Tony Dragon wrote:
On 12/04/2016 12:49, David Cantrell wrote:
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 06:51:44PM -0500, wrote:
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
If I was in your shoes I'd just set up auto top up on Oyster and use
that. That deals with your issues around lack of a convenient "top up"
location or you forgetting to top up.
How does that work if only using buses? Any online top ups I've ever made
had to be "collected" at a tube station gateline.

I believe that you still need to visit a tube station to turn auto-topup
on, but once it's turned on auto-topup definitely works on buses. You
still need to visit a station though - any station, not just a tube
station - to pick up PAYG refunds for the inevitable overcharging if you
bother to claim them.


My Oyster Card is registered, I have auto top up, if I ever have had a
refund it tops up my oyster card.

The system also gets to know your regular journeys and will auto refund
if something unusual happens.

Getting a refund by phone takes less than five minutes, I have never had
a problem.

On one occasion I had a refund after I made a call, then the system did
an auto refund.

I have only ever been overcharged because of my mistakes or because a
train has been cancelled after I touched in and I had to use bus instead
of train.

The refund can be collected within 14 days at a train station, once when
I did not use a train (over Christmas) within the 14 days I received an
e-mail asking if I wanted the time extended.

I also get a spreadsheet showing my Oyster journeys for a week emailed
to me.

The only problem I have (and it's not that bad) is I have to keep my
Oyster & my Freedom Card separate.

Just curious, if you have a Freedom Pass, why are you still a heavy Oyster
user?

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 18:51:44 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

If I was in your shoes I'd just set up auto top up on Oyster and use
that. That deals with your issues around lack of a convenient "top up"
location or you forgetting to top up.

How does that work if only using buses? Any online top ups I've ever made
had to be "collected" at a tube station gateline.

Yes Colin. As others have said it was evident that the OP does make
some rail and tube journeys so he would have to make the arrangements
for auto top up in the full knowledge of a rail journey he planned to
make.

I would not have made the suggestion if he had said he *never* makes
rail or tube journeys. Give me some credit!

I understood a rail or tube journey would be needed for every top-up,
apparently incorrectly, and that his rail/tube usage wasn't enough for that.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 23:20:11 +0100
Tony Dragon wrote:
My Oyster Card is registered, I have auto top up, if I ever have had a
refund it tops up my oyster card.

The system also gets to know your regular journeys and will auto refund
if something unusual happens.

I also get a spreadsheet showing my Oyster journeys for a week emailed
to me.

So TfL have your bank details and store a nice track of your journeys.
Hello big brother. Made so much easier by people just embracing it.

Yes, I'm sure they track my card too but I paid for it with cash and top it up
with cash so they have no idea who I am and thats how its going to stay.

--
Spud

In article , (Tony
Dragon) wrote:

On 12/04/2016 12:49, David Cantrell wrote:
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 06:51:44PM -0500,
wrote:
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
If I was in your shoes I'd just set up auto top up on Oyster and use
that. That deals with your issues around lack of a convenient "top up"
location or you forgetting to top up.
How does that work if only using buses? Any online top ups I've ever
made had to be "collected" at a tube station gateline.

I believe that you still need to visit a tube station to turn auto-topup
on, but once it's turned on auto-topup definitely works on buses. You
still need to visit a station though - any station, not just a tube
station - to pick up PAYG refunds for the inevitable overcharging if you
bother to claim them.

My Oyster Card is registered, I have auto top up, if I ever have had
a refund it tops up my oyster card.

The system also gets to know your regular journeys and will auto
refund if something unusual happens.

Getting a refund by phone takes less than five minutes, I have never
had a problem.

On one occasion I had a refund after I made a call, then the system
did an auto refund.

I have only ever been overcharged because of my mistakes or because a
train has been cancelled after I touched in and I had to use bus
instead of train.

Sadly not in my case. My wife and I made a return trip through Heathrow
Terminal 5. My Oyster exit wasn't registered centrally (though it was on the
card) on the outward journey and my wife's entry wasn't registered inwards.
You have to watch the system like a hawk. Earlier my wife didn't get
registered at one end of King's Cross to Westminster return journey on both
outward and return legs. She didn't even notice the overcharge until she
used the card again about a year later. It took ages to persuade TfL to sort
that out, despite the evidence on the card. Again the central system didn't
have the data. Hence my concern that one can't get printouts of the data on
the card any more.

The refund can be collected within 14 days at a train station, once
when I did not use a train (over Christmas) within the 14 days I
received an e-mail asking if I wanted the time extended.

I also get a spreadsheet showing my Oyster journeys for a week
emailed to me.

The only problem I have (and it's not that bad) is I have to keep my
Oyster & my Freedom Card separate.

For London residents who are regular public transport users this is fine.
Even when I worked in London 3 days a week I found it a problem to pick up
refunds because you have to set it up to collect it at a nominated gateline.
I didn't use public transport much in London while working there because I
took my bike on the train from and to Cambridge. Sometimes I stayed in
Putney and took the train from Vauxhall but at too short a notice to set up
a refund there.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message of Thu, 14
Apr 2016 08:21:58 in uk.transport.london,
writes
In article , (Tony
Dragon) wrote:

On 12/04/2016 12:49, David Cantrell wrote:
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 06:51:44PM -0500,
wrote:
(Paul Corfield) wrote:
If I was in your shoes I'd just set up auto top up on Oyster and use
that. That deals with your issues around lack of a convenient "top up"
location or you forgetting to top up.
How does that work if only using buses? Any online top ups I've ever
made had to be "collected" at a tube station gateline.

I believe that you still need to visit a tube station to turn auto-topup
on, but once it's turned on auto-topup definitely works on buses. You
still need to visit a station though - any station, not just a tube
station - to pick up PAYG refunds for the inevitable overcharging if you
bother to claim them.

My Oyster Card is registered, I have auto top up, if I ever have had
a refund it tops up my oyster card.

The system also gets to know your regular journeys and will auto
refund if something unusual happens.

Getting a refund by phone takes less than five minutes, I have never
had a problem.

On one occasion I had a refund after I made a call, then the system
did an auto refund.

I have only ever been overcharged because of my mistakes or because a
train has been cancelled after I touched in and I had to use bus
instead of train.

Sadly not in my case. My wife and I made a return trip through Heathrow
Terminal 5. My Oyster exit wasn't registered centrally (though it was on the
card) on the outward journey and my wife's entry wasn't registered inwards.
You have to watch the system like a hawk. Earlier my wife didn't get
registered at one end of King's Cross to Westminster return journey on both
outward and return legs. She didn't even notice the overcharge until she
used the card again about a year later. It took ages to persuade TfL to sort
that out, despite the evidence on the card. Again the central system didn't
have the data. Hence my concern that one can't get printouts of the data on
the card any more.

You might like to consider taking a photo of the last 8 transactions at
a POM (Passenger Operated Machine).
Tourist Information Offices still issue paper statements.
I can't find a list on tfl.gov.uk, but have used them at Euston, King's
Cross St Pancras and Liverpool Street and believe there is another at
Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 3. There are probably others.
--
Walter Briscoe

On 13/04/2016 23:33, Recliner wrote:
[...]
The only problem I have (and it's not that bad) is I have to keep my
Oyster & my Freedom Card separate.

Just curious, if you have a Freedom Pass, why are you still a heavy
Oyster user?


Guessing, he regularly travels on NR routes (which are on the NR fare
scale, not the TfL fare scale) before 0930 on weekdays.

The Freedom Pass map does look more complicated these days!
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/content/freedom_pass_map.pdf

(Lest anyone complains, its because the FP offers more than it used to
courtesy of the various TfL run rail services.)

On 14/04/2016 15:13, Walter Briscoe wrote:
[...]
You might like to consider taking a photo of the last 8 transactions at
a POM (Passenger Operated Machine).
Tourist Information Offices still issue paper statements.
I can't find a list on tfl.gov.uk, but have used them at Euston, King's
Cross St Pancras and Liverpool Street and believe there is another at
Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 3. There are probably others.



https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/where-to-top-up-and-buy-tickets/visitor-centres

A friend for a long time claimed expenses by submitting (or at least
keeping) a smartphone photo of the journey history screen of their
Oyster card!

On 14/04/2016 07:41, wrote:
[...]
I understood a rail or tube journey would be needed for every top-up,
apparently incorrectly, and that his rail/tube usage wasn't enough for that.


You were indeed incorrect. Once set up, auto-topup works just fine on
buses and always has since it started.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster/oyster-online-account#on-this-page-4

"Your card is automatically topped up when you touch your Oyster card on
a yellow card reader at the start of a journey on bus, Tube, tram, DLR,
London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, River Bus or National
Rail services in London."


I think it might not have always auto-topped up on the Thames Clipper
river buses, but it does now.

On 12/04/2016 17:21, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2016-04-11 22:15:57 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

From my limited observations there are now quite severe problems on
buses. They struggle to read any card first time with people having to
retouch their cards so that the reader has a chance of determining
what type of card it is communicating with and then deciding the
transaction that has to be undertaken. I think it is worst for those
using phone based technology but that's just based on reading other
people's experiences.

I don't know about Apple Pay, but I have not had problems using a
contactless credit card on TfL services. I think one of the problems
may be that they do take longer to process than Oyster cards - you have
to hold it there until you get the beep - and it's easy to pull away too
quickly.


Agreed, I haven't had any problems using contactless which is my main
method nowadays. Well, I would agree with Paul that I think the bus
validators seem to struggle somewhat - a second 'touch' is sometimes
necessary. This is on contrast to retailers POS machines, which hardly
ever miss the first 'touch'.

An aside - "contactless" isn't a great name for the technology, as it's
best if you do actually make contact / touch the card on the reader.

In article ,
(Walter Briscoe) wrote:

In message of Thu, 14
Apr 2016 08:21:58 in uk.transport.london,
writes
In article , (Tony
Dragon) wrote:

On 12/04/2016 12:49, David Cantrell wrote:

Sadly not in my case. My wife and I made a return trip through Heathrow
Terminal 5. My Oyster exit wasn't registered centrally (though it was on
the card) on the outward journey and my wife's entry wasn't registered
inwards. You have to watch the system like a hawk. Earlier my wife didn't
get registered at one end of King's Cross to Westminster return journey
on both outward and return legs. She didn't even notice the overcharge
until she used the card again about a year later. It took ages to
persuade TfL to sort that out, despite the evidence on the card. Again
the central system didn't have the data. Hence my concern that one can't
get printouts of the data on the card any more.

You might like to consider taking a photo of the last 8 transactions at
a POM (Passenger Operated Machine).

That was my solution but it can be a bit hit or miss getting a sharp picture.

Tourist Information Offices still issue paper statements.

Worth remembering at Liverpool St. Thanks.

I can't find a list on tfl.gov.uk, but have used them at Euston, King's
Cross St Pancras and Liverpool Street and believe there is another at
Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 3. There are probably others.

Not sure there's anything at King's Cross St Pancras now. I looked in vain
some time ago.

I almost always take my bike with me these days and don't use the tube.

--
Colin Rosenstiel