Mr Thant wrote:

On 21 Nov, 15:17, David Cantrell wrote:

Bus usage is reasonably heavy here too, but TfL doesn't seem to care.
People who use the busses a lot are *forced* by the penalty cash
fares to either have a Travelcard (which we can get from the local
railway station) or an Oyster card. How inconvenient Oyster is
doesn't matter, it seems.

Auto top-up, yo.


I thought auto top-up needs you to touch in at an Underground station in
order to activate it each time. Is that right? If so, it's totally
useless for people like David who don't live near the tube and only use
Oyster on buses. It means he has to go out of his way to visit the
Underground and make a totally pointless tube trip just to get his PAYG
credit. And if he has to visit the Underground station anyway, he could
just manually top up his card there anyway.

On 22 Nov, 08:34, "solar penguin"
wrote:
I thought auto top-up needs you to touch in at an Underground station in
order to activate it each time. *Is that right? *If so, it's totally
useless for people like David who don't live near the tube and only use
Oyster on buses. *It means he has to go out of his way to visit the
Underground and make a totally pointless tube trip just to get his PAYG
credit. *And if he has to visit the Underground station anyway, he could
just manually top up his card there anyway.

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.

U

"solar penguin" wrote :
Auto top-up, yo.
I thought auto top-up needs you to touch in at an Underground station in
order to activate it each time. Is that right? If so, it's totally
useless for people like David who don't live near the tube and only use
Oyster on buses. It means he has to go out of his way to visit the
Underground and make a totally pointless tube trip just to get his PAYG
credit. And if he has to visit the Underground station anyway, he could
just manually top up his card there anyway.

In the days when I manually topped up online, I had to go tube and validate.
Now I auto-topup, and it's auto - I rarely use the tube, and have no
problems.
I think it changed a good while ago.
--

Andrew

"She plays the tuba.
It is the only instrument capable
of imitating a distress call."

Mr Thant wrote:

On 22 Nov, 08:34, "solar penguin"
wrote:
I thought auto top-up needs you to touch in at an Underground
station in order to activate it each time. Is that right? If so,
it's totally useless for people like David who don't live near the
tube and only use Oyster on buses. It means he has to go out of his
way to visit the Underground and make a totally pointless tube trip
just to get his PAYG credit. And if he has to visit the Underground
station anyway, he could just manually top up his card there anyway.

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.


I stand corrected. But does the cost of the one intial pointless tube
journey get refunded at all?

In article
,
(MIG) wrote:

On Nov 21, 11:19*pm, Richard wrote:
On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:37:59 -0800 (PST), Mr Thant

wrote:
On 21 Nov, 15:17, David Cantrell wrote:
Bus usage is reasonably heavy here too, but TfL doesn't seem to
care. People who use the busses a lot are *forced* by the penalty
cash fares to either have a Travelcard (which we can get from
the local railway station) or an Oyster card. *How inconvenient
Oyster is doesn't matter, it seems.

Auto top-up, yo.

Exactly. *It's inconvenient, but only once, or less if you have
internet access and buy on-line.

And you have to sign up with full details, to be electronically
tagged. No thanks.

You also need to spend at least £10 at a time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008, solar penguin wrote:

Mr Thant wrote:

On 22 Nov, 08:34, "solar penguin"
wrote:
I thought auto top-up needs you to touch in at an Underground
station in order to activate it each time. Is that right? If so,
it's totally useless for people like David who don't live near the
tube and only use Oyster on buses. It means he has to go out of his
way to visit the Underground and make a totally pointless tube trip
just to get his PAYG credit. And if he has to visit the Underground
station anyway, he could just manually top up his card there anyway.

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.

I stand corrected. But does the cost of the one intial pointless tube
journey get refunded at all?

No, but i'm sure you can think of somewhere in London that you'd like to
go one day where a tube is a good way of getting there. If not, may i
suggest you buy a copy of Time Out?

tom

--
everything from live chats and the Web, to the COOLEST DISGUSTING
PORNOGRAPHY AND RADICAL MADNESS!!

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:29:39 -0800 (PST), Mr Thant
wrote:

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.

....and you don't even need one totally pointless trip if you get a new
card from the Oyster web site with auto top-up already on it. Then
you could later get any deposit back on an old one. For anybody with
internet access, living away from the underground (as I do) is *not* a
reason to complain about Oyster. I understand the privacy concerns,
though, but don't see a way around that for a product like auto
top-up.

Richard.

In message , at 11:30:45
on Sat, 22 Nov 2008, remarked:
And you have to sign up with full details, to be electronically
tagged. No thanks.

You also need to spend at least £10 at a time.

Top up at least £10 a time, shirley? You can still spend as little as £1
(or whatever) on a bus fare.
--
Roland Perry

In message
, at
06:29:39 on Sat, 22 Nov 2008, Mr Thant
remarked:
You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place.

If you can predict where your next non-pointless trip is going to be,
use that to activate the top-up. But I have to admit that my own such
prediction proved to be wrong.
--
Roland Perry

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...
On Sat, 22 Nov 2008, solar penguin wrote:

Mr Thant wrote:

You only need to make one totally pointless underground trip to enable
auto-top-up in the first place. After that, the actual topping up can
happen anywhere you use your card, including buses.

I stand corrected. But does the cost of the one intial pointless tube
journey get refunded at all?

No, but i'm sure you can think of somewhere in London that you'd like to
go one day where a tube is a good way of getting there. If not, may i
suggest you buy a copy of Time Out?

But to get to a Tube station, as I live in SE London, I would have to take
an Overground train and so I would normally buy a one day Travelcard at the
train station. To use my Oyster at the Tube station I would either need to
buy a train return ticket instead or use my Oyster when I had a valid
Travelcard.

In either case no only would my tube journey be pointless it would be more
expensive than necessary.

regards

Stephen


tom