I thought it could be useful to have a similar thread to the ‘Money Making Ideas’ thread, but for money saving!
To kick it off, anyone who uses any TFL services should definitely sign up for Reeclaim. It’s free, all you need to do is connect your bank or oyster card to your TFL account, then sign into Reeclaim once with your TFL account and it will automatically monitor every journey you make and claim refunds where applicable. I’m not affiliated with the company in any way, just want to pass on what a great website it is! I’ve had in excess of £30+ refunded in a short time period, often not even being aware I was delayed!
Also, anybody that doesn’t have a monthly or yearly pass, it might be worthwhile getting an PAYG Oyster card and a railcard, and you’ll save 1/3 off off-peak fairs which adds up quite substantially. You can buy a railcard using Tesco clubcard points if you want to be extra crafty!
No way! this is amazing!!! Thanks for sharing I will definitely check this out because my trains are always delayed.
It’s so annoying that you can’t get a rail card for on peak that would be the dream lol
My friend told me about an app the other day called NEZ (I’m not sure if it’s just london based) which saves you money on lunch places local to you. She said she bought a box that was meant to be £6 for £1. London lunches can be expensive if you don’t bring your own!
I signed up to reclaim with my monzo card which I have been using for travel for the past month. I got an email saying that I was not entitled to any refunds. Question: how do they track what train you have got on? If you are using a card to tap in or even a monthly travel card for example, you could be getting on any train…just wondered how it works?
Yes, I wondered the same thing when I signed up. I looked into it, and as I understand it, TFL assume you take the quickest route for which they have an average time for every single possible journey. When a refund claim is made they look at your journey time (when you tapped in and when you tapped out) and compare it to the average journey time, if yours is 15 minutes or more longer then they refund you.
Reeclaim’s system is a little bit more complicated because they combine information on actual delays and only put in claims when there is a genuine delay (rather than you taking a longer route which is 15 minutes or more longer than the shortest route). When they first started out I think they just claimed all journeys where there was 15 minute or more delays, but now I think they match it with actual information about tube delays.
TFL’s system isn’t so sophisticated though - I tested it by waiting inside a station (yes, I really am that sad!) for 15 minutes on a non-delayed journey and put in a manual delayed claim and it worked. I’ve since done a few manual claims which have been a bit dubious, but so long as they’re 15 minutes or more past the average journey time they’re always accepted!
Sometimes I’m aware my tube is around 10 minutes late…if I’m in not in a hurry I’m always tempted to walk slowly out to hit that 15 minute delay threshold!
Keep signed up, it won’t be long until your first refund is in I bet!
Edit: Also, one more thing - TFL’s system always refunds the standard fee, even if you have an attached railcard. Quite often I’ve travelled at off-peak in zones 1-2 using my oyster with attached railcard and paid £1.60 for a single journey, I’ve then been delayed and been refunded the standard off-peak fare of £2.40 - 80p profit! Woop woop!
Interesting!!! Yes in my mind I was thinking how does this workl haha Also Reclaim must be doing everything manually as well?
I have claimed before but it is very time consuming. South eastern are a nightmare and as soon as there is a leaf on the tracks everything stops so in winter I’m sure I will reap the benefit haha Summer is not as bad
That’s good, maybe we should put in a request if the temp on the train/tube goes over a certain amount, everyone gets a refund!
Reeclaim’s system is really clever - they have an algorithm that analyses every single journey for every single user and compares to the average time, but then they somehow tie that information with information about train delays to see if the discontinuity in delay time corresponds to an actual delay. Then they’ve automated the claiming process on the TFL website - that’s the bit that really impresses me - how they’ve done that I don’t know (I don’t think TFL uses any kind of captcha system which must be how Reeclaim can do it). I asked Reeclaim about their system cause I thought it was really interesting but they weren’t revealing their secrets!
But it’s such a genius idea, how you sign up once, and then it’s completely automated from there on in…interestingly, this is what they say about how they’re funded: “Our new app (launching soon), will feature a Rewards Program offering discounted deals curated specifically around your places of travel. Reeclaim will receive a commission from the merchant for every deal redeemed.” They state they never sell your data to any third party.
Agreed, I remember last year the tube was above the legal temperature at which you can transport cattle within the EU! Surely we’re due some temperature-based refunds methinks.
haha yeah I can imagine that’s what they do which is incredible!
I do find it a bit upsetting that they only look into the last 30 days of your travel imagine if it was the last year or something.
That is so bad! yes they either need to put some airconditioning down there or charge less for travel. It used to be like a fiver for a day travel card from where i live and now its around £15
Charge more for travel so less people get on instead and I’ll fall in love with TfL. Nearly fainted the last time I was on it!
@Mudlark how do you add Apple Pay linked cards to it? Should I see if Amex has my virtual card number for me to link to TfL, as Apple doesn’t show this anywhere.
Good question, I had to look that up! - according to some folks on Reddit if you just put in your regular card details it automatically adds in any NFC devices connected to the card as separate cards so you shouldn’t need to manually add your virtual card number. That being said, I haven’t tried it, so can’t confirm 100% - I always use my Oyster!
Monthly and annual travel cards can only be put on an Oyster card.
Depending on your travel needs/habits these can work out cheaper than contactless PAYG.
It basically boils down to railcards, you can use your railcard on oyster but not on contactless. For every zone 1-2 fare you do off-peak you’ll save 80p, and it starts to add up. Every zone 2-6 you save 50p. As o99 says, adding travel cards is another advantage oc oyster.
The only real purely cost advantage of contactless is Monday to Sunday capping, but if you’re a light user you’ll probably struggle to get to the cap, and if you’re a heavy user you’re probably better off buying a monthly travelcard anyway - or even Citymapper’s pass which is cheaper than TFLs for a weekly.
I totally get the convenience of not having to carry another card and have another account to manage (let’s wait for Curve to support Oyster haha), but in terms of cost, most people would save through using an oyster with either PAYG or travelcards.
I used to get a travel card because it was cheaper but now I have to get the tube so it’s cheaper to just use contactless. I think it works out at £12 a day which is still day light robbery in my opinion (I don’t understand how it caps). I remember when you could get a Childs travel card for £2. I also work from home one day week and rarely go into central London at the weekends so it doesn’t make sense for me to get a weekly or monthly.
I spend £190 roughly a month on travel and travel card for me would be £240 so I save quite a bit.
I don’t know everyone’s ages but has anyone got a 25-35 railcard and is it worth it? I’m going to Liverpool next month and I was going to get one but didn’t bother because it was £30 quid.
Hmmm yeah, the travel cards are expensive for the further out zones - frustrating!
Train tickets - don’t get me started aha, I suppose it’ll probably depend if you’re going to make many other long journeys in the next year - if not perhaps it’s not worth it. But, have you booked tickets already? If not, go to: https://splitmyfare.trainsplit.com/ and try split ticketing, I’ve saved loads through using their site. Also, I actively encourage everyone to boycott trainline.com because of their fees - I always use splitmyfare or www.lner.co.uk (you can book any train in the country on them, most people think you can only book LNER trains), neither of them charges a card or booking fee - it all adds up!
I have already booked them Stupid trainline. I ended up getting a slow train home to save money haha I will definitely have a look at those sites though, thank you!
I have a card called curve that has all my cards in one app and you can switch which card you are using even if it’s still at home! I only carry that card with me, you can freeze any of the cards you want through it and it’s a simple online joining just a few details then it asks you to video a sentence of their choice and you have your card in a couple of days! No credit checks etc… I thought it was awesome! @lilli@Recchan@Mudlark@o99 use this link if you’re interested! EY5BP8YE I think we both get a bonus if you use it!
I have actually had a Curve card for a couple of years but I no longer use it. Perhaps because Apple Pay provides all cards in one place functionality for me (I still carry at least one debit and one credit card in wallet though) and because Curve breaks section 75 protection on credit card purchases.
What is section 75? Please tag me so I know when I have a reply, thanks a lot! @o99 it connects your cards and I believe that each card does as it would if you were actually using it instead of the curve card
See link below - in particular bits on 3rd party payment processors. Curve is a 3rd party payment processor. Your bank/credit card is paying Curve each time you make a transaction. It’s not directly paying the retailer.
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Thanks for the heads up