Tapping out then tapping in straight away at the same gateline

[MikeWh]

The whole zone 2 LU - Vauxhall - zone 2 NR journey is charged as a 1-2 peak mixed mode, but breaking it will become 1-2 LU only off-peak and 2 NR only peak, which is cheaper then a through journey on a Railcard.

It's quite difficult to follow without station names, however, if you're saying that the LU journey started in zone 2 and ended at Vauxhall (effectively zone 1 if you've come through it) and then the NR journey was zone 2 only, then I agree. Although if all your travel that day had been in zones 1 and 2 only then the discounted off-peak cap could well save the hassle.

 

[pelli]

If you were using contactless then I would expect it to be sorted before you are charged.
If you were using an undiscounted adult Oyster then it should be resolved overnight and any credit refunded next time you touch in/out.
If you Oyster has a discount of any sort then you may need to contact the helpdesk tomorrow.

It seems that in the end rg177 got charged according to my prediction (which you appeared to dispute, but I may have misunderstood?) which was two separate journeys £2.50 Farringdon to Paddington and £3.40 Off-Peak Paddington NR to Hayes & Harlington, and you seem to agree with miklcct that, when there is an Out-of-Station Interchange, doing an extra in-out (with the "out" not having an OSI to the next "in") simply breaks the journey into two parts charged separately. Implicit here is that at no point is a same-station-exit procedure invoked, involving maximum fares and refunds.

So when does what you said apply (i.e. a same-station-exit procedure with Oyster cards not being refunded immediately upon the next, within-45-minute, touch-in)?

The sequence of events doesn't work in the same way if the same station exit is in the middle of the journey. I think I've remembered what happened the last time I carried out such a manouevre, but if I'm wrong I'm sure that the helpdesk will correct it.

You mention "in the middle of the journey", but if the "in" of the same-station-exit was joined up to the previous "out" by an OSI then surely the result is just a break-of-OSI as described in the paragraph above, and if the "in" does not haven an OSI with the previous "out" then to me it just looks like the system would interpret it as a same-station-exit at the start of a new journey, with the fact that a previous journey was recently finished being completely irrelevant? So could you please give a concrete example (such as what happened that time that you remembered)?

 

[MikeWh]

It seems that in the end rg177 got charged according to my prediction (which you appeared to dispute, but I may have misunderstood?) which was two separate journeys £2.50 Farringdon to Paddington and £3.40 Off-Peak Paddington NR to Hayes & Harlington, and you seem to agree with miklcct that, when there is an Out-of-Station Interchange, doing an extra in-out (with the "out" not having an OSI to the next "in") simply breaks the journey into two parts charged separately. Implicit here is that at no point is a same-station-exit procedure invoked, involving maximum fares and refunds.

It's a long time (way before pandemic) since I last entered and exited a station mid journey. I did say that I might have misremembered what happened. It's also possible that it was a station with distinctly separate gatelines. Having reviewed the whole thread again I think what @rg177 said happened is probably in line with what should happen. And if that is the case then the same thing will happen with Oyster too.

So when does what you said apply (i.e. a same-station-exit procedure with Oyster cards not being refunded immediately upon the next, within-45-minute, touch-in)?

I think I may have over complicated that bit. There are cases (but not same station exit?) where a higher than needed charge is made mid way through the journey. Contactless will correct it immediately at the end of the journey, adult undiscounted Oyster cards will correct it overnight while other Oyster and zip cards will potentially need a call to the helpdesk. An example journey is Crayford to Canning Town which is charged as a zone 3-6 journey. If you change between DLR and Jubilee line at Canary Wharf you'll be charged for zone 2-6, but the difference will be adjusted after touch out at Canning Town in the way described.

 

[pelli]

An example journey is Crayford to Canning Town which is charged as a zone 3-6 journey. If you change between DLR and Jubilee line at Canary Wharf you'll be charged for zone 2-6, but the difference will be adjusted after touch out at Canning Town in the way described.

Thanks for clarifying! So you're talking about making an Out-of-Station Interchange at a location B that costs more to reach than the final destination C (from your origin A), where you obviously get deducted the A-B fare when touching out at B, and then due to limitations the Oyster system is not able to immediately refund you down to the lower A-C fare when you touch out at C, so instead you get the refund processed overnight.

As a side note, personally I think TfL is being too generous with this policy, and it would be better to leave people with the A-B charge (or rather charge them for whichever is highest out of A-B,B-C and A-C), both on Oyster and contactless. This is because all* fares are meant to be based on the zones and modes used, and so a person travelling A-B and B-C as part of their journey probably made use of enough zones and modes that an A-B or B-C charge (or more!) is warranted. The lack of a correspondingly high A-C fare coded into the system to trigger if the passenger has passed through B is presumably due to TfL not having realised that passengers might travel A-B-C, rather than a deliberate attempt to discount that route. While this oversight would likely just yield a small revenue loss (e.g. the price of an extra zone) for reasonable B, it presents an opportunity for people to abuse the system with unreasonable B, and get away with paying for a short journey when in actuality they've gone somewhere far away, done something useful outside the station during an OSI, and returned back to somewhere near their origin (taking care to stay within the maximum journey time). (For an extreme example, it looks like a peak Watford Junction - Euston NR -OSI- Euston LU -OSI- Euston NR - Watford Junction - Watford High Street journey would be charged just £1.90. And would a Heathrow T5 Rail - Paddington NR (not HEX) -OSI- Paddington LU -OSI- Paddington NR (not HEX) - Heathrow T23 Rail journey be free?)

*One notable exception is the special off-peak discount for travelling into Zone 1 in the afternoon peak, for which a refund at the final destination in Z1 should still be given.

 

[MikeWh]

(taking care to stay within the maximum journey time)

Is the key here.

it looks like a peak Watford Junction - Euston NR -OSI- Euston LU -OSI- Euston NR - Watford Junction - Watford High Street journey would be charged just £1.90.

My understanding is that the MJT for that would be 90 minutes from touch in at Watford Junction to touch out at Watford High Street. This would not allow much time in London and any delays (say you just missed an Overground train for the last leg = plus 15 minutes) would end up with the whole journey being charged.

And would a Heathrow T5 Rail - Paddington NR (not HEX) -OSI- Paddington LU -OSI- Paddington NR (not HEX) - Heathrow T23 Rail journey be free?)

So that's a single zone fare, so 70 minutes. The Elizabeth line takes 30 minutes each way, plus walking to Underground and back and waiting for next Lizzie line train? TLDR: No it would not be free.