of fare increase, so fares are still kept affordable.
In the past, I travelled a lot on the TfL network for short single-zone journeys such as Brondesbury – Gospel Oak just because I didn’t want to cycle over a hill, but I will no longer do so now because the £ / km no longer represents good value. I haven’t done such journeys for a long time on the NR-scale routes already as the fare is a total rip-off.
Re #6161:
Elstree & Borehamwood to Kew Gardens changing at West Hampstead is a pure NR, not mixed mode journey, therefore paper tickets are available at the normal NR scale, similarly from Cricklewood.
However, West Hampstead to Kew Gardens is exclusively on TfL even it is also exclusively on NR, so TfL fare is charged instead.
Unfortunately, after my calculation, for my circumstance, an annual Travelcard is only worthwhile if I travel for at least 5 days per week, with a majority of the days involving morning peak travel. And my circumstance is that I only usually need Zones 1-2 where I usually travel for 6 to 7 days per week.
The recent fare freeze means that a season Travelcard is becoming less and less worthwhile. For example, a monthly was a good buy if I travelled for around 5 days per week, and now, I have to travel for 6 days per week, mostly during peak, to break even.
For outer zone residents, it is even less likely that a season Travelcard can bring value. More often a National Rail only season ticket (e.g. a Croydon Stations to London Terminals annual season offers validity on most of the Southern Metro routes), or paying by PAYG, will save money unless you are travelling across all your zones for 6 days per week, multiple trips per day or more.
Sorry I have just checked that Chafford Hundred is outside Zones 1-6, so the reasoning in #6618 no longer applies.
In this case, the fares are not on a standard scale and probably set by c2c under guidance from DfT, so loopholes and pitfalls are all around.
There is no longer a general rule involving fares on National Rail outside Zones 1-6, as they are not harmonised like within Zones 1-6.
I think this has be to reported to TfL as something like this has happened in the past in Vauxhall, which now have non-standard fares added for interchanging there to prevent anomaly.
c2c is a train company which adopts TfL fare scale so the whole journey should be charged at TfL rate, regardless if there is a transfer to the tube or not.
