On 2009-02-10 19:31:56 +0000, Mizter T said:

[Subject line modified to omit typo]
Much obliged

martin wrote:

And I've also just received my last 16-25 Railcard (bought online just
before my 26th birthday; curiously it expires a few days after my 27th.)

That's quite peculiar. Did you buy it online, and is the start date
thus a bit delayed I wonder?

Having spoken to a few friends who've bought their Railcards online, it
seems to be the norm to have a couple of extra days' validity added -
perhaps to account for postal delays?

So now I want to put the two together, to get discounted Off-Peak Daily
Price Capping.

At the first two tube ticket offices I tried, I was told I'd need to
register my card first, and was handed a pink registration form. I
didn't quite see the need for this, as the card is already registered,
so took the form and said I'd fill it in later.

I assume that the Oyster element of the Barclaycard OnePulse card come
pre-registered, but I don't know that for sure - it's only logical
that it does. When you put your OnePulse card on a Tube touchscreen
ticket machine does it then state onscreen that 'you have presented a
*registered* Oyster card/OnePulse card' (as opposed to an unregistered
one)?

I gave this a try, and couldn't see anything that said registered or
unregistered. Where should I be looking?
The only thing I spotted out of the ordinary was on an Overground
ticket machine which said I had a "Barclaycard with Oyster".

The third ticket office were fairly convinced that the discount
couldn't be applied to the OnePulse card, and said I'd need to get a
regular Oyster Card.

I can't see anything on the TfL or Barclaycard sites to suggest that
the Oyster part of a OnePulse card is any different from a standard
Oyster card, so while I wait the 7-10 days for the Oyster people to get
back to my email, I thought I'd see if anyone on u.t.l had successfully
managed this.

Do come back and report what they tell you, I'm intrigued about this.
I dare say it's possible that some ticket office staff are a bit wary
of the OnePulse card - they don't want to muck it up after all!

No reply yet - however, at lunchtime today, I popped down to Shepherd's
Bush, to see if I could give it another go. The Overground station (as
often seems to be the case when you try asking for something out of the
ordinary there) said they didn't know how to do that, and pointed me
across the road to the Underground station. The chap at the Underground
ticket office, on the other hand, said "I'm pretty sure we can do
that", and gave it a go.
My travelcard runs out today, so I'll report back after I've done some
off-peak travel as to whether it's actually worked.

Basically the 5% cashback offer applies to all "TfL spending" so if
you were to top-up another separate Oyster card (loaded with the
Railcard discount) using your OnePulse card then that would count
towards the cashback - so this would include Oyster topups done
online, by auto-topup or at a Tube station ticket office/ self-service
ticket machine.

This had crossed my mind - though It'd still be handy to carry the
OnePulse card around, in case I decided I wanted to buy a Travelcard on
the day, and still wanted the extra cashback. Or in case I encountered
anywhere that I'd actually be able to use the PayWave function. (It's
not happened yet, except at the London Canal Museum, but they hadn't
worked out how to use their terminal, and it was easier to pay the £3
by cash.)

- martin