I mentioned a minor Oystercard saga a week or two back. We have replaced our Oystercards and I finally this morning got round to setting up Auto Top Up. All fine and dandy until I went to enter my Switchcard details. Card refused because it is due to expire within three months. As they do, eventually - something I have been aware of for a while (mainly the thought that the best way to get duplicate tickets for occasions when one inadvertently leaves them at home cough cough is to produce the card by which one paid for them).
I can kind of see Oystercard's logic - no point in attempting to do Auto Top Up on an expired debit card. But my card isn't expired. There's a whole two months left on it. Potentially an awful lot of travelling in that time. If I hadn't have lost my Oystercard, I would be happily using ATU on the soon-to-expire Switchcard. They must have some mechanism by which, come 1 October, something triggers a refusal to ATU on an expired card, which would have affected me in the status quo ante, so I am not impressed by their unnecessary control being imposed at this premature stage (or indeed, if applicable, any time in July). I expect that the arrival of a new card in the post, followed at some point by the email from keithprowse@oyster would have triggered a process in my brain to update details on the ATU page.
I rang up my bank and they said they don't normally send replacements out until a week or two before they're due to expire, which makes sense to me. Although they decided to make an exception in my case.
I just get irritated when things which are supposed to be lifehacks end up causing more hassle.
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