If Your Phone Dies with Your Ticket on It

Published 28 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

There is no official concession for a flat battery. Transport for London's published conditions put the obligation on you: a phone used to pay must hold enough charge to see the journey out. A dead one at the exit gate produces a maximum fare, or a penalty fare if a member of staff is standing there. What rescues most people is a feature Apple publishes and almost nobody has heard of: an iPhone that has switched itself off because it needs charging can still open a gate for up to five hours.

That is the whole page in two sentences, but the detail matters, because it works in one situation and not another, and because a barcode on a train ticket is a different problem from a card in a wallet app. What follows is what each kind of ticket does when the screen goes black, and what you can do about it before and after.

Keeping the phone alive in the first place is a separate subject and we have a whole page on it: charging your phone in London covers which trains have sockets, what renting a power bank really costs and where to sit down next to a plug for nothing.

The five hours Apple does not advertise

Apple's support documentation describes a power reserve for cards, passes and keys that have Express Mode switched on. It says power reserve works for up to five hours with some of them, and that to see which ones are available you press the side button or the Home button when the iPhone needs to be charged. It also warns that doing this often may reduce the reserve significantly.

Two conditions decide whether this saves you. The phone has to have run out of power by itself, not been switched off deliberately: Apple says the feature is not available if you turn the iPhone off. And the card has to be set as an Express Mode card in advance, which is a setting in the Wallet app under the card's details. A contactless bank card that you tap the ordinary way, waking the phone and authenticating each time, is not an Express Mode card and will not work from a reserve.

So the instruction is boring and it is the most valuable thing here. Before you leave your hotel on the first morning, open Wallet, choose the card you will travel with, and turn Express Mode on. Then, at the gate on a dead phone, press the side button and hold the phone to the reader rather than assuming it is hopeless.

The worst case: you touched in and then it died

This is the expensive one. One card or one device has to do both taps, and TfL spells out that an iPhone at the start and a watch or a bank card at the end will not do. A phone that dies mid-journey therefore leaves you unable to close it, the trip is recorded as incomplete, and the entry charge already taken becomes a maximum fare, which does not count towards the daily cap.

You do not need to panic about it. Most incomplete journeys are corrected automatically, TfL asks you to wait at least 48 hours before claiming, and you have eight weeks to claim yourself if nothing appears. The amounts, the deadline and the exact refund route are set out in what happens if you forget to touch out, which also explains why the figure on a National Rail journey is much larger than on the Tube.

One thing worth doing on the spot: tell a member of staff at the gate before you leave the station. A flat battery is one of the situations TfL's own guidance lists as travelling without a valid fare, so the difference between explaining it at the barrier and being stopped on the other side of it is real. The way inspections work, and what a notice actually is, is in penalty fares and ticket inspectors.

A visitor problem inside this problem: you cannot claim a refund on an unregistered contactless card. If you are going to travel on a phone at all, register the underlying card in a TfL contactless and Oyster account on day one. There is also a seven-day service for unregistered cards, which only covers journeys in the past week, so a discovery made after you have flown home is often a discovery made too late.

A barcode on a train ticket is a different animal

A rail e-ticket is a barcode that a gate scans or a guard scans. There is no reserve, no Express Mode and nothing to tap. If your phone is dead you have no ticket to show, and standing at the gate hoping is the wrong move.

Go to the ticket office or the staffed assistance point instead, before you try the barrier, and arrive with three things that live outside your phone: the booking reference, the name the booking is in, and the card you paid with. Staff can look up what you bought. Whether they can reissue it, let you through, or ask you to buy again depends on the train company and on the member of staff, and no operator publishes a promise about flat batteries.

The fix is upstream of the problem. When you buy a rail ticket, do one of these before the day of travel:

• Choose a paper ticket. Many advance fares still offer collection from a machine at the station with the card you paid with. A paper ticket has no battery.
• Download the PDF ticket and print it at the hotel. Most reception desks will print one page.
• Add the ticket to your wallet app, not just to the retailer's own app, so it is not hostage to the app reopening.
• Photograph the booking reference and also write it on paper. On the last day of a trip that scrap of paper is your ticket home.

Everything else you booked on that screen

Theatre and attraction bookings are easier than transport, because there is a box office with a database and a human being. Give your surname and booking reference and they will usually find you. Tickets bought through a resale platform are the exception, because the venue may not hold your name at all.

An airline boarding pass is the least of your worries: the check-in desk can print one, and the only cost is time. Build that time in, and if the flight has gone wrong for other reasons, what the airline owes you when it cancels sets out the rest.

Where a dead phone genuinely strands you is anywhere your identity lives only on the screen: a two-factor code you cannot receive, a hotel check-in confirmation, a bank app you need to approve a payment in. Which is an argument for one printed sheet of paper per trip, carrying your flight numbers, hotel address and booking references, kept in the other bag.

What to do in the next ten minutes

1. Press the side button and try the reader. If the phone ran out by itself and Express Mode was on, the gate may simply open.
2. If it does not, find a member of staff rather than the barrier. Explain before you cross a gateline, not afterwards.
3. Find power. Most main-line station concourses and many cafes have sockets, and a five-minute charge is often enough to load a barcode. Our page on free wi-fi in London lists the places that tend to have both.
4. If the phone is truly dead and you have no ticket, buy a single and keep the receipt. It is cheaper than a penalty and you can argue about it afterwards from a hotel room.
5. Write the important numbers down while you are waiting for the phone to charge, so this cannot happen twice.

How to make the problem impossible next time

Three habits, in order of how much they help. Turn Express Mode on for the card you travel with, so the power reserve exists at all. Carry a plastic card alongside the phone, which also solves the card clash and the discount problem discussed in Oyster or contactless; if you want a card that is not linked to your bank at all, there is the Visitor Oyster card. And carry a small power bank rather than relying on finding a socket.

One piece of preparation nobody does: take a screenshot of each barcode and also email the PDF to yourself, so that a borrowed phone or a hotel computer can produce it. The apps worth having before you arrive, including the ones that work without a signal, are in the apps worth having in London. And if the phone is not dead but gone, that is a different emergency: see if your phone or wallet is stolen.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Apple Pay on the Tube if my iPhone battery is dead?

Possibly. Apple says Express Mode cards may work from a power reserve for up to five hours after the iPhone has switched itself off because it needs charging, and that you press the side or Home button to check. The reserve does not exist if you turned the phone off yourself.

What happens if my phone dies between touching in and touching out?

You cannot complete the journey, because TfL requires the same card or device at both ends. The journey is recorded as incomplete and the entry charge is kept as a maximum fare, which does not count towards your daily cap. Most are corrected automatically; wait 48 hours before claiming.

Can station staff let me through if my e-ticket is on a dead phone?

There is no published rule that they must, and no train company promises it. Go to the ticket office or a staffed assistance point rather than the gate, with your booking reference, the name on the booking and the card you paid with, and ask them to look the ticket up.

Is a screenshot of a rail barcode as good as the ticket?

Usually, provided the image is sharp and the screen is bright, but it is not guaranteed on every gate, and it does nothing at all if the phone is flat. A printed copy is better on a travel day, and hotel reception desks will normally print one page.

Will I get a penalty fare for a flat battery?

You can. A phone too flat to finish the journey sits in the same category, in TfL's own guidance, as an Oyster card with too little credit on it: both count as travelling without a valid fare. Speaking to staff before you reach the barrier is what usually stops it becoming a notice.

Sources

• Apple Support - Use Express Mode with travel cards, passes and keys in Apple Wallet, including power reserve (checked September 2026)
• Apple Platform Security - Express Cards with power reserve (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Touching in and out, and what happens if you do not (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Apply for an incomplete journey refund (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - How to pay the right fare (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Ticketing and travel conditions of carriage (checked September 2026)