please empty your brain below

At some point in the mid-2000s, the deposit was waived when buying a card with some kinds of ticket - possibly a weekly or monthly Travelcard. I remember cancelling my original Oyster to get the deposit back and then swapping it for a free one.

I really ought to get around to cancelling it though - while it's got no deposit, it does have some credit left...
We had 2 unregistered Oyster cards. One had a deposit, one was one of the original free ones.

When you mentioned refunds for now unused ones (a couple of years ago now), it took sending 2 paper forms with photocopies of several documents, 6 phone calls and 16 emails to get the balances back. TfL staff were truly awful - unhelpful, uncaring, and no-one would take responsibility for anything.

Good luck to anyone attempting that process.
I was in town the other week and tried out the new "Travel Card" option on my iPhone for contactless use. It worked like a charm, so I'll be cancelling my venerable Oyster card now and stop worrying about topping it up.
I'd hazard a guess that this is an accounting move to enable them to change the balance sheet treatment of the deposits.
I do know people to whom £5 matters, but the majority couldn't care less about getting their deposit back.
Capitalist pigs!
I hope to always work for TfL so I never have to figure out its ticketing system. More importantly, will the biennial readership survey be returning after 2018's hiatus?
One point which frequently seems to be missed when discussing the seemingly inexorable move from dedicated contactless cards to the use of debit and credit cards, is that the former is, I think, still the only way of applying a railcard discount to a mainline railway fare in London without using a paper ticket.

This means that, depending on how the scheme is implemented, older and disabled people, as well as other groups qualifying for a Railcard stand to be affected disproportionately by the imposition of a fee.
Two reasons for using Oyster:

Contactless payment with a credit card can stop working - if for example a hotel bill is accidentally charged twice.

Some of us would prefer to keep credit cards out of sight in public places.
I think the change is to increase the track-ability of customers over longer time periods.

It seems there are a lot of people who don't like the surveillance aspect of the Oyster card and so regularly obtain a new card, which lowers the value of the tracking data which TFL sells.
I actually need to grab a new one next time I get a chance, as my ~2006 era card is too old to use the app; and I don't want to use contactless for currency conversion reasons. But if I get another 14 years out of the card I'm sure they'll have worked out the fee-to-deposit changeover by then!
My understanding was after a year the £5 becomes an oyster credit rather than a deposit.

dg writes: See paragraph with grey text.
A lot of infrequent users like travellers or multi-country residents will have an Oyster card because use of contactless foreign cards for small transactions attract meaningful fee (like 2 currency units a pop). Or just buy one for the duration of their stay and keep it abroad for the rest of their lives. I am sure it explains millions of cards.
Attain your 60th birthday and get a 60+ pass. This worked for me.
Reminds me I have a card with about £25 on it that I really need to use...
...quite possible it safer way to deposit money in than some banks (and not have to declare as "savings").
Given the plastic waste issue it's time the deposit increased significantly to discourage short term use.
What R said. I have an annual Gold card for my daily rail commute from zone 3, and that gets me a material discount on tfl, but to the best of my knowledge, that's only possible via oyster.
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the Dutch country-wide public transport smartcard is a non-refundable €7.50 and expires after five years, so we've got a bit of a bargain here.
Oh, thanks! I organise a large trip to London every year where we buy a bunch of Oysters, and this is genuinely going save confusion in about six months.
One key reason for continuing with Oyster is the ability to apply the 30% off peak discount for tube, bus, tram, and zonal rail travel if you have a Network Southeast area annual rail ticket (Gold card) without Travelcard-London zoning, and Senior, Disabled, Veterans railcards. Can't do that with contactless.

The foreign currency fee and exchange rate loading on foreign contactless cards (if they work at all--loadable currency cards often don't, or change a fee, not all do) would be applied daily, since TfL only settles to the card daily (although they auth every time you tap). But still a significant hidden cost to contactless.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, "tut!" and for good measure "tut, tshtut". Excellent points made by all.
You'd still get the refund after a year if you were still using the card, even if TfL had no contact email address. I think the refund will get resent for pickup if you miss the 4 day window and the card is later seen in use again.
I have 2 Oyster cards with about £18 on them in total. I've not used since I was last in London in December 2017 (ironically enough, with visits to Bow, and I'm sure I'd have passed very close to DG's flat!).

Still it is useful for me to keep them going, as they have been borrowed by friends a colleagues travelling to the UK, and I'll always have them for future visits.

There was once I think a benefit of having the Visitor's card for special children´s rates (or free), but I think that this has been harmonised with the standard card now.
This baffles me beyond comprehension - fares simplicity has been surrendered for travel convenience, and the pocket risks suffering.

I'm even more delighted with my 'Freedom Pass', one of the things along with my choice when the alarm clock is set, making older age worthwhile.
Re: not wanting to "show off" your contactless bank card.

Two options: get a second card which you use just for contactless charging for transport and incidentals. Monzo works well for this, can track use on the app and cancel quickly if lost, and then put the card in a normal "card" wallet of your choice (e.g. a TfL one)

Or pay for a Barclays Pingit (formerly bPay) "token", which is really just a contactless chip wrapped up as a keyfob, wristband, watch strap add-on or jewelery. e.g. get the keyfob and put it into an card wallet. Not too obvious.

Citymapper weekly pass (really a mastercard contactless card) is another option with costs/benefits for regular travellers (min cost £1 per week).
(or just use Oyster)
One of the reasons for the "deposit" is so that for any travellers, you're let into the system if you have enough (positive) money for the shortest journey.

But for example, if you go zone 1 to 7 (Croxley!) your balance becomes negative: you can still get out through the barrier. TfL are not out of pocket. The £5 would cover at least to Watford Junction.
This is all rather incomprehensible to those of outside London. If we happen to be within several miles of any form of public transport which runs more than once a week we have to present considerably large amounts of 'cash' in order to use it.
Re: "out of town"ers. Regional & provincial travel is increasingly offering contactless and smart cards for the same reasons that London changed.

Re: "just use oyster" TfL (and citymapper) is incentivising contactless over oysters in financial ways (plus some destinations are contactless only), so there is a need to be able to make contactless comfortable for the security conscious
In Greater Manchester Stagecoach started doing contactless a couple of years ago, and certainly were offering it in Cumbria last autumn.

FirstBus have been doing it for a while too.

Some of the smaller operators may not, but even some of the refuseniks are getting on board now
I think Norfolk county council made contactless a condition of accepting the limited route subsidy available, so all the operators are offering it, including smaller indy's like Sanders.
Oyster is also very convenient if you travel in/through London for work and have to claim that travel back from your employer. Topping up will get you a receipt for the accounts department, where as using your (personal) contactless card will mean highlighting rows on your statement or a claim with no paperwork. Not a problem if your employer is happy to issue a company credit card, but many are not. The Oyster card is also (de facto) transferable to whoever needs it today.

This is actually happening more as mainline tickets (and corporate travel agents who don't want to ship tangerine cards) shift to barcode tickets, which make including a tube transfer on the mainline ticket impossible.
For my employer, I just submit a copy of recent travel from the TfL website and use that as a "contactless" receipt. They always seem happy with that.

In contrast, don't think our expenses policy would like me topping up an Oystercard!
I don't think that 'discouraging short term use' shows an understanding of what's happening... I'm just always losing the bloody things. And for that reason I don't want to use contactless - getting my debit card out six times a day to use on the bus will guarantee I'll lose that as well.
If we happen to be within several miles of any form of public transport which runs more than once a week we have to present considerably large amounts of 'cash' in order to use it.










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