Quick and easy to use - almost makes traveling to work enjoyable (i said almost) (Oyster Card)

Member Name: londongirl

Product:	Oyster Card
Date:	02/02/09 (453 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy , no queuing, cheaper than paper tickets

Disadvantages: higher charges if you forget to swipe in or out

I have had an oyster card for quite a few years now. It is so easy and simple to use. I first used the similar card system called Octopus on Hong Kong's tube system which was great and again very simple so when Oyster came out here I knew exactly what it was and the benefits to using it.

It is the swipe card system used to pay for journeys on London underground, buses, DLR and also now London Overground and some national rail services.

Some of my friends were reluctant to change over from paper tickets to Oyster but I'm not really sure why. It saves you having to queue to buy a ticket all the time if you just use pre-pay. You can load a travelcard on to it just the same as if you were buying a paper travel ticket or you can use pre-pay where you load a certain amount of money onto it whenever you want and then as you swipe through the barriers after completing your journey it automatically deducts the price for that journey.

The benefit to using pre-pay Oyster as opposed to buying a single or return paper ticket is huge savings! For example to use Oyster on a London bus costs £1 for one way but £2 if you are paying in cash. Similarly at the weekends to go from Zone 6 (where i live) to Central London (Zone 1) is now £2.20 with Oyster one way - but a whopping £4 each way if you pay buy cash so nearly double for not having an Oyster card.

To get an Oyster card you need to pay a £3 deposit which may put some people off but as you can see from the examples I have given even if you only make a couple of journeys you will have made back that £3 quite easily.

My own Oyster card I just use pre-pay to get to work as it is slightly cheaper for me to do that than to get a travelcard as i don't go into London as often as I used to at weekends so just need it for travel back and forth to work Monday to Friday. I have also signed up to Auto top-up which makes things even easier. You can sign up online to Auto top-up and it basically saves you from having to either queue up at a ticket desk or machine to put more money on your Oyster card when it runs low. Instead you can give your credit or debit card details online and choose when to top it up automatically. I have chosen to top it up by £20 once it goes below £5 credit. This happens automatically the next time you swipe through the barrier. So if my last journey takes my credit down to say £4.50 then the next time i swipe in at a barrier it will top it up with £20 making my credit £24.50. They then send you an email to let you know that £20 will be deducted from your card. As Oyster is capped with the price of 50p less than the maximum daily travelcard cost even if you lost your card and someone found it and used it they could only use potentially up to about £15 that day maximum so although it has auto top up it is not like someone could drain your account getting free travel as you have to register the card in your name so if you lose it you can quite easily cancel it and therfeore it is no worse having auto top-up than it is having pre-loaded £20 or £30 on to your card and then losing it.

I plan to actually get a spare Oyster card for friends who don't live in London to use - i'll pay the £3 deposit and then they can just put on whatever credit they need while using it. I've had a few friends from outside London recently that could have done with having one when we have got the train or bus somewhere -unfortuantely the ticket office was shut at the time so couldn't buy one then! I would recommend if you are coming to London even if just for a couple of days and plan on making a couple of journeys then get an Oyster card. The beauty of it also is that even if you put a travel card on it say for zones 1-4 but then you suddenly decide you need to travel into zone 5 , as long as you have some pre-pay credit on there too it just takes off the extra money for going into zone 5 so you don't have to worry about not having the right ticket or for making sure you know exactly where you are going all day before you buy your ticket.

I love my Oyster card and the only downside I have encountered is that sometimes mine is not read properly by the ticket inspectors machines. It never has any problem being read by the machines swiping in and out at stations but a few times the ticket inspectors have tried to check it with their portable ticket machines and it has come up saying they can't read it. Luckily i think i must have an innocent face as I always just explain that it has pre-pay on it and offer for them to get off with me at the station I am going to and watch me swipe out with no trouble to prove i have the correct ticket! They always decline and just let me get on with my journey!

Lastly one other downside is if you forget to swipe in or out at a station (which is possible sometimes where there are no barriers just swipe points) then it will charge you £4 the next time you swipe in regardless of how much your journey should have cost you. Once you know this and get used to it though it is very easy to remember to swipe in and out all the time as it just becomes habit.

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