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.

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.

In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

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.

Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any use
for auto-top up?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have
any use for auto-top up?

Convenience?

I appreciate that this convenience comes at a cost. But let's quantify
the cost.

An occasional user is likely to opt to add GBP 20 every time the balance
on the card falls below GBP 10. So let's assume an average balance of
GBP 20.

We then have to look at the cost of that money. If the user is running
credit card debts on which the interest rate is 20 per cent the extra
borrowing of an average GBP 20 at 20 percent costs GBP 4 a year.
If OTOH the money would be in a savings account yielding 1.5 per cent
after tax the cost would be 30 pence a year.

I don't know how many users would see 30 pence or 4 pounds as a
reasonable price to pay to save the time/worry/risks of manual top-ups.
But I don't see it as out-of-the question. Eg if a user values their
own time at GBP 10 an hour those costs equate to 2 or 24 minutes.
Compared with logging on to top-up manually online, in shops or at
ticket machines............




--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

"Robin" wrote:
Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have
any use for auto-top up?

Convenience?

I appreciate that this convenience comes at a cost. But let's quantify
the cost.

An occasional user is likely to opt to add GBP 20 every time the balance
on the card falls below GBP 10. So let's assume an average balance of
GBP 20.

We then have to look at the cost of that money. If the user is running
credit card debts on which the interest rate is 20 per cent the extra
borrowing of an average GBP 20 at 20 percent costs GBP 4 a year.
If OTOH the money would be in a savings account yielding 1.5 per cent
after tax the cost would be 30 pence a year.

I don't know how many users would see 30 pence or 4 pounds as a
reasonable price to pay to save the time/worry/risks of manual top-ups.
But I don't see it as out-of-the question. Eg if a user values their
own time at GBP 10 an hour those costs equate to 2 or 24 minutes.
Compared with logging on to top-up manually online, in shops or at
ticket machines............

The key thing for an occasional user is not having to nominate a gate line
for the top-up to be collected, nor having to queue for the busy ticket
machines at a major station. What's more, it can be activated on buses and
trams, unlike a normal online top-up.

In message , at 01:55:00
on Mon, 6 Oct 2014, remarked:
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.

Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any use
for auto-top up?

To avoid having to queue to top-up when they do arrive in London. I know
you don't like having more than a couple of quid on your Oyster card but
others could appreciate the convenience. I used to (when travelling down
from Nottingham where the typical train fare was already £75 a trip).
--
Roland Perry

On 06/10/2014 07:55, wrote:
[...]
Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any use
for auto-top up?


Because they don't want to fuss around topping up when they visit, they
can just touch-in and go.

Though if they've got a contactless payment card, they can now do this
directly with said card, no need for the Oyster card:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contactless

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On 06/10/2014 07:55, wrote:
[...]
Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any
use
for auto-top up?


Because they don't want to fuss around topping up when they visit, they
can just touch-in and go.

Though if they've got a contactless payment card, they can now do this
directly with said card, no need for the Oyster card:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contactless

If I didn't already have an Oyster card registered with auto-top-up I don't
think I would bother getting one now. Maybe the OP would be better off
cancelling his Oyster card (can that be done online?) and putting pressure
on his bank to give him a contactless debit/credit card if he doesn't
already have one. At least he wouldn't have to worry about card clash ...

--
DAS

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
01:55:00 on Mon, 6 Oct 2014, remarked:
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.

Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any
use for auto-top up?

To avoid having to queue to top-up when they do arrive in London. I
know you don't like having more than a couple of quid on your Oyster
card but others could appreciate the convenience. I used to (when
travelling down from Nottingham where the typical train fare was
already £75 a trip).

I never queue for top-ups because I mainly use Oyster Ticket Stops. But then
I spend well under £20 a year on Oyster. Would anyone visiting 2 or 3 times
a year spend even that?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 18:26:53
on Mon, 6 Oct 2014, remarked:
Why on earth would anyone who visits London 2 or 3 times a year have any
use for auto-top up?

To avoid having to queue to top-up when they do arrive in London. I
know you don't like having more than a couple of quid on your Oyster
card but others could appreciate the convenience. I used to (when
travelling down from Nottingham where the typical train fare was
already £75 a trip).

I never queue for top-ups because I mainly use Oyster Ticket Stops. But then
I spend well under £20 a year on Oyster. Would anyone visiting 2 or 3 times
a year spend even that?

The peak cap is £8.40 (off-peak £7) so you could easily run that up in
three trips. Although I think auto-topup was originally £10.

The card I had it set up on has been withdrawn now, so I've been topping
up on arrival at Kings Cross, which is much better now they have three
ticket concourses. I can't use contactless as neither of my 'business
expenses' debit cards is contactless.
--
Roland Perry