On 3 Oct 2003 03:19:24 -0700, Nick Cooper 625 wrote:
Up until now, I've always renewed my monthly travelcard at Bounds
Green, but will often not immediately renew if I don't need to travel
on the days after the expirity.
snip
Is it possible to have
gaps like this using Oyster.

Yes.

Example: My monthly TC's worth runs out on, say, the 5th of the month
and I renew it either at a Tube station or via the web-site on that
day or the 6th or 7th, but don't actually use the card for a journey
until the 8th. Will the start date of the new month be the 8th, to
expire on the next 7th, or will it be counted as a consecutive with
the previous month, starting on the 6th and expiring again on the next
5th?

What ever you choose, but you won't be able to renew it via the
website on the 6th or 7th to start on the 8th. If you want to renew
on the website you need to do so a few days in advance. The website
will tell you what the earlise start date is (I'm getting the Sunday
5th at the moment). I don't think you can buy a pass from the touch
screen machines that starts in the future but since you couldn't
buy passes from them anyway that's not a loss.

Secondly, all the literature states that the card gets "re-charged"
when you next use it at your nominated station (or whatever). So what
happens in the above example if I need to make my first journey on the
8th via _another_ station or even by bus? Previously, because it was
possible to get a card renewed to start in a few days time, that sort
of flexibility was possible - you could get the new card, already
valid to use by any appropriate route, before the old one ran out, and
even if there was a day or two's gap between the two.

An Oystercard can hold something like 3 tickets so you can do exactly
what you did with paper tickets.

David