London Banter - OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

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OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

Just been online to top-up my Oyster Card. You can now sign up for Auto
Top-up, which will automatically top-up your card by the amount you
choose, whenever your card falls below £5.

Better yet, there is a £10 discount for the first 10,000 users who sign
up. I just got £20 for £10.

Hope this is not "old news" to you guys; but I thought some might be
interested.

--

Mark²³

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

Mark²³ wrote:

Just been online to top-up my Oyster Card. You can now sign up for Auto
Top-up, which will automatically top-up your card by the amount you
choose, whenever your card falls below £5.

Better yet, there is a £10 discount for the first 10,000 users who sign
up. I just got £20 for £10.

Hope this is not "old news" to you guys; but I thought some might be
interested.

No, AFAIA the fact that Oyster auto top-up has gone live is fresh news
to this newsgroup, though thanks to the detective work by Matthew
Dickinson in a uk.t.l thread back in July (linked to below - see [1])
the auto top-up system was seen to be coming over the horizon.

I've just logged in and had a look at how the auto top-up system will
work. Here's a few points.

- To set up auto top-up, you need to purchase at least £20 worth of
PrePay - regardless of what your Oyster Pre-Pay balance is. TfL says
(with reason) this is so "TfL [can] verify that the card details
provided by you for Auto top-up payments are accepted by your financial
institution".

- The amount for the auto top-up can be set at either £20 or £40, but
not at any other amount.

- Once you've set-up the auto topup on the web, you need to pass
through your nominated station once to pick up your Pre-Pay and the
'Auto top-up instruction' from the automatic gate (or Oyster reader at
ungated stations). Just to be clear - this is an electronic instruction
to your Oyster card, not an instruction you'll need to take from anyone
on person!

- Then, and this is the amazing bit, your Oyster card will then be
automatically topped up whenever it's below £5 and when you touch it
on a card reader (i.e. by going through an automatic gate, or by
touching on a reader at an ungated station) at *any* Tube or DLR
station - i.e. auto topup won't be consigned to happening at a single
nominated station, it'll happen whenever it's needed anywhere across
the Tube or DLR networks.

- Auto top-up won't work when passing through National Rail gatelines
on routes where Pre-Pay is valid (e.g. it won't work at Liverpool
Street station).

- And - and this'll surely rile some people here - auto top-up can't be
picked up from a Tube ticket machine, you'll have to actually touch-in
to travel the Tube/DLR in order for it to work.

I presume that the auto top-up system will kick in as needed when the
balance falls below £5 regardless of whether that is at beginning of a
journey, when touching in, or at the end of a journey when touching
out.

There's a load of new section of Q&A's on the Ask Oyster website, to go
straight Q&A's relating to auto top-up follow this link:
http://snipurl.com/AskOyster_autotopup

IMHO the auto top-up system is a positive development in the new age of
smart ticketing, even if we're only at the semi-smart stage so far.

[1]
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....0d37ea3aa320c4

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

umpston wrote:
Thanks Mark - good news. But I wish they would also introduce a
'post-pay' Oyster system with a monthly or quarterly bill for travel,
just like a phone or utility bill. TfL must have more than sufficient
financial turnover to be able to give credit, same as almost every
other major retailer or service provider.

I'm sure it's been considered, and maybe it may happen. Three quick
points to make on that though...

(1) Credit of any sort is a bit of a risky game, and TfL might baulk at
using their cash (which after all is public money) to provide credit.

(2) What do TfL gain, financially speaking? Nothing really. When people
buy up front then TfL has instant access to that money. If you were to
post-pay then TfL might have to wait up to a month to recieve the
revenue for a journey you did. TfL would far prefer to be earning the
interest from the cumulative stash of Pre Pay that's sat on their
database.

(3) If it was to happen, then I'm sure it would be along the lines of a
monthly mobile phone bill - i.e. that you must pay the whole balance
each month, as opposed to a credit card, where you can carry the
balance over from month to month (obviously at a cost of paying the
interest). Monthly billing such as this is a lesser category of
consumer credit agreement than the full blown credit-card style credit
agreement.

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

In message . com,
Mizter T writes
- And - and this'll surely rile some people here - auto top-up can't be
picked up from a Tube ticket machine, you'll have to actually touch-in
to travel the Tube/DLR in order for it to work.

It was looking ideal for me up to there....... :-)

I join the Underground system at many different stations, so online
topping up has always been a bit of a problem for me, it being difficult
to nominate a station to pick up the "charge" for the card.

I'm sure, though, that I could have managed this just once, after which
the Auto top up charging the card at any station would have been ideal.
However, because I used buses much more than tubes, it would be *much*
better for me to have been able to go to a tube ticket machine for this.
But I can't!

Oh well....... ;-)
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

Ian Jelf wrote:
In message . com,
Mizter T writes
- And - and this'll surely rile some people here - auto top-up can't be
picked up from a Tube ticket machine, you'll have to actually touch-in
to travel the Tube/DLR in order for it to work.

It was looking ideal for me up to there....... :-)

I join the Underground system at many different stations, so online
topping up has always been a bit of a problem for me, it being difficult
to nominate a station to pick up the "charge" for the card.

I'm sure, though, that I could have managed this just once, after which
the Auto top up charging the card at any station would have been ideal.
However, because I used buses much more than tubes, it would be *much*
better for me to have been able to go to a tube ticket machine for this.
But I can't!

Oh well....... ;-)

Well, there seems to be a possibility that auto top-up will be extended
to buses and trams, at least according to this 'Ask Oyster' answer. I
didn't think that'd be possible, but on thinking about it I reckon it
could be implemented. I guess the instruction for your chosen card to
be debited the set auto top-up amount would be sent from the Oyster
reader on the bus to the central database when the nightly
reconciliation occurs

[1] http://snipurl.com/autotopup_on_buses

Oyster - why not a 'post - pay' system ?

Mizter T wrote:
umpston wrote:
Thanks Mark - good news. But I wish they would also introduce a
'post-pay' Oyster system with a monthly or quarterly bill for travel,
just like a phone or utility bill. TfL must have more than sufficient
financial turnover to be able to give credit, same as almost every
other major retailer or service provider.

I'm sure it's been considered, and maybe it may happen. Three quick
points to make on that though...

(1) Credit of any sort is a bit of a risky game, and TfL might baulk at
using their cash (which after all is public money) to provide credit.

(2) What do TfL gain, financially speaking? Nothing really. When people
buy up front then TfL has instant access to that money. If you were to
post-pay then TfL might have to wait up to a month to recieve the
revenue for a journey you did. TfL would far prefer to be earning the
interest from the cumulative stash of Pre Pay that's sat on their
database.

(3) If it was to happen, then I'm sure it would be along the lines of a
monthly mobile phone bill - i.e. that you must pay the whole balance
each month, as opposed to a credit card, where you can carry the
balance over from month to month (obviously at a cost of paying the
interest). Monthly billing such as this is a lesser category of
consumer credit agreement than the full blown credit-card style credit
agreement.

I agree a monthly bill settling the whole balance is probably the best
option - after if you need more credit you could pay it with your
credit card! And if it is done by direct-debit (as with auto top-up)
there is little risk of non-payment.

Although TfL is, as you say, publicly owned I don't think this
justifies a lower standard of service in terms of payment options.
This form of payment has always been the norm with other utilities
(phone, gas, electricity etc) both before and after privatisation.

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

Also note that its possible to add several Oyster pre-pay cards to your
online account - and each one qualifies for a £10 discount whilst the
promotion is running.

So, buy 5 pre-pay cards with £20 credit, which TFL charges you £10 for
and get £100 of travel for £50 (£65 initial outlay as you have to pay £3
deposit per card, which you get back when you hand the card back in)

Cheers,

/Neil/

--
Web design, hosting and domain registration
http://www.spellings.net/

Hardware store
http://buyit.spellings.net

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

Ian Jelf wrote:
In message . com,
Mizter T writes

- And - and this'll surely rile some people here - auto top-up can't be
picked up from a Tube ticket machine, you'll have to actually touch-in
to travel the Tube/DLR in order for it to work.

It was looking ideal for me up to there....... :-)
[snip]
However, because I used buses much more than tubes, it would be *much*
better for me to have been able to go to a tube ticket machine for this.
But I can't!

I have a similar but different problem - I've registered for auto
top-up, got the extra £10 bonus credit, and now I've got get to a tube
ticket barrier to claim it within 8 days (or it gets refunded).

Does this mean that in order to "receive my auto top-up instruction"
I've got to pay for a journey? I generally travel into a mainline
station by train, and only use the tube occasionally - it's easy enough
to walk up to the barrier, but I probably won't want to go anywhere!

Has anyone tried this yet? Does the barrier require two swipes of your
card - i.e. one to load the credit and another to start the journey?

I'm guessing that when I've claimed my auto-pay instruction, the next
thing I have to do is go to the window and get the staff to cancel the
journey I didn't want to start?

(The beauty of pre-pay Oyster for me is that I can pre-load the card and
then when I do make the odd tube journey, I don't have to queue for a
ticket - once set up auto top-up will make that even easier - but I
probably won't use the tube in the next 8 days).

OysterCard PrePay Auto Top-up

I have a similar but different problem - I've registered for auto
top-up, got the extra £10 bonus credit, and now I've got get to a tube
ticket barrier to claim it within 8 days (or it gets refunded).

You need to go to your *nominated* station or it gets refunded.

Also in that case auto top up would not be set up on your card.