Richard M Willis wrote:
"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message

Yebbut if you get caught not touching in, you may end up with a £20
Penalty Fare. That might not be 'best'...

Do you have to touch in if you are using a travelcard, rather than
PrePay ? I thought it was only PP users who had to touch all over the
place ?

You need not touch in or out if you have a Travelcard loaded on your
Oyster that is valid for the entire journey. However if you're going to
travel out-of-zone on the Underground - i.e. go beyond the zones that
are covered by your Travelcard - then you'll need to ensure you
touch-in at the beginning of your journey, and touch-out at the end.
This is because you are combining the Travelcard with the Oyster
Pre-Pay function (the Pre-Pay function provides the ticket extension
for your out-of-zone travels).


An example - if you have a zones 1&2 Travelcard loaded on your Oyster
and normally travel from Olympia (an ungated station) to Temple on the
District line, there's no need to touch-in at the start of your
journey.

But if one day you were to travel out to Upminster (in zone 6), you
should touch-in at the start of your journey (on the Oyster readers at
Olympia) so when you get to Upminster the system knows where you've
come from and charges you accordingly (for the journey from zone 2 to
zone 6). If you didn't touch in, then as soon as you gott out of Zones
1 or 2 you'd be travelling without a valid ticket and subject to a
Penalty Fare.

If however you were to travel from Olympia up to Harrow & Wealdstone on
the direct National Rail Southern service, as Pre-Pay is not valid on
that route you'd need to buy a paper ticket extension to cover you from
the boundary of zone 2 up to H&W.

Hope that makes some kind of sense.