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Short answer:
The pink oyster reader did function correctly, in the sense that it has registered your journey as one that avoids zone 1. However, since you used a Southern service in between your journey, you are charged a mixed Transport for London (TfL) + National Rail (NR) fare instead, which is slightly more expensive than a TfL only journey.
The ...
38
For the most part, tube trains travel on the left. So, if you have a reference to the other platform, you can deduce in which direction the train will be travelling.
On a few of the older cut-and-cover lines, we have two tracks running down the middle with platforms on either side (i.e., you can look across the tracks and see the other platform). For ...
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No it is not rude. I've lived in London most of my life and travelled in hundreds of black cabs and can assure you that cabbies really do not care what you get up to in the back of the cab -- as long as you pay the fare, give them a decent tip and don't spill food/drink/bodily fluid.
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I've been in a similar situation many times when travelling during business hours to/from meetings - or, often, when going to the airport - where I've had to jump in on conference calls where I knew it would be for the duration of the ride.
I usually excuse myself before the call, letting them know that I'm going to be on a call (even if I'm not talking). ...
34
Transaction Fees for Foreign Cards
If your bank charges you a fee, as well as a percentage, for every transaction you make in a foreign currency, you could save quite a bit by topping up an oyster card once every so often as opposed to using a contactless payment card every day. For example my bank charges me 3€ + 2% for each non Euro transaction. This would ...
34
Look for the end of the platform with TV screens. These are at the front of the train in the direction of travel because the driver uses these screens to view when it is safe to close the doors.
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If you've got a contactless credit or debit card, you don't need an oyster card. Since September 2014 you can just tap in using that contactless card everywhere you can use an Oyster card, and it charges you the same rate as an Oyster card, with the same daily capping policy.
(there are other high tech "contactless" options too like NFC smartphone apps ...
answered Jul 24 '15 at 12:34
user56reinstatemonica8
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28
Tourists planning to visit the UK can actually buy a Visitor Oyster card in their home countries, if they live in one of 24 countries where local travel agents sell the cards. For instance, people in the US can visit Rail Europe or VisitBritain Shop to purchase a Visitor Oyster card before leaving. If you aren't in one of those countries, the TfL Visitor ...
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If you have an Oyster with a valid travelcard for zones 1-3, and you travel outside those zones, you will pay an extension fare for only the zones that the travelcard doesn't cover.
For zone 4, this should be the price for a trip within zone 4 only. If you went to zone 6, it would be the price for zone 4 to zone 6.
Warning: if your Oyster card has no pay ...
25
Weekly travelcard: Contactless weekly travelcard is only from Monday to Sunday, so if you arrive and leave mid-week, you might get better rates if you still get an Oyster card, and buy a weekly travelcard on that.
On the other hand it might still be cheaper if you don't intend to travel every day for 7 days to just use your Contactless and use the daily ...
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For a general offline case, get a paper street atlas of the city you're in, and learn what symbols to look for for their trains, metros/undergrounds, trams etc! For a general online case, much the same with google maps or similar. Maybe not apple maps, as covered humorously here
For London specifically, there are two maps that spring to mind. One has been ...
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If you just want to get from Heathrow to Oxford - Don't take the train!
Until they get round to building the western approach spur into Heathrow, taking the train between Heathrow and Oxford is a faff, and it isn't all that cheap either. You either need to take a train into Paddington, change platforms, then head back out to Oxford (minimum journey time 1:...
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Here's a some things an observant rider will see:
Which direction are the local riders watching for the train.
Which end of the platform has White (Victoria and Central) or Green (all other lines) signal lights.
Which way are other trains going (you'll also have to note the type of platform Transfer and Local vs Express). This is often useful on the Circle,...
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Ask a station attendant (if there are any) or one or more people waiting.
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You get an Oyster card from the machine at a tube station. As for the refund
Oyster Card Refunds
The £5 deposit you pay for an Oyster card is
refundable along with any pre-pay (Pay as you go) money left on the
card.
Before you claim a refund, it’s worth bearing in mind that if you’ve
used your Oyster card on a Pay as you go basis and it’s not loaded
with a ...
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If you try and use the contactless Oyster twice in a row (ie to let a second person through on your card) for a trip from A to B, it'll error. You're required to touch out first before you can touch in again, and then the first person wouldn't be allowed to travel as they've touched out at A.
Source: TFL official site:
Number of people using an Oyster ...
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My intuition as a Londoner was that this was absolutely fine, but then I had a moment of self-doubt and worried that maybe I'd been being rude in not talking much to cabbies all these years.
So I sought out this ethnographic study of cab drivers:
Inside the Mind of a Cabbie (RSA)
and that has confirmed my impression that the time and space are basically ...
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The terminology does get confusing. Basically, you have an Oyster card with:
A "7-day Zone 1 & 2 Travelcard" on it. This gives you free travel within Zones 1 & 2 for 7 days. It is worth £33 and it will...
...let you travel as often as you like on bus, Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground and National Rail services within the London travel zones [in ...
answered Mar 30 '17 at 15:38
user56reinstatemonica8
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18
One of the issues that could be encountered when using Apple Pay or Google Wallet for your contactless travel is when your device runs out of battery after you've started a journey - you will not be able to "tap out" and then will be charged the full penalty fare.
Most devices with contactless payment are still relatively new, but we all know that with time,...
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Here is a Freedom of Information request where someone asked that. The response they got from Transport for London included:
By way of an example, for a through journey from East Croydon (zone 5) to
Hatch End (zone 6) – a Z1-6 journey - with a zone 1-2 Travelcard, the
relevant extension fare is through Z3-6 (£3.50 undiscounted Adult Peak –
see ...
answered Jul 8 '18 at 13:53
hmakholm left over Monica
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17
Getting to and from Heathrow
By train
The Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express services will operate as usual. Neither do usually accept Oyster cards, but it might be worth checking on the day. They both terminate at Paddington station; the Connect stops at several stations along the way. Travellers could get the Connect to Hayes and Harlington, then ...
17
I phoned TfL to find the answer to this. It's simple and straightforward:
The rate depends on when you touch in.
Peak fares apply from 06:30 to 09:29 and from 16:00 to 18:59 Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays). Off-peak fares apply at all other times. That is, if you touch in during those two three-hour periods, you will be charged the peak fare.
If ...
17
Your assumption that TfL and SWT are working together is wrong - at least so far as fare setting goes. And there are in fact four different fares available to you - although only the first two involve a reasonable journey; the two more expensive ones will be slower than at least one of the cheaper options.
State owned TfL in agreement with the Mayor sets ...
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The Piccadilly Line does not normally serve these stations (Ravenscourt Park, Stamford Brook, Turnham Green (except as indicated) and Chiswick Park)), and I cannot find any westbound weekend early morning services that are scheduled to do on the Piccadilly Line working timetable.
Between these stations, the District and Piccadilly lines run on separate ...
16
One Person per Journey for all Contactless Methods
To add on to @MarkMayo's answer, the same rules apply for payment across all contactless methods (Oyster and Contactless-card): you can pay for only one person per journey with contactless methods. Quoting from TFL's website on the topic:
Touching in and out
[...]
Like Oyster, you can only pay for one ...
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What you want here is the Avoiding stairs Tube guide, linked from the TfL Accessibility guides page.
In this guide you will see that all the Heathrow stations, as well as King’s Cross St. Pancras, are marked with Lift access between street and platform, and additionally all have the Platforms with designated level access boarding point indication, which ...
16
Oyster and Visitor Oyster are more alike than they are different. They are both stored-value cards that deduct the price of trips as you make them, up to a daily cap. Journey prices and coverage are the same for both variants. Each kind of card can be topped up with cash or credit at machines found all over the system, if you find yourself using more than ...
answered Apr 22 '16 at 14:35
hmakholm left over Monica
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15
I strongly recommend the "Airline" bus service over the train. I live in Oxford and fly from Heathrow several times a year: I always use the bus and wouldn't even consider the train.
It's cheaper: about £30 vs about £40 for a one-month return.
It's faster: about 75-90 minutes for the bus, vs 100-150 minutes for the train via London.
It runs 24 hours, though ...
15
In lieu of a link-only answer...
A signal failure can refer to a number of situations... It can be down
to a track circuit failure which means that the signaller cannot
guarantee the safety of the train as he is unable to see on their
screen or panel that the section of line is clear of any other trains.
It could be down to one of the Train ...
14
There are a number of discounts that are only available on Oyster - you can get these discounts loaded up on an Oyster card and they are then automatically applied at the ticket gate, but this can't be done for contactless cards.
For a regular commuter, most importantly there's also the Annual Gold Card discount. You get this for having any annual season ...
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