Oyster Card ?

[Ergates The Ant]

Visited London last week, hadn't used my Oyster card but thought I had a few pounds on it. Tapped it on the reader at the station ( one of the stations which does not have a barrier to open) and the machine told me I didn't have enough credit. Went back to a machine and added £10. All Ok after that.

Do be aware that it can be costly if you do not tap out on leaving the Underground as you WILL be charged the maximum fare. If there is not a physical barrier, look around for the exit reader. I nearly missed the ones at London City Airport and had to ask a member of staff where they were.

Also be careful if you have a contactless card in or near your Oyster card, I have heard of instances where passengers have been charged twice for a journey, because both cards were in the same wallet and both were read by the machine.

[insanemagnet]

Also be careful if you have a contactless card in or near your Oyster card, I have heard of instances where passengers have been charged twice for a journey, because both cards were in the same wallet and both were read by the machine.

 

You won't be charged twice (it can't double charge within a single barrier opening and person passing through the gate).

 

What might happen is the wrong card is charged, so for example you have a season ticket on an Oyster card, but instead of reading that it reads and charges your contactless card.

[SteveH2508]

You're welcome!

 

Though I have to say that most Londoners wouldn't have a clue about what goes on at the level that we're discussing here. They'd stick some money on the card, and if they try to enter a station and get a red light and a rejection, they go to the ticket machine and add some money. Nobody here cares that the machine deducts the maximum fare when you enter the system or that you only need to have the minimum fare on the card when you enter.

 

That said, the TfL website confirms the numbers in my previous post. I'll see whether I can do test number two sometime during the next week.

 

I teach programming and systems analysis, so I use the Oyster system as an example, to give my students some idea of the scale and complexity of modern IT systems. I have looked at my Oyster statements quite carefully to try to get a handle on how the logic works. I guess that makes me a bit of a nerd (soon to be ex-nerd:D:D).

[shertwo]

I think I am just thick in the head, don't understand this Card. We are travelling (originating in Canada) and will be in London near Victoria Station for two days and a bit -- so if we want/need to use the Tube, to get to Little Venice, return from Camden, to Tower Bridge area and return a couple of times and then need train tickets to Gatwick on May 3rd, morning, for two adults should we buy a Card, if so, are they available at Victoria Stations and can we use credit card to buy or is cash better.

 

Appreciate advice/assistance, I think my brain is on overload with trip things to get done. Cheers!

[Globaliser]

I teach programming and systems analysis, so I use the Oyster system as an example, to give my students some idea of the scale and complexity of modern IT systems. I have looked at my Oyster statements quite carefully to try to get a handle on how the logic works. I guess that makes me a bit of a nerd (soon to be ex-nerd:D:D).

I have to say that I'm full of admiration for the people who designed the Oyster system, particularly the capping algorithms. When there were still different peak and off-peak caps, they were sophisticated enough to work out, for example, whether/when it was cheaper for you to pay the peak fare in full and then cap all the off-peak travel, rather than just applying the peak cap to the full day's travel.

 

I also have to say that it's about the only thing that TfL has ever done that has left me full of admiration.

[Globaliser]

I think I am just thick in the head, don't understand this Card. We are travelling (originating in Canada) and will be in London near Victoria Station for two days and a bit -- so if we want/need to use the Tube, to get to Little Venice, return from Camden, to Tower Bridge area and return a couple of times and then need train tickets to Gatwick on May 3rd, morning, for two adults should we buy a Card, if so, are they available at Victoria Stations and can we use credit card to buy or is cash better.

You don't really need to worry about the detail discussed in this thread. It's a stored value ticket. Load it with value - it really doesn't matter whether you pay with a credit card or cash, as it just wants money - and then use it to travel. The appropriate value is deducted as you use it. The amount you spend each day is subject to a daily cap if you use it enough, although the cap value is dependent on where and when you've been.

 

You can buy these at any Tube station, and at many other places in addition. TfL charges a £5 deposit for the card, but the deposit and any unused credit are always refundable. The credit does not expire, so many people just keep their cards and bring them to use again next time.

 

The card can now be used to pay for Victoria-Gatwick travel, but it's generally cheaper to pay for this some other way, including buying online. You might want to look at the other threads comparing the pros and cons of travelling on the Gatwick Express and one of the Southern Railway commuter trains, and compare their relative costs.

[Tansy Mews]

I think I am just thick in the head, don't understand this Card. We are travelling (originating in Canada) and will be in London near Victoria Station for two days and a bit -- so if we want/need to use the Tube, to get to Little Venice, return from Camden, to Tower Bridge area and return a couple of times and then need train tickets to Gatwick on May 3rd, morning, for two adults should we buy a Card, if so, are they available at Victoria Stations and can we use credit card to buy or is cash better.

 

Appreciate advice/assistance, I think my brain is on overload with trip things to get done. Cheers!

 

We are thinking of using our tap credit card (contactless card) instead of putting money on an Oyster card. The only downside - we'll have to be careful not to lose it.

The upside - we don't have to anticipate how much we'll need on the card, and we don't have to worry about getting a refund.

 

The card is only charged once, at the end of the day, so that the system can figure out based on the capping.

 

https://contactless.tfl.gov.uk

[Globaliser]

Test number two next week, when I will try to complete a journey that leaves a relatively large negative balance on the card on touch-out.

With a £2.10 starting balance, I started a journey at a station where the minimum fare was £1.50. The maximum fare of £5.30 was deducted, to take the balance to -£3.20. The actual fare was £3.10, so on touching out I was refunded £2.20, and the card was left with a negative balance of -£1.00 (which it still has).

 

Test number three: If your Oyster already has a negative balance, you can't use the one more trip thing on the bus.

[mattR]

With a £2.10 starting balance, I started a journey at a station where the minimum fare was £1.50. The maximum fare of £5.30 was deducted, to take the balance to -£3.20. The actual fare was £3.10, so on touching out I was refunded £2.20, and the card was left with a negative balance of -£1.00 (which it still has).

 

Test number three: If your Oyster already has a negative balance, you can't use the one more trip thing on the bus.

 

Great thanks for testing this. Do you know what is the min amount you can add to a card? Just thinking if I am short 1 pound for a fare can I add just one pound or is there a min 5 pounds or something like that?

Edited April 19, 2016 by mattR

[mamkmm2]

With a £2.10 starting balance, I started a journey at a station where the minimum fare was £1.50. The maximum fare of £5.30 was deducted, to take the balance to -£3.20. The actual fare was £3.10, so on touching out I was refunded £2.20, and the card was left with a negative balance of -£1.00 (which it still has).

 

Test number three: If your Oyster already has a negative balance, you can't use the one more trip thing on the bus.

 

Thanks for the follow through! It is much appreciated. Probably some of a negative balance would be covered on the card deposit.

[Globaliser]

Do you know what is the min amount you can add to a card? Just thinking if I am short 1 pound for a fare can I add just one pound or is there a min 5 pounds or something like that?

I've not tried this, but I think that the minimum is 10p. This is because you can add any amount to a card using cash, subject to the fact that the smallest coin that the machines will take is a 10p. The process means that the machine cannot know how much money you're going to put in before you actually start putting it in. So if you select top up with cash, and only put in one 10p coin, I think the machine will happily add that amount to the card.

 

As it happens I did put £1 on the card when I topped it back up. Credit card top-ups are for £5 or multiples. So I put £1 on it in cash, plus £5 on a card to bring it back to where it started from. So without doubt, a £1 top-up is fine.

Probably some of a negative balance would be covered on the card deposit.

Yes - I think that this is part of the rationale behind the deposit.

 

It's actually relatively hard to get a negative balance that exceeds the amount of the deposit (£5). For example, if I had had only £1.50 on the card when I started that journey, and if I had done the same journey at a peak time, £7.70 would have been deducted when I touched in (to reach -£6.20), but the fare for my actual journey would have been only £5.10. So even then I would have ended up with a closing balance of only -£3.60, which would still have been more than covered by the deposit.

[Cotswold Eagle]

As a bit of a tangent, I have auto-top up on my Oyster. I received an email message to say it had failed (the stored credit card had expired) and to go in to my account and pay off what was owing. To my surprise, I found the last 4 tops up had failed, so I owed £80 :)

 

Pretty sure you can't get that much of a negative balance on a non-auto top up card!

[Globaliser]

As a bit of a tangent, I have auto-top up on my Oyster. I received an email message to say it had failed (the stored credit card had expired) and to go in to my account and pay off what was owing. To my surprise, I found the last 4 tops up had failed, so I owed £80 :)

:eek: :D