LordHamster

About a month ago I traveled to London with my T-Mobile iPhone and was very dissapointed to find that neither of my US based cards worked... neither Corporate Amex Platinum nor my Presidential Plus Visa from Chase worked with Apple Pay for the London Underground (Tube). Apple pay worked brilliantly in all the stores, but no go for the underground. I kept getting a rejection error 67 "card not accepted." I called Amex and Chase but beyond putting the travel notice on my account they couldn't do anything.

Fast forward to today. I just landed here in London with my new Android Phone (Nexus 6P on Project FI). Same thing:
1. Step off the Heathrow Express @ Paddington Staiton... try the oyster reader at the underground and neither my Amex nor my Chase Visa will take... same exact error message. I had hoped maybe Android Pay would work where apple failed.

I don't have any other Credit cards to try unfortunately... has anyone figured out a workaround for this?

I ended up buying an Oyster card but am very annoyed by this situation.

Ditto

If one of your credit cards have contactless payment, you might be able to use it
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payment...-cards#outside

islandguy84

USA based Amex and Visa cards don't work. MasterCards however do work and I've used many of them (via Apple Pay) multiple times over the past few years. It's due to some standard that MasterCard mandates on all their U.S. cards that the others don't for some reason.

The Contactless thread under Credit Cards has discussed this in the past.

LordHamster

Someone PMed me a while back and told me that US based Visas now work on TFL. Can anyone confirm?. Any word on if US based Amex Cards work on TFL? I'm going to london Sunday and am curious if I'll be stuck using my First Tech Mastercard linked to my Apple Pay again.

UAPremExecflyer

Using Apple Pay on the Tube
US Issued Contactless Card Does Not Work on London Underground

tmiw

Worked for me back in October (Chase Sapphire Reserve). AmEx on mobile devices still doesn't, though, but physical AmEx cards do.

LordHamster

Thanks. I'd rather use my personal chase card than my chip+pin mastercard. That said, the holy grail will be once Amex business works on mobile... makes expense reports so much easier.

D582

Most US VISA credit cards, at least from major issuers, should now work on TfL (but if your card has been in your phone for a long time, I would recommend deleting and re-adding it to ensure it has the correct provisioning profile). Some VISA debit cards, and possibly some obscure credit cards, may not work yet.

I think US Amex cards will eventually work, but not for a while. Amex made a choice when provisioning the cards in the US to maximise US compatibility while sacrificing non-US acceptance. As noted by tmiw, a physical Amex contactless card from the US will work though.

bosflyer93

Chase Sapphire Reserve worked via Google Pay. Capital One Quicksilver via Apple Pay did not work - may have just needed to be deleted/readded to Apple Pay, but didn't try. Amex PRG plastic card worked fine multiple times, no lag on processing vs Oyster.

der_saeufer

CSR via Google Pay works, but i get constant read errors on buses and a fair number on the tube with a Pixel that works fine literally everywhere else.

Personally, if I didn't have a physical contactless card with no forex fee, I'd just buy an Oyster card. The £5 deposit is easy to get back, and CSR works in the vending machines to buy one.

tmiw

On that note, I've heard stuff about Oyster eventually going away in favor of contactless cards. I'm not sure how true that is or when that'll happen, though. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the US isn't the only country that (mostly) doesn't include contactless on cards, so such a move might screw over more than Americans.

LordHamster

I can confirm, on my last trip my Chase Presidential Plus Visa worked just fine on TFL via Apple Pay

der_saeufer

I doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Between Londoners without bank cards and tourists without contactless, a whole lot of people would be really screwed if there weren't a way to convert cash into travel.

Another advantage of using Oyster or a physical card over Apple/Google Pay is that I've never been able to get the whole "card" number for Apple or Google Pay (since it's not transmitting your actual account number). Without the full card number, you can't look at your travel history on the TfL website.

tmiw

Actually, entering the number from the physical card is supposed to cause TfL's website to show travel history for all devices associated with the card along with the card itself. For some reason this doesn't work with US issued Visa cards but I do remember it working with others.

richarddd

CSP and Barclay Aviator Mastercard, both on Google Pay, worked fine a few weeks ago.