Martin Petrov wrote:

On 3 July, 16:40, "solar penguin"
wrote:
Martin Petrov wrote:
This morning I had to travel to Leyton to Ilford and needless to
say, given I haven't bought a paper ticket in London for YEARS
due to always having a monthly or annual travelcard and auto top
up on my Oystercard, it never crossed my mind that I'd have to
buy a ticket to cover me for the stretch outside of zone 3 to
Ilford.

Given that Oyster is still completely useless on most journeys, I'm
amazed that you've managed to go "for YEARS" without needing a paper
ticket. Were you stuck indoors for most of that time?

In London?

No, indoors. Like a room with a padded cell.

Yep, I had a 1-5 for a while while I worked in Bromley

Great if you were living in Zone One at the time, maybe. Not so great
if you're living in southeast London and just need a simple
point-to-point serason between you'r local station and Bromley South,
with no extra travelcard stuff for tubes and buses that you're not going
to use at all.

and
even since I've been working back in the centre, a 1-3 has sufficed
for any journey I need to make around the local area.

But you need the season travelcard for that to work on the trains. It's
totally useless otherwise. And Z1-3 is still no good for all your
leisure journeys on NR trains, because it forces you in towarsd the
centre when you want to be getting heading outwards towards the suburbs
and all the open spaces along the London Loop.

I use London
Overground a lot too which has obviously accepted pre-pay for a good
few years.

Which might be handy one day, but for now Overground is completely
useless for most journeys, since there's hardly anything of it south of
the river. So there's still the need for a paper ticket to/from Clapham
Junction to connect with it.

And while I lived in Hackney, largely all my journeys
involved buses. The Oystercard is absolutely ace.

It is good for buses, I'll grant you that much. But even so, it's still
nothing more than an inconvenient replacement for the old Savers bus
tickets.

Like I said, Oyster is just a useless white elephant. I'm glad you've
managed to find journeys where it works for you (even if it did mean
having to move to Hackney to do it.) But always remember that
Oyster-friendly jouneys are the exception, not the rule.