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[email protected] · November 25th 08, 11:13 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(David of Broadway) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(David of Broadway) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:06:10 -0600,
wrote:

Online top up really is a pain, especially for small amounts.
But it's pretty well the only option if you live in the USA.
Can't you just obtain a card and top it up at Heathrow station?
Once you've got the hang of Oyster, probably. But explaining it
to my brother wasn't trivial and I've not started on my
sister-in-law. They don't really do public transport in Columbus.
Then the whole system is likely confusing. But for those who do do
public transport, manually adding value to a card is found in many
more cities than automatic top-up.

Then there are the (rare) trips not entering the UK through
Heathrow.
For which Oyster is useless until arrival in London proper. Except
for arrivals (not direct from the US) into St. Pancras and London
City, where I believe Oyster cards are readily available. (Or are
Oysters not available at DLR stations?)

I was thinking of someone with an existing Oyster who needs to
top up online and collect on arrival. They have to know the point
of arrival at the time of the online top up.

Why does the aforementioned someone need to top up online? Every
entry point to the UK where Oyster is accepted (Heathrow, London
City, and St. Pancras are all that come to mind) have Oyster top-up
facilities.

It was my brother's question. Maybe it's the queues at Heathrow.

--
Colin Rosenstiel