Terms and conditions

These apply when you use a contactless payment card or device to ‘pay as you go’ for your journeys with TfW and other rail operators where this is an accepted method of payment.

They set out your rights and obligations when using a contactless payment card and apply in addition to other Conditions of Carriage. Further information about your rights is available in our Passenger’s Charter.

Our pay as you go service is currently only available at the following stations:

More stations will be added through 2024.

If you want to travel to or from any other station, you’ll need to buy a ticket from a ticket office, ticket machine or on our website or app.

If you’re travelling with Cross Country on a TfW route that accepts pay you go (such as Cardiff-Newport), you can still use it. Simply tap in and out as you would when using a TfW service.

**Pay as you go journeys are not currently available on Great Western Railway (GWR) services.

Our pay as you go travel period is Monday to Sunday.

If you choose to travel with pay as you go, you’ll have 2.5 hours to travel and complete your journey. (Completing a journey means to tap in and tap out at the start and end of the journey).

If you don’t complete your journey within 2.5 hours, we’ll be unable to calculate your fare and you may need to pay an incomplete journey charge.

If you realise you haven’t completed your journey after 2.5 hours, you can correct a missing tap using our app or pay as you go portal. Please don’t attempt to complete your journey on a gate or platform validator after 2.5 hours.

Taps processed after 2.5 hours will be seen as the start of a new journey.

This applies if you’ve failed to complete a journey. This could include:

• Not tapping at the start or end of your journey.
• Not completing your journey within 2.5 hours.
• If you choose not to travel and don’t tap out within one hour of tapping in at the station.

When using pay as you go, you don’t need a physical ticket to travel. Instead, the conductor will ask you to tap your payment card or device on their inspection device.

If you haven’t tapped in, you’ll need to pay a inspection charge, which will be higher than your pay as you go fare. This charge will be taken from your bank the next day and can’t be refunded.

If you believe you were given a inspection charge by mistake, our customer support team are here to help.

They’ll review your travel information and check if the inspection charge is valid.

Further information on inspection charge can be found here.

Pay as you go price caps limit the amount you’ll pay per day and week.

Once a daily or weekly price cap has been triggered, you can take advantage of unlimited travel for the remainder of that specific day or week within the zone at which the cap has been applied. Travelling outside a zonal cap will mean you’ll need to pay the difference until the new zonal cap is applied. Find out more here.

To be eligible for a daily/weekly price cap, you need to use the same payment method for the day or week of travel (Monday - Sunday).

Example:

You travel five days a week. You tap on with your bank card on the first day and use the same bank card for the rest of the week. If you trigger a daily cap on a specific day, travelling on the rest of that day will be free. If you trigger a weekly cap (e.g. on your third day of travelling), travel for the remainder of that week will be free.

All caps will be reset at 04:00 every Monday morning.

Pay as you go offers the best value equivalent 'anytime' fare for the journey you've made. 

Each tap in and tap out will be classed as a single journey and you’ll be charged a ‘Single Leg Price’. Find more here.

At the end of each day, all your journeys will be assessed to calculate how much you need to pay.

We’ll make a payment request to your associated payment card the day after you’ve travelled.

If we can’t collect the journey fee the following day, your card will be placed on a denial of travel list until we can collect the payment.

We will attempt to collect the outstanding fare three times over a week, after which you’ll need to pay manually through our app or speak with our Customer Service team.

Once we’ve received all outstanding fares, you’ll be able to start using pay as you go again. This usually takes around 15 minutes after payment has been received.

*The denial list doesn’t stop you using your payment device to buy a ticket on our website or app or from a ticket office or ticket machine.

It’s your responsibility to tap in and out correctly by placing your credit/debit card or smart device on the reader located at the ticket gate or platform validators at the railway stations where you start and finish your journey.

Be sure to use the same payment card or smart device for starting and ending your journey. If you don’t, you may need to pay two incomplete journey charges as we’ll be unable to tell where you have travelled to and from.

Always use the same method of payment for a week’s travel period (Monday - Sunday). If you don’t, you won’t be able to take advantage of our daily and weekly caps.

Failure to complete a journey could result in you receiving an incomplete journey charge which would mean you end up paying more. This is because no fare could be calculated.

If you have missing taps, you’ll have an opportunity to complete your journey up to and including the ‘Wednesday’ following the previous week’s travel period (Monday-Sunday).

• If you’ve registered for pay as you go notifications through our app, we’ll contact you by email asking you to complete your journey using your account.

• We can’t send you notifications if you’re not registered as we won’t have your contact details. This doesn’t stop you from correcting missing taps.

If you don’t have an account, you can still check your journeys and payment history through our pay as you go guest web portal. You can only do this for the past seven days of travel.

You can correct missing taps up to a maximum of three times in a 28-day period. After this, you’ll need to contact our Customer Service team.

If you’ve registered for pay as you go and there’s a clear journey pattern, we’ll use the auto-complete function to complete your journey if you didn’t tap.

**There is a limited number of auto-completes that the system will do, so it’s important that customers ensure they complete journeys to avoid higher charges.

You’ll be notified of an auto-complete activity by email the day after your journey.

If an auto-complete isn’t possible, you’ll have until the Wednesday following the Monday-Sunday travel period (in which your incomplete journey was taken) to amend the incomplete journey in your account. After this time, your journey can no longer be amended, and an incomplete journey charge will be applied and taken from the payment card associated with your account.

If you decide not to travel (due to disruption or cancelled trains for example) after you’ve tapped in at a station, you’ll need to tap out again at the same station within one hour (creating a ‘same station exit’).

If you tap out after one hour, you may need to pay two incomplete journey charges as we won’t know where you have travelled to or from.

If you chose not to travel and didn’t tap out, you may be liable for an incomplete journey charge as we won’t be able to calculate your journey fare.

If you believe you’ve been charged the wrong fare for your pay as you go journey, please contact our Customer Service team.

You’ll have until Wednesday following a Monday - Sunday travel period (within which your journey(s) was taken) to request any changes. After this, changes won’t be possible.

If we find that you were charged the wrong fare, we’ll adjust your account balance accordingly.

All refunds will be processed back to your original payment method. We can’t pay refunds to other payment methods.

Delay Repay can be claimed the usual way when you’re travelling using pay as you go.

The following exclusions apply. These are subject to change.

• Pay as you go journeys are not currently available on GWR services.

• No group tickets. You’ll need to buy these from a ticket office.

• Not permitted for First Class travel. 

• No peak and off-peak times.

• No child tickets. Please visit tfw.wales/kids-go-free for affordable family travel.

• You can’t use a concessionary travel card on a pay as you go journey.

Our maximum liability to you under these terms and conditions will be to refund the balance, if any, on the date our dispute with you is settled.