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Do you ever use one-day Travelcards? If so, what do you do with them when you're finished with them? I'll hazard a guess at a couple of possibilities:

• You leave it in your pocket, whereupon you find it the next day and throw it away.
• You throw it in the first bin you see after getting off the train or bus.

I used to do both of these on a regular basis. But a very good friend of mine suggested something better: why not give it away? Find someone who's about to buy a ticket from one of the ticket machines, tap them on the shoulder, and say: "Excuse me, I don't need my Travelcard any more. You can have it for free."

It's important to stress free, because otherwise your chosen recipient might think you're a tout. In fact, they almost always do, until you say that magic free word. Then watch the smile appear on their face. I tend to pick people who look like they need it, perhaps because they're having a bad day.

Try it. I promise, you'll like it. -- Earle

I do this too. Be aware, though, it is still technically fraud, and doing LRT out of revenue. So definately pick someone who looks as if they most need it, and not in front of LRT staff... ;-)

Somebody gave their travelcard to me once. I used it without thinking about it properly and felt terribly terribly guilty afterwards. I am not sure this is a good thing to do. The travelcard is sold for use by one person only. --Kake

More that technically fraud, it's actually fraud. LRT take a very dim view of this. However, someone might well leave a still-valid travelcard where it might be picked up, rather than actually giving it to someone else. Noticed them stuck in phone booths and the like? -- RobertBrook

A friend of mine claimed to have been given a good telling off by a plain clothes tube worker at [King's Cross]? when he tried giving his travelcard away there. - [GeorgeBrisco]?

When I buy a Travelcard, I'm buying access for one person to the system from the time of purchase until midnight. At the time of purchase, that person is me, but so what? If I give my card to someone else, it's the same effect as me using the system. If we were both to use the card simultaneously somehow (let us pretend for a moment that it is possible), then of course that would be wrong. But that's not the case. The number of people using the system remains constant when I give my Travelcard away. If I throw it away, I don't see that as getting value for my money. I paid for now-until-midnight usage of the system by one person (not a person but one person - in terms of logic, ∃x where x is a person, not ∃!x) and, by God, I intend to get what I paid for. -- Earle

OK, I'm carrying on beyond reason now, but even standard tickets have printed on the back "not transferrable". I'm not saying its sensible, but that seems to be the nub. You are describing what you would have liked to have bought, not what you actually bought! -- [GeorgeBrisco]?

Call it a philosophical protest. -- Earle

I like to think of it as clawing a little something back as recompense for all the times I've had my day ruined by the incompetence of the Tube. :)