Adrian wrote:

If it's PAYG, what's the *problem* with several people travelling on the
same card...? Isn't it absolutely the same thing as one person paying in
cash for three tickets for themselves and the two people they're travelling
with?

At the least, why can't you buy paper tickets using PAYG - doesn't even
have to affect the cap - just get a single ticket at the oyster fare or
even oyster fare + 50p.

Because now, when I'm travelling with a couple of other people from
outside london I'm going to be advising them to get an oyster card at
the ticket window, not a single ticket.

For a Waterloo-Euston journey (most recent case I did) that's get two
oyster cards at Waterloo and then return them for a refund of the
credit and deposit at Euston. This is really going to slow down ticket
sales. (If you can get an oyster with just 1.50 credit on it then
returning it doesn't make much sense as It's only 50p extra and I can
hang on to the card then until next time but AFAICT, this allows people
to cap single fares at 4.50 - get an oyster with 1.50+3GBP deposit,
make a 6GBP journey and then throw away the card.

(Will an oyster card stop working if it's not used for 6 months and has
no credit on it or can it just be topped up)

Tim.