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While it’s true that PAYG is often cheaper than paper tickets, instances where tickets are cheaper are not as rare as most people think. I don’t even think it’s possible to generalise. Those who are happy just to be charged whatever should continue to tap without checking the fares. Those who wish to pay for their journey at the cheapest available price do need to check, though, and may sometimes need to buy a ticket.
Thanks Mike,
I must admit I hadn’t even thought about the Slade Green to Abbey Wood end. If I held a weekly Z1-4 travelcard or had reached the Z1-4 weekly cap, I would probably use the bus rather than the train. There’s really not much in it in terms of door-to-Abbey Wood journey time. My habit of traveling from Slade Green on a Saturday was only formed because I normally buy a Z1-6 day travelcard.
I agree with you entirely that fares should be predictable.
Phil
Thanks Mike!
Yes, sorry, I did mean Surrey Quays.
Quite a few different routes and price points to consider, then!
I think, with luggage, the best option for me is probably the quickest route with the fewest changes (Slade Green > London Bridge > Gatwick Airport). Splitting the fare at East Croydon that’s £13.70 on contactless or £14.80 with two paper tickets. Both of these compare favourably with the £17.50 contactless fare not splitting at East Croydon.
On this occasion I think I prefer the paper tickets as it will enable me to split the fare at East Croydon without getting off the train.
But, much to my annoyance, there are no plans to do anything at all in terms of allowing any railcards at all to be associated with a contactless payment card until well after the proposed date for the withdrawal of day travelcards.
There is no guarantee that the Network Railcard will be included (the published specs are vague on this point and just say “railcards” but there’s no way anyone who wins the contract to design and implement the upgrades to contactless PAYG is going to do the necessary work to apply the discount for Network Railcards only at weekends and after 10am on weekdays, subject to the £13 minimum fare on weekdays, unless the specs expressly call for this).
Consequently if the day travelcard is withdrawn it is unlikely I’ll switch to PAYG. For my regular weekend trip Slade Green to Maidenhead I’ll switch from my current option of a paper day travelcard plus a day return from the zone 6 boundary to Maidenhead (£14.60), to a day return from Slade Green to Maidenhead (£13.30), rather than using contactless where you hit the daily cap of £20.40 just by making the return journey. This will simply stop me using buses and limit my ability to make detours and breaks of journey in London to patronise cafes, shops etc. This will be revenue-negative overall and almost certainly revenue-negative for TfL (depending how the revenue is carved up). I’m not sure if that’s the Mayor’s intention, but there it is.
I may also have to start insisting on my right to break and resume my journey on the Elizabeth Line including in the core section, which is a hill TfL seem ready to die on despite the National Rail Conditions of Travel being perfectly clear on the matter.
Well, that was odd. Didn’t need to call in the end.
At some point during the course of today, unprompted, TfL amended the refund of £4.10 (which had been applied to my charges for 4 August, which they’ve still yet to take as far as I can tell), increasing the refund to £7.25.
They’ve shown their working for this: when I click on the £7.25 “amendment to past fares” credit it takes me to a page showing that I was originally charged £22.15 (which is 5p more than I was actually charged, but I’m going to let that go as I’m sure the admin of trying to give them their 5p back would cost them more than 5p to deal with). It then shows the amended charge as £14.90, the applicable daily cap, and calculates the refund as £22.15 less £14.90 = £7.25.
If I have to request a refund again I’ll give them a few days to sort themselves out before worrying about it too much. All looks fine from TfL’s end now. Will check my credit card account in due course but should be fine.
Thanks.
I didn’t touch the validator at Farringdon (though the signs telling me I should did have me confused until I read your excellent article on the subject).
What I did was exit the station to grab a coffee and some provisions from the Co-Op before re-entering and continuing to City Thameslink (a necessity ever since the Co-Op at Ludgate Circus closed down). I’m usually quite happy for that to be charged either as a continuation or a separate journey, since daily capping means it costs me the same either way (providing I’ve touched in, of course).
Thanks Mike!
I’ll ring them tomorrow.
Here is the journey history. “Unknown” should have been Slade Green in each case.
05/07/2023 £22.15
Bus Journey, Route 428 £1.75
08:28Unknown to Farringdon £9.40
–:– – 09:21Farringdon to City Thameslink £2.70
09:30 – 09:34Bus Journey, Route 76 £1.75
09:37Bus Journey, Route 59 £1.75
12:29Bus Journey, Route 341 £0.00
13:17Bus Journey, Route 76 £0.00
18:36Moorgate to Unknown £4.80
18:57 – –:–Bus Journey, Route 99 £0.00
19:41
