The National Rail website is now showing the Contactless option for passengers.
But there are two problems.
First, the heading is “Pay as you go with Contactless or Oyster”. While you can now travel to/from Sevenoaks using Contactless payment – card or smartphone – Sevenoaks does not accept payment by Oyster. It’s confusing that some stations outside London (such as Swanley) do accept Oyster, but others (such as Sevenoaks) do not. Clearly National Rail are as confused as the rest of us.
Second, National Rail are saying – like TfL – that the Contactless fare from Sevenoaks to London in the evening peak period (touch in between 1600 and 1900) is the peak single fare of £14.60. We think that the correct fare for a “counter-flow” journey into Zone 1 should be the off-peak fare of £8.00 – in line with the usual TfL evening fare policy and with the offered fare for a paper ticket. Paying 82% more for the privilege of using Contactless hardly makes it an attractive option!
Update 1100 05/02/2025: Southeastern have acknowledged that the National Rail website and the TfL website have the wrong information about the Contactless fare from Sevenoaks to London in the evening peak. They say that this is an information error and the payment system itself would charge the correct fare.
Update 0920 06/02/2025: National Rail have updated the Contactless fare for a journey from Sevenoaks to London in the evening peak. They still misleadingly mention this under Pay As You Go with Contactless or Oyster. The TFL Fare Finder is still wrong.
On 14/02/2025 I travelled from Orpington station to Sevenoaks for the first time contactless. I checked with the station staff and they confirmed that the price for a paper ticket and contactless would be the same.
An off-peak return is £7.20, there is no evening peak. However, TFL charged the return journey as peak
I believe both journeys together should have been capped at £7.20. Am I mistaken?
We think that you are right. The restructuring of the paper ticket fares from 3 December was intended to align paper ticket fares with the forthcoming contactless fares.
There is a similar issue with the fare from Sevenoaks to London Terminals in the 1600-1900 period. The paper ticket is £8.00 and, after we pointed out the issue, National Rail corrected the Journey Planner to show that the contactless fare should be £8.00. However the TfL Fare Finder (and other services that use the TfL data directly) say that the fare is £14.60, and this is what the Contactless system charged me on 6 March. This is doubly puzzling as TfL’s own fare policy says that journeys from outside Zone 1 that end in Zone 1 should be charged at the offpeak rate even during their “evening peak”.
There are also reports of TfL charging the wrong (higher) fare from Reading, and refusing to correct it until some unspecified future software update.
In the Reading case TfL have refused to process automatic refunds to the hundreds of customers overcharged, saying simply that anyone who thinks that they have been overcharged should apply for a refund.
In your case you should also apply for a refund from TfL by finding the journey in your Contactless account, clicking the box for “wrong fare”, and saying that you should have been charged the same as the paper ticket fare (and say what it is). Please let us know how you get on.
Thank you for your response. I have already applied for refund and will let you know how I get on.