Lucky me arrived at Heathrow last night. My wife wanted to get a new weekly
travelcard (zones 3-4) so we queued for tickets instead of using the
machines. The line was taking for ever to move due to the fact that there
were only 2 windows serving and there were a number of people registering
for Oyster cards at the counters. Two things annoyed me about that; first
up why did people choose a very busy Sunday night at Heathrow to get a new
Oyster card, and secondly why were they staying at the window to fill in the
forms instead of moving aside for a bit and letting someone else buy a
ticket in the mean time.

When we got to the counter we found out the answer to both questions. The
staff at Heathrow were not issuing weekly travelcards on a paper ticket -
they insisted that the only way to get weekly travelcards now was to use an
Oyster card. I've read through the 2004 fares booklet and it quite clearly
states that you can still purchase weekly travel cards in the old fashioned
way so what was with that???

Having stayed in line for so long (and imagining what a nightmare the Monday
queues would be like given the unadvertised withdrawal of the normal weekly
card) we decided that we'd best get a new Oyster card. We offered to stand
aside while my wife filled in her form but the attendant told us not to,
despite the very long queue of people waiting. So that answered the second
question.

Were the staff at Heathrow mistaken about the weekly travelcard? If so why
does this sort of thing happen? I tried to buy a peak 2-6 daily travelcard
when they were intrduced last year from the Balham station and despite
assuring the attendant of both the availability and cost of the said
travelcard she refused to issue me one. Fortunately the folks behind the
counter upstairs at the BR station knew what was going on so I got what I
wanted but it makes me wonder if LU actually bother to train their staff
about new products. Very annoying!