Originally Posted by
mauld
Do Oyster cards expire? I purchased one on my last trip to London (Oct 2015), and there was still about 20 on it. I'm travelling to London again this week and was hoping to use it. Will I be able to ?
You'll likely be fine. A card not used for 2 years or more may need to be updated at a ticket vending machine before further use – this is to avoid the list of blacklisted cards stored on the ticket gates becoming too bloated, as they need to decide whether to open or not within 0.3 seconds whereas the ticket machines can take their time.
Note that old Oyster cards where the back of the card has a blue background covering about a third of the card will be disabled within the next two years as they upgrade the system further. Newer cards with a white D in a blue square on the back are unaffected.