In message , at 21:37:12 on Sat, 25
Feb 2017, Richard J. remarked:

But if "the current rules are an utter pain", there must be some value
in a scheme which avoids the pain. So how much interest would you lose
by lending TfL £20? Isn't it worth it to avoid the utter pain?

I top up my Oyster manually when it gets to about £2. The only use I
have for it is two Z1 singles. The issue with pre-paid one-function
cards is that you can easily end up with a lot of them. A provincial bus
card being one example.

It's like those coffee-shop cardboard loyalty cards - when I buy a
coffee there's rarely a choice of vendor, so I'd need to be carrying
around half a dozen cards all the time.
--
Roland Perry