David of Broadway wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
In the situation you describe in your original post I'm almost certain
that no deposit would be required. None of the publicity I've seen has
ever suggested that there is anything that complicates the 'deposit is
waived if buying a Travelcard on Oyster' rule.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, the person on whose behalf I asked never got to test it
out. Here's what happened to him:

http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=360348

I've never heard of that happening. Was there any way he could have
avoided paying the cash fare? And if he had had an Oyster, wouldn't he
have been hit with the £4 penalty for forgetting to touch in?


It appears that - as the poster in the subchat forum says - on that
particular day Heathrow Underground station was very busy ("a
madhouse"), so the decision was taken to let people pay at the other
end of their journey. As such, they wouldn't have been subject to the
£20 penalty fare, on the condition that they buy their ticket at the
destination. This does happen from time to time when stations are very
busy, as well as when ticket offices are shut and for whatever good
reason passengers can't buy the ticket they're after - though in such a
situation LU does everything to encourage people to buy a ticket from
the ticket machines.

I would add that in such a scenario if passengers are making onwards
journeys by changing onto National Rail (i.e. overground) trains to get
to their ultimate destination they should definitely make sure they
have a ticket at the interchange point.

It's disappointing that when they got to Gloucester Road they were
asked to pay the full £4 cash fare, rather than being able to buy an
Oyster. I suspect that's because it was beyond the member of staff to
work out how to 'electronically mark' the card with the appropriate
entry point (i.e. Heathrow) - as you know, it's now important that
Oyster PAYG* users touch-in and out, otherwise they get charged £4.

If they'd had an Oyster at the beginning of their journey at Heathrow
then they would've had to touch-in (on the gate or standalone reader)
as normal - the "pay at destination" message wouldn't have applied to
them. If they hadn't touched-in at Heathrow they would indeed have been
charged £4.

Note that at stations where the gates are open for whatever reason -
maybe there's no staff to supervise the gateline, or there's heavy
crowds - Oyster users should nonetheless always touch-in or out on the
yellow Oyster pads, as the Oyster reader/scanner will still be turned
on.

*Oyster PAYG = Oyster Pay-as-you-go