Oyster Card fare capping - question

[jaapstam]

Hello everybody,

I am in London as a tourist currently and am using the "regular" Oyster Card ("regular" meaning not the tourist one).

This Saturday I have made quite a few trips by tube, bus and DLR. I am quite sure that I "qualified" for fare capping as after the latest trips the barriers indicated "£ 0,-" when I left the station and a remaining amount on the Oyster card.

I didn't follow this Information during the next trips as it seemed obvious to me that fare capping is used for the rest of the day.

In the early evening I made a trip from Waterloo to North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line and visited a concert in the O2. After the concert I planned to use the Jubilee Line to West Ham and the Hammersmith and City Line from there to Euston Square where my hotel is. (I know Jubilee plus Northern Lines might have been the faster option but that's not part of the story).

Arriving at West Ham I thought about leaving the station and look for something to drink in a Newsagents or Sainsbury's Local. "No problem to check out and back in" I thought, as my fare is capped anyway.

I couldn't find an open shop and therefore went back into the station only a couple of minutes after leaving it. The ticket barrier wouldn't open but asked me to top up my Oyster Card!??! The ticket machine told me my Oyster Card had a balance of -£ 0,40 which I don't unterstand.

I topped it with £ 10 and made my way to Euston Square. Unfortunately no information at the ticket barrier there whether or not I was charged for this trip either.

Does anybody have an explanation for me what I might have done wrong?

 

[Camden]

West Ham is in Zone 3. Are you sure you had enough on the card to cover that?

Zone 1 - 2 capping is £6.40. Go into Zone 3 and it goes up to £7.50.

The easiest thing to do would be to log into your TfL account and view your journey history, that should give you the answer as all capped journeys are marked. If there is an error then you may be able to get a refund of the bit that's over.

 

[Dent]

The easiest thing to do would be to log into your TfL account and view your journey history, that should give you the answer as all capped journeys are marked. If there is an error then you may be able to get a refund of the bit that's over.

You're assuming that the OP has a TfL account, which I don't see stated anywhere and wouldn't automatically assume a tourist has.

The easiest way to check your Oyster history if you haven't got a TfL account is on a ticket machine at a London Underground station.

 

[MikeWh]

Hello everybody,

I am in London as a tourist currently and am using the "regular" Oyster Card ("regular" meaning not the tourist one).

This Saturday I have made quite a few trips by tube, bus and DLR. I am quite sure that I "qualified" for fare capping as after the latest trips the barriers indicated "£ 0,-" when I left the station and a remaining amount on the Oyster card.

Would I be right in gussing that the remaining amount was £0.70?

I didn't follow this Information during the next trips as it seemed obvious to me that fare capping is used for the rest of the day.

In the early evening I made a trip from Waterloo to North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line and visited a concert in the O2. After the concert I planned to use the Jubilee Line to West Ham and the Hammersmith and City Line from there to Euston Square where my hotel is. (I know Jubilee plus Northern Lines might have been the faster option but that's not part of the story).

Arriving at West Ham I thought about leaving the station and look for something to drink in a Newsagents or Sainsbury's Local. "No problem to check out and back in" I thought, as my fare is capped anyway.

I couldn't find an open shop and therefore went back into the station only a couple of minutes after leaving it. The ticket barrier wouldn't open but asked me to top up my Oyster Card!??! The ticket machine told me my Oyster Card had a balance of -£ 0,40 which I don't unterstand.

As has been suggested, West Ham is currently* in zone 3. You had probably capped at the zone 1-2 figure of £6.40. When you touched out at West Ham the gates will have let you out, but they should have alerted you to the fact that an extra £1.10 had been charged for the journey from North Greenwich. As you only had 70p this left you 40p overdrawn. The gates let you out as they won't trap you in the system when you first go negative, but they wouldn't let you in until you had rectified the issue.

I topped it with £ 10 and made my way to Euston Square. Unfortunately no information at the ticket barrier there whether or not I was charged for this trip either.

Does anybody have an explanation for me what I might have done wrong?

You didn't actually do anything wrong (apart from not realising that you needed a bit more to go via West Ham). The Euston Square gates are probably the old type which don't say any more than Enter/Exit. There might have been a small display near the touch pad, but if you're not expecting to see it then it's very easy to miss. You won't have been charged for this journey as the £1.10 deduction took you up to the zone 1-3 cap.

* No help to you, but on Jan 2nd the boundary of zones 2/3 is moving so the whole of the Jubilee line between North Greenwich and Stratford will be in both zones.

 

[jaapstam]

Camden, Dent, MikeWh, thank you very much for your responses.

I wasn't aware that fare capping outside zones 1 and 2 starts at another amount as inside, what is quite logical to me.

Although I cannot recapitulate the whole thing completely, I am pretty sure what you describe is the solution to my question.

Once again thank you very much for your quick responses and explanations.