A reported IT issue has resulted in many of Transport for London (TfL)’s Oyster card operations to fail and remain offline since early September. The Student discounted Oyster card (also known as 18+ Oyster cards) is included in those impacted, which usually provides a 30% discount on London travel to any student studying at a London based college or university.

Due to the fault, the student Oyster card is not currently available for purchase or renewal, and may not become available until as late as December this year. This means that many students are having to pay significantly more than usual for their travel within the London area.

TfL have released the following guidance:

“18+ Student Oyster photocard

New university students studying in London cannot apply for an 18+ Student Oyster photocard. Please keep a record of fares paid as it is our intention to refund customers for additional travel costs incurred while our Oyster photocard website is unavailable.

Refunds

You can still contact us to request a refund for your photocard via an online form, but we won't be able to process any refunds until the cyber security incident is resolved.

It is our intention to refund customers for additional travel costs incurred while our Oyster photocard website is unavailable. However, due to the ongoing cyber security incident, refunds may need to be processed differently and we are working towards restoring the system as quickly as we can.

Please keep a record of any additional travel costs, such as receipts, bank statements or paper tickets.”

We understand that for many students, the increased travel costs without this discount will be significant, and that the impact may extend beyond finances to other important aspects of student life like attendance at classes and social activities.

Though TfL have not specified what information is required when requesting a refund, we have provided some of our own recommendations and other useful resources for impacted students below.

If intending to request a refund, we recommend students to keep a record of the following details for each journey they make;

• Date & time of the journey, as specific as possible e.g Tuesday 22nd October 2024 at 16:12pm.
• The journey details e.g bus journey on route 118 and the stops you are travelling from and to or national rail or London underground stops e.g Waterloo East to Peckham Rye.
• Estimated cost of journey
• Receipts/screenshots of bank statements where you have topped up your non-discounted Oyster card or purchase a train ticket.
• Your oyster card number or contactless card details is using this to travel.”

Alternatively, students with a 16-25 railcard can connect this to their current Oyster card at any London Underground station and receive 1/3 off off-peak travel. To do this, students will need to ask a member of staff working at the station to help them do this at a ticket machine.

In the meantime, if you are facing financial significant hardship as a consequence of the TfL cyber-attack, you may be eligible to apply for the UAL Hardship Fund here. This is a non-repayable “means tested” grant to support students with living and digital equipment costs.

We hope that this guidance is helpful and we will keep this page updated when more information as further information is released.

Useful Resources:

University Hardship Fund

The University Hardship Fund is available to all students enrolled on any further education, undergraduate, graduate diploma, postgraduate or research course at University of the Arts London.