LUL £5 minimum spend at ticket office

I didnt even know there was a £5 minimum! The Travelcard is available as always

LO and Southern don't. Southeastern have a £5 minimum on Oyster at their TVM's.

As far as I'm aware, LUL stations which have the £5 limit at the ticket office show a sign on the window. Most if not all Zone 1 stations have the limit, Canada Water in Zone 2 doesn't, although I think Canary Wharf being a busy station does.

Still I went the LO managed Surrey Quays today and the ticket clerk was happy to put £4.20 on my Oyster card.

Tickets? I knew the minimum Oyster top-up was £5 - but surely you can still purchase e.g. a child travelcard from the ticket office (especially as most machines have child tickets disabled when the ticket office is open!)

You'll be surprised how many don't know you can even put PAYG credit on!

That goes to show that some don't read the leaflet provided by TfL with their Zip Oyster, I assume most just use it for free travel on the bus instead? Crazy when it's so cheap to use the tube/DLR/Overground.

Indeedily.

I prefer to use paper tickets for the flexibility, but it's significantly cheaper at the moment for me to use my oyster card over paper tickets. Don't see why you can't buy a child paper ticket (more expensive) with an 11-15 oyster, yet can still use the PAYG until expiry, even after turning 16.

bought two oysters on line and paid £5 deposit and these have a minimum £5 top up,there are cheap cards on ebay dating from the royal wedding around £2 but the seller claims a deposit still needs to be paid at the ticket office,i bought a couple and will try without.

i dont like having to register cards and the tfl site appears to have an agent in scotland who sends them from a p o box who automatically does this. there's no opt out option.

The £5 minimum top up is nothing new and was introduced company wide by LU. The unions recently instructed their members not to follow this as a part of the recent industrial action.

The minimum top up does not apply to paper tickets, child PAYG nor when you PAYG is in a negative balance.

This decision was made to reduce the time queuing at the ticket office.

Selling Oyster cards that have not had their deposit already taken at the booking office/ newsagent is a tad risky. It appears to me that the seller has simply "taken" (stolen?) a number of cards and has sold them. The cards would not have been initialised and I seriously doubt that any of the passenger operated machines would accept the cards. It has been a long time since I've been in a booking office, but I'd guess that anybody bring an Oyster card to a booking office would ring alarm bells to the clerk as well as the Oyster system.

The very best is you'd pay £7 for something that you can get for £5 at a station/ oyster shop.

Regarding child tickets from passenger operated machines. When the ticket office is open then this facility should be turned off. When a ticket office is closed, then the machine must sell child tickets. This is a manual feature turned on/ off by staff.

There's one of those dispenser machines at South Ken on the wall next to the tunnel to the museums in the ticket hall.