Up until recently, have been using Contactless payments to tag on and off buses and trains in Auckland City in an attempt to take advantage of the $20 daily fare cap (Not available for AT Hop card users, they instead have a $50 weekly fare cap), but the system frequently screws up despite carefully checking for a green light and “tag success” message at the tag station each time – With their system in the back end often failing to pair up the tags correctly resulting in cascading “missing tag” events and multiple “Default fares”. The process to query these has been very mixed. Sometimes I get a refund in days, sometimes it takes weeks of back and forth.

The common trigger pattern for me at least has been when a trip has involved a quick transfer at any point. For example: You tag off at the train station gates and then quickly tag on to a nearby waiting bus.

Given the friction and in spite of increased fuel costs – Have decided to drastically cut my use of Auckland’s Public Transport altogether until Auckland Transport pull their finger out and fix the system. The risk of AT’s system error’ing out and the subsequent frustrating process to obtain a refund has put me off taking Auckland Public Transport in the meantime.