Oyster Card refund in London--have you done it?

Yeah, about a year and a half ago. I made sure to pay only cash for the card and the top-ups and that I had less than that certain amount (£10 ??) left on the card - that doesn't include the deposit for the card (£5?). I went to the tube station nearest my hotel the night before I left, handed in the Oyster and got a refund in cash in less than a minute. (I was taking a taxi to the train station in the morning and Eurostar on to Paris). It was pretty easy to manage not going over the "certain amount." Any bus or tube station can read the card for you and tell you how much is left on the card.

"...Any bus or tube station can read the card for you and tell you how much is left on the card..." In addition one can also simply hold the card up to any ticket machine and it will instantly show you the balance.

I haven't done it so I can't speak from experience. However, I do know that there is no Underground service to Gatwick so you cannot either buy Oyster cards or get refunds there.

I did it at the ticket window at Heathrow and got my money back easily. When we bought them there on our arrival, the clerk was really nice and helped us calculate how much we would need to put on it. When you have to "top up" try to calculate how many more trips you need so you don't add too much money if you're afraid of going over that certain amt.

Kept mine (not much left on it) Had a lovely picture of William and Kate on it. Did the same with the metro card when I went to the President's Inauguration. Memorable souvenirs.

This is also true if you spot a discrepancy and appealyou can ask at any ticket office window for a printout of activity and if there is something that is wrong, you can appeal. I did this and won, but they sent me a check in pounds and I can't cash it.

Agree with all the other posts. Just be sure and allow extra time when you get out to Heathrow because they use the same queue for all ticket sales as for refunds and can be over 15 minutes.

I was in London with my husband just before Christmas (Dec. 2011) and we bought 2 oyster cards and used them to ride buses, tubes and the overground. Loved having them - so convenient. Each time you come out of a tube station/over ground train station when you swipe your card you can see how much you have left. that way you can gauge if you need to put more on your card...that way we did not put too much on it. We stayed near Paddington Station so the day we were going to head home we went downstairs to the Paddington Tube station ticket window and handed him our cards and he handed us our refund in pounds. We had a nice breakfast at a restaurant nearby and then headed to Heathrow. (We used the last of our pounds to buy a Christmas pudding at the airport Harrods to bring home.) It was so easy! Hope this helps.

Congratulations to everyone who was successful in getting a refund. We were not. The reason: We used a credit card for part of the purchase. Apparently it does not matter how little or how much of the Oyster Card is paid for by credit card. If your Oyster Card purchase and all additions are not 100% in cash, you will not repeat, NOT get a refund of a single pence. $95 cash, $5 credit card? Sorry, no refund. This is not written anywhere that we could find, but we and our traveling companions together had a balance of nearly $100 that we could not redeem Sure, we can use the Oyster Cards if we ever get back to London, but that's not the point. There seems to be no rationale for this no-refund policy. The transit system can look at your account and tell you exactly what was on the card, how it was paid, when it was used, what's left, etc. They just won't give any unused balance back to you. And they won't tell you that before you buy.

Wow! I appreciate the information. I was going to order Oyster cards on-line so I would have them when we arrived to save time. Two years ago, I had everything planned to the minute and could have estimated better. This year, it will be hard to be more exact, so not sure how much to put on the card. I sure don't want to have 4 cards with a lot of money left on them that I can't get back. If I don't hear of a better idea, I will pay for them with cash when I get there.

I am with Cindy. I was planning on getting the Oyster Card on-line before I left. Thanks for the info

There is really no need to buy the Oyster card before you arrive. Just get it at the first tube station you come to. If you do pay-as-you-go, it is pretty easy to make sure that you don't leave a large amount of money on the card. Start with an amount that is less than you expect to need for your trip and plan to top up when the balance gets low. At each station, there are machines with touch screens where you can check the balance on your card or add to the balance using cash.

Thanks Laura. I won't worry about getting the Oyster's in advance. Just thought the more I could take care of here the better, but sounds like it is pretty easy. Good idea to top up instead of putting too much on at the beginning. Thanks again!

Why would anybody put £95 on an Oyster card? At a maximum cost of (don't remember since the fares went up this year) about £6, that's 16 days of unused fares left on the card? Who'd do that? I never put more than £20 on at a time. Topping up is the way to go.

@Nigel: If you're referring to my post, I used 95 USD cash/5 USD CC as an example just to show how absurd the policy is; i.e., no matter how little amount was paid by CC, you lose the entire card value, including all cash payments. As for the amounts we and our traveling companions lost, it was for four cards at about 15 GBP each; easy to go through in a couple of days. It wasn't a stupid thing to do considering we expected to get a refund of any unused amounts -- not knowing the dirty little secret about the peril of using a CC. And by the way, I was opposed to topping up that much before we needed it but the deed had already been done!

I imagine the rationale for not giving refunds on Oyster cards bought with a credit card is that it could be fraudulent. If the card is stolen, one way of getting cash from is it is to use the card to buy an oyster card, then redeeming the value on the card for cash. That's just my theory.

I top-up 10 GBP at a time, since I am usually in London only a day or two at a time. I have used the same Oyster for almost 6 years. At the end of my stay, I make sure there is enough left on the card to get me from Heathrow into London and don't try to cash in the Oyster. At Heathrow, I don't know where the Underground ticket window for refunds would be. I have never noticed one as I've gotten off the train and entered the airport.

As others have said, there is no reason to get an Oyster card before you get there. They are readily available at nearly every Tube station. If you are flying into Heathrow, you'll see a bank of machines and ticket windows before you go through the barrier to get on the Tube. Also - as far as refunds go, do NOT use a credit card if you intend to get a refund. If you pay with 100% cash, refunds are no issue. If a single cent is on a credit card, you are out of luck.