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I have a Zone 2-3 weekly travelcard. Today I used it on a bunch of buses (no charge) but when I took the trains in Zone 2/3, I was charged.

Specifically, my journey was from Hammersmith to North Acton. I incorrectly entered the District and Picadilly line station, not realizing that the Circle Line was elsewhere. I exited and then took the Circle Line from Hammersmith to Wood Lane. I changed then to White City and took the train to North Acton.

I was charged £2.70 for this (see attached images). Is this an incorrect charge or did I misunderstand where I can use my Zone 2-3 travelcard? This is a student photocard Oyster on which I bought the travelcard. If the charge is incorrect, can I get it reversed by TFL?

EDIT: Charge was reversed after I sent an email

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  • Did you use the Oyster card alone on the reader? Or do you maybe have multiple cards in a wallet and you touched that? The system seems to have missed some of your entrances.
    – jcaron
    Apr 30 at 21:16
  • No, it caught my Wood Lane exit and White City entrance if that's what you mean. It counts as an interchange since Wood Lane and White City are right next to each other. Let me know if I misunderstood your comment
    – user1936752
    Apr 30 at 21:18
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    To me it looks like it missed the Hammersmith Circle/Hammersmith & City line entrance and maybe the White City entrance (hence the last 3 trips starting at Hammersmith D&P). But try filing a claim with the details, given the exit at Wood Lane it’s quite obvious you took the Circle or Hammersmith & City lines.
    – jcaron
    Apr 30 at 21:28

2 Answers 2

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I confess to being no expert, but in my experience, entering and immediately exiting the same station is an Oystercard (and contactless) no-no. On the odd occasions I've done that on contactless, I've been charged. I have learned that the correct procedure is not to exit via the ticket barriers, but to remain within the barriers, go to the "Excess Fare"/Assistance window, and ask for the entry to be voided. Apparently this is perfectly do-able as long as you don't touch out; once you've passed out, the journey is much more set in stone.

I strongly suspect that, had you got your Hammersmith (D&P) entry voided, the whole journey would have shown up as "Hammersmith (H&C) to North Acton", which would have been included in your Travelcard cover, and thus not charged.

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I think you've caught a strange flaw and should report this to TfL - unless I am missing something, I think you're due a refund.

Now,

What happened?

You were charged an off-peak Zone 1 fare. This is because for whatever reason, Wood Lane to North Acton is defined as a Zone 1 - 3 journey, when it shouldn't be.

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Note that the £2.80 shown is a Zone 1 - 2 fare; in your case, only a Zone 1 fare was collected as you have a Zone 2 - 3 travelcard.

Now, I can't see why that could be the case. After all, you only exited Wood Lane to make use of an OSI (out of station interchange, where exiting and re-entering a different station is not considered as starting a new journey). White City to North Acton is after all, a Zone 2 - 2 journey for which you wouldn't be charged! The Hammersmith part is irrelevant in this case.

What you need to do is to contact TfL and point out the above flaw. What they need to do is fix the mapping so that Wood Lane - North Acton is defined as a Zone 2 - (2/3) journey, rather than a Zone 1 - (2/3) journey.

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  • Actually, there is another potential error. My screenshots show that a journey was made from Hammersmith(D&P) to Wood Lane but it should have been Hammersmith(H&C) to Wood Lane. The former is a Zone 1 journey and the latter is not. Note that the system did register my accidental entrace and immediate exit into Hammersmith (D&P) and correctly did not charge me since that's in Zone 2. After that, I went to the Hammersmith (H&C) line. There's no way I could use D&P to get to Wood Lane that quickly so that's proof that I used the correct Zone 2 route. Not sure if it's two errors or one.
    – user1936752
    Apr 30 at 21:24
  • I guess entering at Wood Lane and exiting at North Acton assumes you went through some crazy (Zone 1 inclusive) route. It doesn't seem to account for you entering Wood Lane, exiting it immediately and walking over to White City, which to be fair is a slightly weird thing to do.
    – user1936752
    Apr 30 at 21:53
  • @user1936752 The Hammersmith (D&P) part is expected. This is because while in your case it's a mistake, changing from D&P to C&H/C is normal for other travellers. It's a valid OSI, which takes precedence over entry-and-exit-from-same-station procedures (which wouldn't matter in your case as someone with a valid travelcard, but if they were using pay-as-you-go it would result in a maximum deduction till they enter again within 45 minutes).
    – Leaderboard
    May 1 at 5:03
  • Ah I see. So it's counting it as an OSI and hence charging me a Zone 1 fare D&P to North Acton. I understand how the TFL logic works lol. I will ask for a refund and update here.
    – user1936752
    May 1 at 13:32

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