Contactless is not Oyster!
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.
After reminding TFL of my complaint, today I received this message, which means that contactless you can only pay for single fares, are charged peak price in the afternoon and so is cheaper to buy paper off-peak return. This despite the information from South Eastern rail employee with whom I checked whether contactless was the same tariff as paper return.
I am baffled and like some advice how to proceed, as this seems wrong to me.
TFL response dated 11/03/2025:
Dear Ms Hegtermans
Thank you for your web form of 15 February about your journey on 14 February.
I’m sorry to hear you have been charged more than expected.
I can confirm you have been charged correctly for the journey from Orpington to Sevenoaks and return.
Correct contactless payment charges are shown on the link below:
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-fares/single-fare-finder?intcmp=54716
I trust this addresses your inquiry, wishing you a pleasant day ahead.
Thanks again for contacting us. If there is anything else we can help you with, please reply to this email. Alternatively, you can call us on 0343 222 1234 and we’ll be happy to help you.
Kind regards
Yashfeen Subaru
Customer Service Adviser
Transport for London Customer Services
I received a similar reply. The caseworker has simply checked the fare against the fare tables and refused the claim. But the fare tables seems to be wrong. I have appealed in the following terms:
I believe that there is a mistake in the TfL Fare Tables for Sevenoaks and the correct fare to Sevenoaks to London Bridge in the evening peak on 6 February should have been £8.00.
This is because:
(1) the National Rail fare finder said on 6 February that the contactless fare was £8.00, and this was a National Rail service.
(2) the paper ticket price for a Sevenoaks to London Bridge journey in the evening peak on 6 February was £8.00, and National Rail paper ticket prices and terms were adjusted in December 2024 to be aligned with the contactless fares shortly to be introduced.
(3) charging a peak fare in the evening peak for a journey starting outside Zone 1 and ending in Zone 1 is contrary to TfL fares policy, which has consistently stated that such journeys would be charged at off-peak rates. (This is presumably grounded in public policy to encourage discretionary leisure journeys into central London in the evenings.)
For all these reasons I considered that TfL have charged the £14.60 fare in error and that the correct charge on that day should have been £8.00.
Please reconsider this case on this basis.
TfL have rejected my appeal, saying simply that I was charged the fare shown in the Single Fare Finder!
I have submitted a further appeal, saying that the data in the Single Fare Finder is wrong and asking them to refer the issue to their fare policy people.
Hedwig
The local MP Laura Trott has now become involved in this and she reported yesterday:
We do not hold out much hope for automatic refunds – in a similar case at Reading TfL refused to implement automatic funds, despite acknowledging that they had the data to generate them.
It is troubling that TfL Customer Service are still refusing refunds despite the problem supposedly having been “fixed” in early June, but it may be worth responding to the refusal that you received (which will link to the original case) citing the Deputy Mayor’s statement that the fare charged to you in February was indeed incorrect.
Thank you for this (and sorry for the late response).
I will need to dug out the material again (I already gave up on it). If I get anything I will update here.