TfL incomplete journey refund

What actually happened

Pay as you go works by measuring where you got on and where you got off. Tap in and tap out, and the system knows the distance and charges the right fare. Miss the tap out and it has no idea where you went, so it assumes the worst and charges the maximum fare for that part of the network.

That is not a penalty and it is not a fine. It is a placeholder. The system is saying it cannot price your journey, so it has taken the highest amount it could have been, and it will give you the difference back if you tell it where you actually went.

It happens more than people think. Gates left open at a quiet station, a reader that does not beep, an interchange where you assumed you had already touched out, or simply walking through a wide aisle behind someone else.

How to spot one

Open your journey history and look for a journey where one end says Unknown, or where the fare is noticeably higher than the same trip usually costs. Some journeys carry a small warning icon next to the row.

The tell is almost always the word Unknown at one end. A normal journey names both stations. An incomplete one cannot.

What it is worth

You get back the difference between the maximum fare you were charged and the fare you should have paid for the journey you actually made. On a short hop that difference is usually a few pounds. On a journey where the maximum fare assumed you had crossed most of the network, it can be considerably more.

How much is a maximum fare? Transport for London does not say. The phrase appears on several of its pages and not one of them carries a figure, by zone, by card type or otherwise. Its own pay as you go page even tells you to "find what the maximum fares are on the touching in and out page", and that page has no amounts on it either.

In practice this does not stop you claiming, because the amount you were actually charged is shown against the journey in your history. But it does mean you cannot check in advance what you should have been charged, which is a strange gap for a fare that only exists because the system could not work one out.

How to get it back

Wait two days first. Transport for London says most of these refunds are processed automatically, and asks you to leave at least 48 hours before applying. A good number of the maximum fares people sit down to claim have already been put right by the time they get round to it.

If it is still there after that, the fix takes about two minutes. For contactless and mobile payments, sign in at contactless.tfl.gov.uk. For an Oyster card, use the Oyster account instead. Then:

1. Open the journey history and find the journey marked Unknown
2. Choose the option to tell them about an incomplete journey
3. Say which station you actually finished at, and which you started from if that end is the one missing
4. Submit it

The refund goes back to the card you paid with. You do not need to phone anybody, you do not need a receipt, and there is nothing to print. If you cannot see the option, or the journey is older than the window the site allows, that is the point at which contacting them directly is worth it.

How long you have

Eight weeks from the date of the journey.That is Transport for London's own window for an incomplete journey refund, and it is generous by the standards of anything else in this guide. Past it, the self-service route closes and you are into a conversation with customer services rather than a two-minute form.

Eight weeks sounds like plenty and it is exactly why this money goes unclaimed. Nobody checks their travel history the week it happens. The practical habit is to look once a month, because the same gate or the same wallet tends to cause several of these, and you will find them together.

When it is not claimable

Sometimes Transport for London notices before you do and fixes the fare itself. The journey will show a note saying the fare was adjusted or corrected. That one is already dealt with, and it is easy to mistake for a claimable incomplete journey because the original charge still appears in the history.

A genuinely completed short journey that simply cost more than you expected is also not this. If both ends are named, the system knew where you went and charged accordingly.

One thing you may read elsewhere and can ignore: that Transport for London refuses you once you have claimed three maximum fare refunds in a month. That limit is not on any current TfL page. The real "three times a month" refers to how often TfL will automatically refund a journey that ran over the maximum journey time, which is a different thing entirely and works in your favour.

If the charge you are looking at came from two cards rather than a missed tap, that is a different problem with a different fix. See card clash instead.