MIG wrote:
Actually, you must be able to get paper one day travelcards at
Heathrow, so he was sold the wrong thing. Presumably there was a £3
deposit on the Oyster or did he already have one for some reason? If
he had one already and offered it at the counter, whoever was serving
should still have asked how much credit he wanted to put on it, so the
situation is difficult to explain.

No, he put a £3 deposit down to get the Oyster, as he makes frequent
trips to London and thought it'd be worth the investment (how wrong he
was!).

I'll find out more detail of the actual transaction and let you know
what he actually asked for; I'm just assuming it was a Zone 1-6 one day
travelcard as that's what I'd told him to ask for.

We bit the bullet and just paid the £1.90 from Charing Cross to New
Cross rather than trek from Embankment up to Whitechapel and then down
to New Cross from there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of Oyster as a general rule, I
think it's a great system. It does seem to be a rather odd decision to
not be able to load one day travelcards onto it, though, in addition to
having prepay capping. Roll on the day that Ken gets control of NR in
London and makes them accept Oyster prepay, is all I can say.

Patrick