Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sun, 5 Oct 2014 18:33:24 +0200, Escher64
wrote:


Hi all, I live outside of London but visit 2 or 3 times a year. I want
to top up my Oyster card online but the site is telling me I need to
nominate a station and touch my card at the yellow card reader at said
station to activate my purchase. Can anyone tell me in laymans terms
what I need to be doing here, and do I need to do it every time I want
to top up. Thanks all.

Hopefully this explanation won't sound too simplistic.

Think of your Oyster top up ordered on line as a "parcel". You need
to collect the "parcel" and therefore need to agree with TfL what your
preferred collection point is. When you tap your Oyster card on a
ticket gate or validator reader the "parcel" is collected and the
value is added to your card.

If you are planning to visit London and will be making a rail journey
(Tube, DLR, Overground, National Rail) then you can nominate the first
station you expect to use. Provided you order on line 1 day in advance
(I think it's one day - the website makes this clear) then TfL will
send the top up value to the devices at your nominated station. When
you touch in to start your rail journey the top up value will be added
to your card balance.

The value cannot be sent to buses as there is not enough capacity on
bus ticket machines to store all the possible top ups that could be
collected on any of the thousands of buses in service across London.
The top up is also NOT collectable at a ticket machine. You might as
well just go to the machine and top up anyway!

It is best not to plan things where you need to enter through a gate
to collect the top up and then exit immediately because you'll be
charged a fare up to the value of the maximum fare (depends on how
quickly or slowly you enter then exit).

In essence on line top up works best when you know you will make a
rail journey and you know where you will start from. You do need to
"collect" any online top up at a nominated station - you specify this
each time you order.

You can top up at LU / Overground ticket offices, a small number of
National Rail ticket offices, at Ticket Stops (newsagents across
Greater London) or on ticket machines at LU, DLR, Overground and
National Rail stations across London. You do not have to top up
online if you don't want to.

Clearly some stations in London can be extremely busy with long queues
but even somewhere like Kings Cross, notoriously busy in the tube
station, will have passenger operated ticket machines in the National
Rail bit of the station that will do top ups but won't be overloaded
with people. Alternatively there may be a Ticket Stop within 2
minutes walk.

Once you've topped up once this way, isn't it better to switch to auto
top-up? It doesn't apply to me any more, as a lucky Freedom passholder,
but as I recall, once your on-line top-up has been successfully collected
from a gate, subsequent auto top-ups don't need this form of validation.