On Feb 19, 12:25*pm, Mizter T wrote:
On 19 Feb, 11:26, "solar *penguin"
wrote:





Mizter T wrote:

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I'm pretty sure that I managed to break
three Oyster cards because I kept them in my back trouser pocket all
the time - force of habit meant that's where I had kept my tickets all
the years. I might have had my suspicions after the second, but was
only sure of this after the third! AIUI basically what happens is that
the tiny antennae in the card break when the card gets bent enough -
and that's exactly what I was subjecting mine to day after day after
day!

I think something similar must've happened to my Oyster Card when I had
one. *It just stopped working for no obvious reason.

I decided to give up and stick with proper tickets until the technology
gets more reliable. *IMHO it's worth paying the little bit extra for the
reassurance.

I think the technology is pretty reliable - I know people who are
still using their original Oyster card that they got back in 2003,
having been using it on a near daily basis ever since.

I certainly ain't going to start paying £3 or £4 for a single
Underground journey, or pay £2 for a bus fare just for the sake of
'reassurance', because I don't think anyone really needs to worry
about that. If I did buy paper tickets I'd end up paying well over the
odds all the time, buying Day Travelcards for a few journeys around
town which I would have paid significantly less for using Oyster -
quite often I never reaching any daily cap anyway. If I have a season
Travelcard on Oyster then again I'll save in comparison to having it
on paper when it comes to getting ticket extensions for journeys
outside my zones (at least on the Underground and DLR).

No doubt I'm sure incremental improvements are possible to the system
and any such improvements are of course most welcome (whether it be to
the cards themselves or to the validator equipment) - indeed perhaps
more recent Oyster cards have already been improved in comparison to
the first generation ones, though I've no idea if that has happened at
all yet. Plus there is always the possibility of a dodgy batch of
cards, though maybe that was more likely in the early years.

I was annoyed when my card broke, and yet more annoyed when it
happened again - it was a fuss going to get them replaced, especially
as this happened early on and not all the Tube ticket office staff
were that clued up as to the proceedure for replacements. However I
understand that things have improved very significantly in that
department as staff have become familiar with the system.

But since I figured out that keeping my Oyster card in my back pocket
was a bad idea and stopped doing so I've had no problems at all. So
that's my basic bit of advice - by all means get and use an Oyster
card, just don't sit on it

A question that springs to mind: if your balance/travelcard expiry
could be ascertained from quoting the ID of the card (perhaps
unregistered), did you have to get a new Oyster and register it and
make a journey via a specified station before you could be reimbursed/
valid again?

It occurs to me that there are issues with transferring balances
between different cards, particularly if you can't prove that you are
the same person. Can't get my head round what they all are for the
minute ...