On Apr 15, 12:07*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
11:21:06 on Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Mizter T remarked:

There is a £3 refundable deposit for the card. You can either provide
your details and have it registered, or otherwise have an unregistered
card.

Isn't there some issue to do with refunding people with overseas
addresses?

AIUI the deposit and unused credit can be refunded in cash in a
straightforward over-the-counter transaction at a Tube station ticket
office if it's under a certain amount, but I don't know what that
amount is.
See this TfL Help page:
https://custserv.tfl.gov.uk/icss_csi...entityNum=3334

I think that if the card is registered then you'd need to quote the
answer to your security question. If the card is not registered then I
think it may have to be registered first before the money could be
returned. I am, as you can see, rather hazy on the details with
regards to this all! (Unfortunately I can imagine some ticket office
bods might be similarly hazy on these matters!)


The one alternative is to buy an Oyster card before you arrive in
London - if you live in certain countries VisitBritainDirect will sell
you a "Visitor Oyster card" in your local currency and send it to you
by post. See this webpage for more information (confusingly it refers
to Oyster PAYG using its old name "Pre-Pay"):
http://www.visitlondon.com/travel/oyster/

Note that "Visitor Oyster cards" are functionally the same as standard
Oyster cards, except (a) they are unregistered and (b) there isn't a
refundable deposit, rather there is a small fee charged instead.

And there are some vending machines that sell them. LHR T4 is such an
obvious place to have such a machine, I'm sure they won't have installed
one...


Pedantry time! The vending machines do not sell "Visitor Oyster cards"
as such - rather they sell unregistered standard Oyster cards, or
rather I should say they 'vend' them as the £3 deposit is refundable
(in theory at least!).

The principle difference between "Visitor Oyster cards" and standard
Oyster cards is that the Visitor version does not have a refundable
deposit, instead there is a non-refundable "fee" charged when they are
purchased. I don't know whether it is possible to register a Visitor
Oyster card at a later stage - at some point I suppose I could do an
experiment by obtaining one and then attempting to register it. (With
'standard' unregistered Oyster cards it is possible to register them
at a later stage.)

Some of the Oyster vending machines sell Oyster cards with no credit
pre-loaded for £3 (i.e. the cost of the deposit), some sell Oyster
cards with minimal credit pre-loaded - I've seen ones selling cards
for £5 with £2 credit pre-loaded, not sure if there are any other
variations.

If you feel like you're suffering from deja vu then that's because we
did this whole topic at length a while back! Your well argued point
was that Oyster cards with a substantial amount of credit pre-loaded
on them should be sold from vending machines at major points of
arrival into London such as airports and termini stations. (Whether or
not they'd be branded "Visitor" is not so crucial).