On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 21:00:16 +0100, "Demiurge" wrote:

Hi,

I decided to top up my Oyster card online last month. I usually only use the
bus but had to touch in at a station to activate my topup, so I chose East
Croydon tram stop, and the green light duly flashed 3 times. Then I went
round the corner and caught the bus. Looking at my history, I see:-

8:48 East Croydon tram stop Action: Top-up Fare £50.00 Balance £57.40
8:48 East Croydon tram stop Action: Entry Fa £1.00 Balance £56.40

Then again entry fare of £1.00 for my bus at 8:57. Given that I usually only
use the bus (except when I used the tram to Wimbledon yesterday, as a result
of a response that I got to my earlier "Oyster Question" thread about
travelling to the Science Museum), how should I handle my top-up next time,
in order to avoid the unwanted extra "Entry" charge?

In this case I assume you did not use the tram after the £1 charge? If
so I would call the Oyster helpdesk and ask them to credit you the £1.

I understand you can now have an Oyster card that is encoded to work
with Auto Top Up on buses. This means that whenever your balance falls
below £5 after a charge has been deducted that the next time your card
is presented on a reader a pre-set amount of value is loaded
automatically to your card. Therefore you would make a normal bus trip
and get a top up at the same time - no wasted charge.

You may need to get a new Oyster card which has the special encoding to
work with buses rather than leaving you with having to use a nominated
station or tram stop. Apparently (according to Ask Oyster) you can
arrange for this new card via the Oyster website.

All this assumes you are only using Pre-Pay on your Oyster card and not
a Travelcard (weekly or longer).
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!