On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:26:41 -0800 (PST),
MIG wrote:
On 24 Nov, 11:40, Tim Woodall wrote:
On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:40:41 -0800 (PST),
* * Mr Thant wrote: On 23 Nov, 14:23, "tim....." wrote:
And what rule is it that makes this method of "top up" un-refundable if you
don't use it?

Auto top-up triggers whenever the balance falls below £5. Thus your
balance is always in the £5-£25 range, never below. The loophole I'm
suggesting is to add cash before each journey to keep it in the £5-£10
range, but what you can't ever do with a card with auto top-up enabled
is spend the last £5.

You can still have the card refunded of course, but then you have no
Oyster Card.

The topup triggers when you ENTER a station with your balance below
5GBP. So you should top you your card before every journey to 5.10 and
then the topup won't trigger. There are a handful of journeys where your
card balance can actually go negative if you plan it right (but the
deposit will be more than the negative balance)

Presumably only before your last ever journey on that card, or it
really would defeat the whole object.

Don't know about last ever journey - just last journey before you leave
London for months.

Last time my parents were in London (August IIRC) I helped them get PAYG
oyster cards and we arranged it so that their balance would be zero when
they left London (couldn't be negative because they were only making Z1
journeys).

Given that they would only ever arrive at Euston and they walk to their
hotel (mostly they walk around London but we were going to a prom which
is a bit too far to walk) they've got ample opportunity to put more
money on their card next time they arrive and they can find a convenient
station with no queue. And, if next time they decide to try a different
hotel they can (I think) set up a topup online that they will pick up at
Euston station[1] so they won't need to queue to topup their cards
before they travel.

Tim.

[1] When I used my oyster card maybe a dozen times a year I decided I'd
still like to have autotopup. One day I was going to be taking the tube
to work instead of cycling so I arranged it so I could enable the
autotopup at Euston. Unfortunately, when I got to Euston there was some
sort of alert and I wasn't allowed into the underground and so I went to
work via Euston Square. So the autotopup expired uncollected.


--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/