In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
16:27:00 on Wed, 5 Oct 2005, Colin Rosenstiel
remarked:
£3 for two two pounds tickets seems more than the hassle is worth in
my book. I was wrong in thinking I'd bought as many as 7 singles this
year. The actual number I found on checking was 2.

So pay the extra, for the convenience of paying in cash.

Or go by bike and avoid being ripped off. It's a great integrated
system, Travelcards, until you want to stay overnight when it all falls
apart.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Nick Cooper wrote:


Why should I be expected to get an Oyster for just 7 single tube fares
so far this year?


Why not? My mother lives in Newcastle, but comes to London a few
times a year. She loves her Oyster card. It strikes me that a lot of
people seem to object to Oyster on some bizarre principle, and end up
cutting off their noses to spite their face. There was some woman
being interviewed on BBC London yesterday. "The likes of me don't have
an Oyster card," she said, "I think it's disgusting." FFS....

I have a friend who won't get an Oyster card because she doesn't want
"them" to know where she's been and what she's been doing. Not even an
unregistered pre-pay card...

I on the other hand love mine, and if I could have the thing implanted
in the palm of my hand I would! Just think how much easier that would be!

Cheers

Steve M

How does one document the tickets in order to claim expenses then?

You can request a statement which will be mailed to you the same day by
1st class post.

At any time? I expect a receipt when I part with cash. If I pay by
credit card I expect a transaction voucher.

Why should I pay a year's worth up front?

You don't. You can charge up your card with only the cost of your next
journey each time.

And the machines tell me what the Oyster single fares are, do they?

Are you just looking for any reason not to get one?

You can get a receipt every time you top up no matter what way you pay.

You can order a statement whenever you want or get a print out from the ticket office.

There will only be a very limited number of possible Oyster fares from next year.
Someone pedantic enough to only be prepared to top up on a per-journey basis
could surely be able to carry these listed on a small piece of paper with their Oyster
for them to refer to?

Otherwise don't bother - pay the higher price - the structure has obviously been designed
to penalise those not from London or the very stupid and it will subsidise the costs for the
rest of us.

On 5 Oct 2005 11:01:04 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

As I see it the TOCs are wary of Pre Pay for business reasons, and
given the current business structure of the railways it shouldn't
surprise anyone that they look at things from this perspective. Some
day I'll kick of a thread with some further thoughts on the TOCs
aversion to Pre Pay, but this thread is not the right forum for such
considered thoughts as the temperature is a little too hot with
indignation!

The principle with the equivalent bus day tickets, which cover several
operators and several counties, is that the issuing company keeps the
revenue, and swings and roundabouts sort the whole thing out.

Trying to account for every journey and allocating revenue would be an
impossible task. Well, maybe not impossible, but nobody has found he
need to do it so far.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 20:54:11 +0100, "TKD" wrote:

Otherwise don't bother - pay the higher price - the structure has obviously been designed
to penalise those not from London or the very stupid and it will subsidise the costs for the
rest of us.

I see this as well. I don't consider it appropriate.

(I am not putting up barriers to me getting an Oyster - I don't need
one as I always travel to London on outboundary ODTCs, be they of the
peak or off-peak variety. I am merely objecting to the offensively
expensive fares).

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 20:39 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

Or go by bike and avoid being ripped off. It's a great integrated
system, Travelcards, until you want to stay overnight when it all falls
apart.

I'm surprised a two-day outboundary travelcard has not been
introduced. It is available on most of the provincial PlusBus
schemes, as I recall...

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

As I see it the TOCs are wary of Pre Pay for business reasons, and
given the current business structure of the railways it shouldn't
surprise anyone that they look at things from this perspective.

From: http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/66

"The DfT recently specified that TfL's zonal fares must be rolled out to
all rail services within London by 2007, with a phased approach being
taken to achieve this with an individual train company at a time."

Once that has happened there will be much less reason for them to
resist.

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 20:54:11 +0100, "TKD" wrote:

Otherwise don't bother - pay the higher price - the structure has
obviously been designed to penalise those not from London or the
very stupid and it will subsidise the costs for the rest of us.

I see this as well. I don't consider it appropriate.

(I am not putting up barriers to me getting an Oyster - I don't need
one as I always travel to London on outboundary ODTCs, be they of the
peak or off-peak variety. I am merely objecting to the offensively
expensive fares).

Precisely. I mostly travel in on day returns to King's Cross and cycle
so TfL get none of my money. Other times I get one day travelcards. The
extra over a day return on those has rocketed since I started working in
London in late 2001 from 60p to £1.65 (with Network Card discount) and
will no doubt go up yet again next year.

But then there are times I stay overnight in Putney, as I will on
Friday. Then I either cycle from King's Cross to Westminster and from
Westminster to Putney and back or pay for single tickets on top of a
Saver return to Underground Zones 1 & 2.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

At any time? I expect a receipt when I part with cash. If I pay by
credit card I expect a transaction voucher.

When you feed cash into the machine, you press the receipt button and it
gives you one. I had these into work for expenses.

And the machines tell me what the Oyster single fares are, do they?

On the leaflet, next to the machine.

Neil Williams wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:24:45 GMT, Chris Tolley
Remind me, Neil - how much interest were you going to get on this fiver
that TfL are getting to keep?
It is the principle, not the amount, in this particular case.

But what is the principle? It's effectively no different from buying a
book of ten stamps when you only have an immediate need for one, is it?

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9633030.html
(From all the smoke, you'd think 47 225's train was really heavy!)