Great Western Coffee Shop

Oyster will work out the cheapest Oyster fare for you. For example, it might charge you an off-peak cap plus a peak single fare if that's cheaper than a peak cap for all your journeys in a single day.

Hmm, a transport company automatically offering the cheapest combination of fares :o

Thank you BNM

I've used my Oyster when it's had as little as ^3 on it.

The daily Travelcard cap.

so what would have happened if you had exited a station more than ^3 further away?  Would you have got "done"?

Probably. But then that's personal responsibility.

Do most epopel check tehir Oyster balance before starting a journey?

Ignorance of your balance is no defence.

I agree.   But if you are expected to visit the ticket machine to check your balance before the journey, Oyster sudenly becomes less convenient and an object of its introdcution (at great expense) is defeated by stupid rules when things could be organised differently. 

What are you expecting? A call from TfL to say you need to top up?

or do auto top up so it tops up when the balance is less than 8 quid - you can choose how much it tops up

so mine loads 20 quid whenever the balance is 8 or less

Like how?

Sorry MM, that is not a complete solution.  What happens if your auto-top up fails (card blocked for example).  You should still be checking your balance.

I made the journeys using the Oyster card yesterday.  Looking at my online account (which is currently only showing the first journey), the barriers at Victoria deducted ^2.90 from my balance (enough for a Z1-3 peak journey) and then the barriers at my destination (South Kensington) credited the difference.  The system did cap my off-peak journeys separately to the peak one, which has demonstrated that it is possible for a complicated fare system to automatically calculate the cheapest fare.  Why can't we have something like this on NR?

Worst offending 'overcharge' Tube station list revealed

A list of the London stations where passengers were "overcharged" the most when using Oyster cards has been revealed.

Waterloo saw the most "overcharge" payments, with a total of ^2.5m last year.

In total, ^61.8m of these payments were taken from passengers in 2010.

Transport for London (TfL) said any passengers who felt they were wrongly charged could apply for refunds.

The problems arose when barriers were not working or left open, or if cards were not read when swiped at the start or end of their journey.

The maximum ^7.40 single fare is deducted for all "incomplete" Oyster journeys and it is up to the passenger to ensure his or her card is swiped.

But when there are large crowds at stations, TfL will open the barriers and implement a system called called "autocomplete".

Users will have to touch in at the same station within three days or they receive the maximum fare.

The list of the London stations where passengers had to pay the most incomplete journey charges was obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Lib Dems.

A total of 14 million journeys in 2010 involved possible "overcharging".

Since Oyster cards became accepted on national rail stations at the beginning of 2010, rail passengers have paid up to ^25.8m in incomplete journey charges.

Passengers using the London Underground paid even more of the maximum fare deductions - up to ^30.1m.

In addition, there was up to ^3.2m on the Docklands Light Railway and up to ^2.5m on the London Overground.

"This level of overcharging is totally unacceptable," said Lib Dems London Assembly Group leader Caroline Pidgeon. "It is clear that not enough is being done to ensure the machines and the technology are working properly."

A TfL spokesperson said: "Maximum fares are not overcharges. We have maximum fares in place to ensure customers validate their journeys or we would open to widespread fare evasion across our network."