I know it's only a quid, and I probably won't bother, but it's a matter of
principle.

I left the house this morning and got on the bus. I knew that my monthly
season ticket had run out yesterday and I also knew that Londis (my local
shop) does not take credit or debit cards and I didn't have £105 on me in
cash and the cashpoint is too far (unless I spend £1.50 commission on the
cashpoint inside Londis).

As I have £25 credit on my Oyster for when I go over zone 3, I reckoned
that I should just take the bus to Plaistow, purchase my monthly season
ticket starting today with my debit card, and claim back the pound.

I was told that at the booking office that was impossible, there was
nothing I could do, that that pound was lost.

Now, I'm sure I'd read differently. And I wouldn't put is past the ticket
sellers to give out misinformation. But I just wanted to make absolutely
certain.

I mean, after all, if you leave your season ticket behind by mistake and
have to pay for tickets for a day, you can claim that back - or you used to
be able to.

SO if I pay £1 to get on a bus where I am going to be buying a monthly
season ticket that would make that bus journey legal, how come I can't
claim that £1 back?

Don't want to sound like a cheapskate here, it's more curiosity and
principle than anything else. After all, £1 can buy you jack diddly in town
these days....

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:16:08 -0600, Tristán White wrote:

Now, I'm sure I'd read differently. And I wouldn't put is past the ticket
sellers to give out misinformation. But I just wanted to make absolutely
certain.

I mean, after all, if you leave your season ticket behind by mistake and
have to pay for tickets for a day, you can claim that back - or you used to
be able to.

Yes, but that assumes that when you get on the bus, you already have a
season ticket which is valid for that day.

On Jan 30, 12:16 am, "Tristán White"
wrote:
I know it's only a quid, and I probably won't bother, but it's a matter of
principle.

I left the house this morning and got on the bus. I knew that my monthly
season ticket had run out yesterday and I also knew that Londis (my local
shop) does not take credit or debit cards and I didn't have £105 on me in
cash and the cashpoint is too far (unless I spend £1.50 commission on the
cashpoint inside Londis).

As I have £25 credit on my Oyster for when I go over zone 3, I reckoned
that I should just take the bus to Plaistow, purchase my monthly season
ticket starting today with my debit card, and claim back the pound.

I was told that at the booking office that was impossible, there was
nothing I could do, that that pound was lost.

Now, I'm sure I'd read differently. And I wouldn't put is past the ticket
sellers to give out misinformation. But I just wanted to make absolutely
certain.

I mean, after all, if you leave your season ticket behind by mistake and
have to pay for tickets for a day, you can claim that back - or you used to
be able to.

SO if I pay £1 to get on a bus where I am going to be buying a monthly
season ticket that would make that bus journey legal, how come I can't
claim that £1 back?

Don't want to sound like a cheapskate here, it's more curiosity and
principle than anything else. After all, £1 can buy you jack diddly in town
these days....


For some reason, it seems to me that it's not the same if you've
already bought a season and left it at home while spending your £1 as
it is if you spend your £1 while in the state of being going to buy a
season later, even if the season would have covered you for the whole
day.

Whether my feeling is embodied in any rules (probably just for
discretion anyway), I don't know.

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:16:08 -0600, "Tristán White"
wrote:

I know it's only a quid, and I probably won't bother, but it's a matter of
principle.

I can sympathise. Somehow adding a season should ideally cap the day's
usage so you get the pound back, otherwise it's 1/7th of a 7day + one
pound, which is often more than simple PAYG usage. Sadly it doesn't
work that way. For my intermittent usage of the central line, day 1
involves a walk to the toob stn for that reason, skipping the bus.

PAYG can add to season (add-on for out of zone) but the technology
doesn't do "hang on, bus quid back".

--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:16:08 -0600, "Tristán White"
wrote:

I know it's only a quid, and I probably won't bother, but it's a matter of
principle.

I left the house this morning and got on the bus. I knew that my monthly
season ticket had run out yesterday and I also knew that Londis (my local
shop) does not take credit or debit cards and I didn't have £105 on me in
cash and the cashpoint is too far (unless I spend £1.50 commission on the
cashpoint inside Londis).

As I have £25 credit on my Oyster for when I go over zone 3, I reckoned
that I should just take the bus to Plaistow, purchase my monthly season
ticket starting today with my debit card, and claim back the pound.

I was told that at the booking office that was impossible, there was
nothing I could do, that that pound was lost.

The ticket seller was correct.

Now, I'm sure I'd read differently. And I wouldn't put is past the ticket
sellers to give out misinformation. But I just wanted to make absolutely
certain.

You might not put it past ticket sellers but I can assure you they are
not trained to lie to passengers. They might not know the answer to
every conceivable question but that is an entirely different matter.

I mean, after all, if you leave your season ticket behind by mistake and
have to pay for tickets for a day, you can claim that back - or you used to
be able to.

That would be the ticket that you have already purchased and paid for.
Rather different from your example.

SO if I pay £1 to get on a bus where I am going to be buying a monthly
season ticket that would make that bus journey legal, how come I can't
claim that £1 back?

You have to have a valid season to travel on the bus for nothing
otherwise you pay via PAYG or cash. There is no rule that entitles you
to travel and then claim back whatever has accrued prior to purchasing
or uploading a season ticket on to an Oyster card on the same day. You
can't claim it back because there is no entitlement to do so and never
has been.

As you knew when your season ticket was running out was there something
that prevented you renewing at some point in the previous 30 days at a
LU office or 7 days at a ticket stop or 4 days at the large LU ticket
machine? As the system is now much more flexible than it used to be for
renewals it should be pretty easy to collect your ticket in advance and
then have a seamless transition between old and new seasons thus
avoiding the need to pay out your £1 PAYG bus fare.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote in
:

SNIP
You have to have a valid season to travel on the bus for nothing
otherwise you pay via PAYG or cash. There is no rule that entitles you
to travel and then claim back whatever has accrued prior to purchasing
or uploading a season ticket on to an Oyster card on the same day. You
can't claim it back because there is no entitlement to do so and never
has been.
SNIP


Fair enough (and thanks to the other people who replied to my post). I'll
accept that £1 as lost and that it's my silly fault.

But I think it would be a nice thing to bring it in at some future date -
somehow include previously paid single journeys on PAYG as part of season
ticket purchases that start on the day those journeys were paid.

I now know that's not possible at present, but perhaps someone will have
the foresight to introduce it in future. It's not as though anyone's trying
to "rip off the system" and I'm willingly boarding a bus and using PAYG....

Surely it can't be too difficult to implement at a future date.

Tristán White wrote:

Fair enough (and thanks to the other people who replied to my post). I'll
accept that £1 as lost and that it's my silly fault.

But I think it would be a nice thing to bring it in at some future date -
somehow include previously paid single journeys on PAYG as part of season
ticket purchases that start on the day those journeys were paid.

One thing that *is* possible, however, if you need to buy a *National
Rail* Single or Return to start your journey, then get a Season (or a
longer distance ticket), is use the cost of that daily ticket as part
payment.

Cheers,

Barry

Tristán White wrote
[...]
But I think it would be a nice thing to bring it in at some future
date -
somehow include previously paid single journeys on PAYG as part of
season
ticket purchases that start on the day those journeys were paid.

I now know that's not possible at present, but perhaps someone will
have
the foresight to introduce it in future. It's not as though anyone's
trying
to "rip off the system" and I'm willingly boarding a bus and using
PAYG....

Surely it can't be too difficult to implement at a future date.

Someone quite recently listed all the complications this might entail.

Like if you went out of zone after buying the season and were then
capped.

Might have auto renew like auto top up though, so when you touched in
on the bus or anywhere within zone you got a new season forthwith if
that was what you had set up. This would be handy since it would work
in the extreme case that you had just been on holiday for more than 30
days or whatever.

--
Mike D

On Jan 30, 1:16 am, "Tristán White"
wrote:

SO if I pay £1 to get on a bus where I am going to be buying a monthly
season ticket that would make that bus journey legal, how come I can't
claim that £1 back?

Here's a different idea - why not, with Oyster Pre-Pay, just drop the
idea of season tickets completely?

The replacement could be based on the Oyster cap and "charge
discounts" - i.e. if you put, say, gbp100 on your Oyster you get
gbp150 of credit, and if you put on gbp1000 you get gbp2000 of credit,
or whatever ratios would give a suitable replacement for weekly,
monthly and annual seasons, and perhaps an additional "12 month
contract direct debit" option.

Why not, TfL?

Neil

Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 30, 1:16 am, "Tristán White"
wrote:

SO if I pay £1 to get on a bus where I am going to be buying a monthly
season ticket that would make that bus journey legal, how come I can't
claim that £1 back?

Here's a different idea - why not, with Oyster Pre-Pay, just drop the
idea of season tickets completely?

The replacement could be based on the Oyster cap and "charge
discounts" - i.e. if you put, say, gbp100 on your Oyster you get
gbp150 of credit, and if you put on gbp1000 you get gbp2000 of credit,
or whatever ratios would give a suitable replacement for weekly,
monthly and annual seasons, and perhaps an additional "12 month
contract direct debit" option.

Why not, TfL?

Neil

Might be related to the number of journeys you can store on the card -
an "annual cap" would require an awful lot of journey information to be
stored somewhere. Even if it weren't on the card itself and the cap was
sorted out overnight via batch processing, imagine doing that for
Xmillion Oyster cards. However, I am not an expert. Season tickets may
be on their way out anyway - it's early days with Oyster, and all the
Oyster products to date have been rolled out in a way that is meant to
minimise confusion to users (and minimise the risk of things going
wrong), by introducing new features gradually over time.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London