London Banter - Oyster cards and one day travelcards.

Matthew Rees wrote in message ...
Ian Tindale wrote:
For me, one of the most useful things I was expecting Oyster to offer was
the immediate purchase from home of a one day travelcard.

snip

Oyster seems geared for the people who buy long period seasons, e.g.
annual, rather than for the clued up Londoner who buys a mix of tickets
during the year.

My monthly ticket expires next Wednesday and I am on holiday (half term)
the following week. Ideally I would like to buy two 1 day travel cards
for the Thursday and Friday (my journey starts on a bus so I need to buy
in advance) and a new monthly from the Monday when I get back. But I
cannot buy the one day tickets and my new monthly is not available for
collection until the middle of my holiday!

Oyster is brilliant but it has clearly been designed by the usual IT
geeks and does not yet meet the real needs of Londoners.

Matthew
Regular user of the 65 bus to Richmond, NR to Vauxhall and tube to Brixton

Why can't you buy an Oyster one day ticket? Your sig line suggests you
live in Ham/Petersham, and TfL's website says that you can buy Oyster
one-days (or even monthlies) at the following shops the

CHATFIELDS NEWS P(4202) 46B FRIARS STILE ROAD TW10 6NQ
HAM GENERAL STORES 31 HAM STREET, HAM VILLAGE TW10 7HR
NEWS DIP P(6013) 171 ASHBURNHAM ROAD TW10 7NR

You can also buy paper tickets at:

E B NEWS PLUS 71 HAM STREET TW10 7HW
COSTCUTTER 10 ASHBURNHAM ROAD TW10 7NF

(More details at http://www.tfl-ticketlocator.co.uk/)

The other trick I always used to use (and you can't do this at
newsagents, but you can at rail/Tube stations) was to work out in
advance when I wanted my season ticket to end. Remember that you can
buy ANY number of days from one month to one year; I generally bought
a Travelcard valid for 33 days, to run from the Monday of Week 1 to
the Friday of Week 5. If I knew in advance that I was going on
holiday, then I would buy a Travelcard that was valid for longer; if
it was time to renew the Travelcard six or seven weeks before the
holiday, I bought a Travelcard from that day to the day I was due to
leave (or the day before, if I wasn't going to use trains/Tubes to get
to Heathrow). That way I rarely wasted value by having my Travelcard
valid at a time I wasn't in London. (If I happened to want to travel
somewhere at the weekend after Week 5, I would just get a One Day or
Weekend Travelcard -- it was cheaper than adding extra days to my
period one)

OK, I admit, I don't live in London any more, but all this is still
doable and I'm amazed that everyone (who buys monthlies) doesn't do
it.