Being a bit of a schmuck for marketing, the snazzy Barclaycard ad with
the water slides got me onto their website. There, I discovered that
they do a version of the OnePulse credit card which gives 5% cashback
on all your TfL spending until the end of the year. Quite handy for
offsetting Boris's most recent fare increases.

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.)

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.

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.

- martin

[Subject line modified to omit typo]

martin wrote:

Being a bit of a schmuck for marketing, the snazzy Barclaycard ad with
the water slides got me onto their website. There, I discovered that
they do a version of the OnePulse credit card which gives 5% cashback
on all your TfL spending until the end of the year. Quite handy for
offsetting Boris's most recent fare increases.

The Barclaycard ad just made me want to go on a brilliant waterslide!


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?


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)?


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.

- martin

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!

There does appear to be a workaround should you continue to be
frustrated in your efforts w.r.t. getting the Railcard discount loaded
on your OnePulse card, though I dare say you've though of it already.
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.


The webpage for the "Barclaycard OnePulse Credit Card with Cashback"
is here...
http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/persona...ulse-cashback/

....which in turn links to the T&Cs here...
http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/persona...nd-conditions/


Said T&Cs don't tie in the "TfL purchases" with making use of the
Oyster element of your OnePulse card - you could be buying Day
Travelcards or whatever. It does however say this:

"5. The following stations are excluded from the 5% TfL cashback
offer: All Docklands Light Rail (DLR), Heathrow Terminal 5, North
Wembley, South Kenton."

The DLR is dealt with under complex contractual arrangements hence the
exclusion; the ticket office and machines at Heathrow T5 are operated
by BAA's Heathrow Express, not TfL; and presumably North Wembley and
South Kenton station on the Bakerloo/ London Overground have some
legacy issues resulting from their transfer over from Silverlink to LU
management.

I assume that collecting a topup or an auto-topup at these stations
would qualify for the cashback, as that's a transaction with the
central Oyster system as opposed to any local systems.

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

On 2009-02-12 23:31:02 +0000, martin said:
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.

Oh dear - replying to myself...

This does appear to be working: I did a fair bit of off-peak travel
over the weekend in zones 1-3, and it's been capped at £3.80. Which is
rather good news.

So you *can* get discounted off-peak daily price capping on a
Barclaycard OnePulse card when used in combination with a National Rail
Railcard; you just need to find a ticket office who know what they're
doing to set it up for you.

The pricing information can be found at
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresa...ares/6769.aspx

- martin