Travelcard or OysterCard??

movingtotheuk

Going to be travelling around London for a week.

Should i purchase a weekly travelcard or an oyster card? No real idea on how many trips I will be taking. Also not sure if I will be using the bus or the tube more.

Any tips??

michelledoh

I was in London last November and we used the Oyster Card. It was really handy. You buy a tourist one in the airport and it comes with a couple of pounds credit on it already! We used them on the buses and tubes! We did have to top it up (it isn't that cheap) but usually the connections were cheaper and it would cost even more to pay cash every time. You do pay for every individual trip so if the travel card had an itial fee and then unlimited traveling it may be better value (just guessing how it works). I think it was about £3 for a journey and maybe and extra £1 for buses and connecting trains! Estimate your cost and that may help you decide which to use.

movingtotheuk

michelledoh wrote: »

I was in London last November and we used the Oyster Card. It was really handy. You buy a tourist one in the airport and it comes with a couple of pounds credit on it already! We used them on the buses and tubes! We did have to top it up (it isn't that cheap) but usually the connections were cheaper and it would cost even more to pay cash every time. You do pay for every individual trip so if the travel card had an itial fee and then unlimited traveling it may be better value (just guessing how it works). I think it was about £3 for a journey and maybe and extra £1 for buses and connecting trains! Estimate your cost and that may help you decide which to use.

How do you top it up? Credit Card? I presume they have a system whereby you simply swipe the oyster card on buses and tubes?

joanas

you can top the oyster card up in newsagents with credit card or cash. There are yellow pads at tube stations and on buses that you swipe the card against.

Captain Commie

from memory, there are top-up machines in tube stations and such like, real easy system to use.

took the wife to London before christmas and got one each, worked a treat, we still have ours and will use them when we go back next month for her b/day

Green Back

movingtotheuk wrote: »

How do you top it up? Credit Card? I presume they have a system whereby you simply swipe the oyster card on buses and tubes?

You can top it up with credit card or cash at automated machines. You can also do this at a ticket booth but these tend to have large queues, especially at the central london stations.
You can also register it online and top it up by credit card. Here's the website also has very good travel information:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
Oyster information:
https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do

Green Back

Machines look lik this:

michelledoh

It really easy to top up. In any tube station (and i saw them in shops too) you can top up at machines. Just tap the card, see your balance and enter coins. There are ticket offices too so i'd say you can pay by credit card too. I know you can manage them online with a credit card but that is for residents and i think it takes 2 weeks for the oyster card to reach your house. Judging by your name you will probably use that in future but probably for your week travelling around london the tourist card is the way to go!
The card is really easy to use. You just tap it entering a tube staion, exiting a tube staion and on any bus as well! Easy Peasy! Make sure you tap it leaving the station or else they will eat up all the credit until it is gone!
I found the oyster card website really hard to navigate but you do pick up a lot of this stuff as you go along in London.

Raoul

I am going to London for the weekend with my gf. Would it be better for us to get like a three day travelcard for like zone 1 and 2 or something, we will just be doing all the touristy things.

edit - I think a three day pass is 22.50 for an adult. Which would be about 13 or 14 trips on the underground. Not sure if I would use that much really as we might end of going on a bus tour. So the oyster card might be the best for me. Its 13 pound and then comes with 10 pound credit on it.

Another question - if there is two of us going, can the two of us use the one card? It says that if you are using payg then another person can use the card. However, it might not mean that I can go through and then pass it back to my gf.

ztoical

Raoul wrote: »

Another question - if there is two of us going, can the two of us use the one card? It says that if you are using payg then another person can use the card. However, it might not mean that I can go through and then pass it back to my gf.

No you'll need to have your own cards. Only one person at a time can use the card, because only one charge can be made per journey.

You can share it in the sense that you can both use the same card but at different times so one person can travel around and later in the day pass the card to someone else who can use to travel.

Raoul

ztoical wrote: »

No you'll need to have your own cards. Only one person at a time can use the card, because only one charge can be made per journey.

You can share it in the sense that you can both use the same card but at different times so one person can travel around and later in the day pass the card to someone else who can use to travel.

Thought that ahrite. Just double checking!

5uspect

A week's travel from zones 1 to 4 will cost you £40 each. This will cover pretty much everything in the city but not the airports. Check your locations on the tube map to see what zones you actually need.