Free travel in London on Monday if you use Apple Pay and a Mastercard

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Mastercard is bringing back its ‘free travel in London’ offer in an attempt to encourage the use of Apple Pay.

The offers runs for three separate days – tomorrow, 7th March and 14th March.

If you have a suitable Apple device to use Apple Pay, you can do quite nicely out of this if you are not working and decide to go on a little day trip as the Oyster system now covers much of Greater London and into the South East. The maximum reimbursement is £28.10 per day.

Apple Pay Oyster

Here is the small print:

To redeem the offer, cardholders must use their MasterCard card with Apple Pay to travel on London Buses, London Underground, London Trams, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, and most National Rail services in London (where a yellow card reader is present) during the Promotional Period.

The offer entitles cardholders to receive a refund against their travel costs made with a Mastercard card with Apple Pay on London Buses, London Underground, London Trams, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, and most National Rail services in London (where a yellow card reader is present) to a maximum value of £28.10 per cardholder, per Promotional Period. The offer is as stated and nothing else is included.

Offer excludes travel on Thames Clipper River Bus services.

To qualify for the offer you must touch your Apple Pay device on a yellow card reader at the start and end of each journey made by London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, and most National Rail services (where a yellow card reader is present) in London (or any combination of these) and at intermediate points where required. On London Buses and London Trams you must only touch in at the start of your journey.

Full details can be found on the Mastercard website here. Remember that you need to have a Mastercard set as your primary payment method.

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Jonny says:

28 Feb28 February 07:46

Tesco MasterCard works for this. V good promo.

Not easy to reverse habit of tapping in/out with Oyster card though!
- flyforfun says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 09:24
  
  Assuming you’re referring to a Pay as You Go Oyster and not a season ticket one? I’m not sure of the stats, but I’d imagine more people travelling to work would have a season ticket. I did have a friend who tracked his PAYG journeys for a year (and he had 6 weeks of holidays plus numerous non travel days) and it worked out cheaper to have a season ticket in his case. And less hassle in not having to top up his Oyster constantly (he refused to have auto-top up on it, he dislikes direct debits).
  - John says:
    
    28 Feb28 February 13:16
    
    If you only take a single tube to work and back, and rarely go out on weekends, PAYG is probably cheaper, otherwise a season makes sense.
    
    If your friend dislikes hassle, why didn’t he just get an annual ticket and work out whether PAYG would have been cheaper?
    - Genghis says:
      
      28 Feb28 February 16:52
      
      Or use contactless on PAYG with the weekly cap. Factoring in holidays, work travel and the time value of money, this is the best way for me
James says:

28 Feb28 February 09:16

Can I Apple Pay from gatwick to central for free?
- Aeronaut says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 10:13
  
  Yes.
  - Sinewaves says:
    
    28 Feb28 February 10:19
    
    Really? On the train? Thought you needed a ticket.. Happy if do as I’m going to Gatwick tomorrow!
- Paul says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 10:21
  
  Nothing in the rules say you can’t? But be careful, the cost of the Gatwick express is £19.80 one way and not included in any cap. Non-gatwick express routes plus zones 1-9 are capped at £30.50, over the £28.10 free limit. Single journeys from Gatwick to London terminals not on express are £14 peak and £8 off peak.
Paul S says:

28 Feb28 February 09:53

No.. But you can do it on the Emirates air line !
- Aeronaut says:
  
  29 Feb29 February 10:37
  
  Not correct – see above.
avstar says:

28 Feb28 February 10:04

does this work with foreign mastercard credit cards as well?
- John says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 13:18
  
  No. See T&Cs.
Andy says:

28 Feb28 February 10:18

Would this work to Gatwick on Thameslink / Southern
- Sinewaves says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 10:20
  
  Wondering the same thing! Thought you needed a paper ticket..
  - Paul D says:
    
    28 Feb28 February 10:22
    
    Oyster/contactless/mobile payments have been accepted to from Gatwick and intermediate stations from earlier this year
    - Aeronaut says:
      
      29 Feb29 February 10:39
      
      Yep – see my comment above for links to contactless/Oyster fares information for journeys between Gatwick and London.
      
      Contactless/Oyster is not yet valid for journeys between London and Luton or Stansted airports, though I think Luton is in the pipeline.
Tilly71 says:

28 Feb28 February 10:43

OT question:
How long does it take to display your amex plat upgrade bonus in your account page, I was accepted on the upgrade gold to plat, my account now shows platinum but havnt received my new card yet. I take it the 20k bonus by spending 1k bonus will show in my account page display?
- Genghis says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 16:54
  
  It doesn’t show
  - Tilly71 says:
    
    28 Feb28 February 18:04
    
    Thanks, so once you’ve hit your spend target the points update in your account. Some have stated on here it can only take a few days for the bonus points to show, does this sound right?
Mark B says:

28 Feb28 February 11:12

any chance of somehow getting apple pay to work on an Iphone 4S ? will be in London next Monday
- Gavin says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 11:26
  
  No.
- Oliver says:
  
  28 Feb28 February 17:45
  
  Not by Monday
Sideysid says:

29 Feb29 February 12:48

I presume these free travel mastercard days will work with ‘our’ forthcoming Curve mastercard?

Could be a chance to bag a few membership reward points and a free days travel.