You can't simply look at the tickets and see how many you've got left.
Instead you have to mess about with your online balance and stuff.
That's annoying.

I agree that's a definite downside with smartcard ticketing, no doubt.
As I said in my reply to Martin, perhaps one day there will be
smartcards that offer a visual display of what your balance is and/or
when your season ticket is due to expire.


Auto Top Up. Set it up once, and you never need to look online or
check your balance. I haven't had to go online for at least a year. My
only maintenance involves re-upping my Zone 1-3 once a month. And if
you must, stick your record card in your Oystercard wallet - then
you've the best of both worlds.

On Jul 3, 7:44*pm, Martin Petrov wrote:

You can't simply look at the tickets and see how many you've got left..
Instead you have to mess about with your online balance and stuff.
That's annoying.

I agree that's a definite downside with smartcard ticketing, no doubt.
As I said in my reply to Martin, perhaps one day there will be
smartcards that offer a visual display of what your balance is and/or
when your season ticket is due to expire.

Auto Top Up. Set it up once, and you never need to look online or
check your balance. I haven't had to go online for at least a year. My
only maintenance involves re-upping my Zone 1-3 once a month. And if
you must, stick your record card in your Oystercard wallet - then
you've the best of both worlds.

Yes, Auto Top-up is fantastic - but it's not for everyone. There's a
great many people who's finances are fairly chaotic, or even just very
tight - and money being taken just like that wouldn't really work out
too well.

Also, you'll only get a 'proper' Record card if you buy from an LU
station ticket office. LU ticket machines issue a printed receipt -
the big ones issue the receipt on blank LU ticket stock, the smaller
ones on a roll of white thermal paper. And "Oyster Ticket Stops" only
issue receipts on a roll of white thermal paper (the same as a credit/
debit card receipt chit). Regardless, it's a visual record of when
you're good to go up until.

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

Auto Top Up. Set it up once, and you never need to look online or
check your balance. I haven't had to go online for at least a year. My
only maintenance involves re-upping my Zone 1-3 once a month. And if
you must, stick your record card in your Oystercard wallet - then
you've the best of both worlds.

Yes, Auto Top-up is fantastic - but it's not for everyone. There's a
great many people who's finances are fairly chaotic, or even just very
tight - and money being taken just like that wouldn't really work out
too well.

Not so useful for infrequent users not living near a regular tube station.
I just spent £7 on Oyster due to being in London overnight without my bike
for the first time for some months. That is nearly as much as the total in
the first 6 months of the year of £9.60.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Jul 4, 7:40*am, wrote:

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

Auto Top Up. Set it up once, and you never need to look online or
check your balance. I haven't had to go online for at least a year. My
only maintenance involves re-upping my Zone 1-3 once a month. And if
you must, stick your record card in your Oystercard wallet - then
you've the best of both worlds.

Yes, Auto Top-up is fantastic - but it's not for everyone. There's a
great many people who's finances are fairly chaotic, or even just very
tight - and money being taken just like that wouldn't really work out
too well.

Not so useful for infrequent users not living near a regular tube station..
I just spent £7 on Oyster due to being in London overnight without my bike
for the first time for some months. That is nearly as much as the total in
the first 6 months of the year of £9.60.

You only need to pass through the nominated Underground station *once*
in order to set it up. If you set it up online on one day (before
11pm), it will be available to be 'picked up' at that station from the
day afterwards, for the next eight days. From then onwards for as long
as you retain that particular Oyster card you don't ever need to
return to that station again, nor indeed use the Tube again - you can
just use buses.

You do need to start or finish making a journey in order to activate
the auto top-up facility (it can't just be picked up from a ticket
machine). However, you can get round this slightly be simply entering
a station through the gates and then exiting it again - for which
you'll be charged for a journey (the minimum fare from that station -
so £1.60 in zone 1), even though you didn't go anywhere. Some might
however consider this worth it in order to get it set up.

In your case however, given the very low usage, it perhaps wouldn't
really be of any significant benefit. (Just another company with whom
you have to update your credit/debit card details when you get a
replacement card!)

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

In your case however, given the very low usage, it perhaps wouldn't
really be of any significant benefit. (Just another company with whom
you have to update your credit/debit card details when you get a
replacement card!)

That's about the size of it. I do keep a minimum balance on my card, £1.60
these days, so I don't have to join the horrendous queues for tickets at
King's Cross.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Just to chime in with my 2p....

I have a z1-5 Travelcard on Oyster, but live outside London, in
Bushey. That card will get me by bus to Edgware, Stanmore, or H&W, and
thence all around London. Given that I generally use the LM trains
from H&W, it's really reasonably cheaper than the equivalent paper
tickets, even more so once you factor in the buses, and has the added
bonus of when I'm coming home and want to go all the way out to Bushey
or Watford, I don't have to buy bloody annoying extension tickets any
more thanks to PaYG being valid out that far. It also gets me all the
way out to places like Croydon, which makes trips to places down south
(Brighton, etc) *much* cheaper.

....only downside is now that whenever I meet up with friends in town,
I'm the one having to go wherever they are as my travel is effectively
free

In message
, at
00:20:13 on Sat, 4 Jul 2009, Mizter T remarked:
(Just another company with whom you have to update your credit/debit
card details when you get a replacement card!)

Getting a combined Oyster/Barclaycard might solve that isolated issue.

--
Roland Perry