I stand corrected. The saving <u>is</u> much smaller. I looked at ticket-on-line.com and they didn't have what we wanted, so I didn't notice the 7-day deal.

Would I buy one? Probably not. Some days we (3 adults and 2 teenagers) didn't use transport at all, some days we used bus passes only (before 9:30), and our first and last days we needed Zone 6. I just like the flexibility of going day-by-day.

Walter, an adult one-day pass for zones 1 and 2 costs &pound;4.70 before 9:30 AM and &pound;6.00 after -- that's about one-third more, not double, or roughly the cost of one ride. And we were talking about family travelcards, which are not available before 9:30 AM at any price.

A comment on a further tidbit of misinformation from an earlier post -- there is no postage and handling fee on the visitors travelcards when they are ordered directly from London Transport, via ticket-on-line.

My goodness, this entire thread has resulted frm a query about whether a guidebook was more current than online information!

Anonymous,

I think you've got your befores and afters mixed up

Another feature of the Visitor Travelcard from ticket-on-line.com is that you have to specify in advance what your dates of travel will be - no refunds if your flight is delayed. If your plans change, you have to return the unused tickets by international mail such that they arrive in Blighty before their valid date.

Also, if any ticket is lost or stolen, you have to buy a new one. The daily ones are cheaper than the weekly ones.

We frequently get day travelcards for use on the commuter train and local London transport (Tube, buses, etc.). What bugs me is that about 30% of the time, our travelcards aren't read properly by the machines at the Tube entrance turnstyles and we have to &quot;seek assistance&quot; to get in. These travelcards have been around for ages; can't they get the system to work right yet?

Huh. My family and I have put tickets into Tube machines <i>hundreds</i> of times, and never had a read failure. I remarked upon the reliability of the system at the time.

Maybe your coded strip is being corrupted - do you have a magnetic personality?

Robespierre, which commuter train station do you get your combination cards at?

Whats the best public transport/travelcard option for a week staying in Blackheath SE London.

Whats Blackheath like?

I've got them all over. From the agents at LHR and Lambeth North, from the machines at Kings Cross and Waterloo, and probably a few others.

Not the same thing as getting a combination commuter rail (Great Western Link, for example) and London transport card. So where do you get those failsafe combination cards? From Slough? Maidenhead? Burnham?

Sorry, I think we have a failure to communicate here.

You were talking about day travelcards when you began bemoaning the strip readers, so I thought that was the topic. I've never bought a commuter ticket.

Yes, Robespierre, you failed to read my first post correctly before responding. I WAS talking about a day travelcard...but you can also get them in combination with a commuter rail ticket. It's a single card good for the RT commuter ride AND London transport. It IS a type of daycard and we do have regular problems with it being read properly for the Tube entrances.

johnj, Blackheath is a pretty posh suburb, with plenty of access to open space, but bounded by busy main roads. There are lots of surrounding areas that would like to be thought Blackheath, but aren't, so you might need to use streetmap.co.uk to check out the exact address and its proximity to Blackheath and Greenwich Park.

As for travel from there, most people would be using the suburban trains running in to London Bridge, though some might change at Lewisham for the Docklands Light Railway, depending on where they work. It's in Zone 3 for Travelcard purposes, though I have no idea whether you get a better deal by restricting yourself to any deals offered by the train companies for trains only.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/info/maps/connections.pdf
www.blackheath.org/

johnj:

In case it wasn't clear from Patrick's post, Travelcards give you unlimited travel on tubes, TFL-affiliated buses, trams and trains (apart from the Heathrow and, I think, Stansted Express) within their area. So a Z3 card covers the bus from your bit of Blackheath to the railway station, the railway journey to London Bridge and the onward tube.

The best deal is almost always to buy the card for the zones you'll be using, and buy a tube ticket from Heathrow, or a Southern Railways train ticket from Gatwick, to the beginning of the zone. It's worth checking on the tfl site whether it's cheaper in your currency to buy the travelcard before you leave your country. Families should always check out the Familycard for potentially outstanding value.

Incidentally I've been using these cards, freestanding, in conjuntion with commuter fares or as part of cross-London train journeys for over 30 years. I've bought them from TFL stations, from corner sweet shops, from BR stations, from Thames Trains stations (BTilke's suppliers), from Virgin, from Heathrow and Gatwick Express. From practically every transport company in the world apart from Uzbekistan Hava Yollari.

The only times any of the at least 3,000 cards I've bought has failed to work have been when I've put them in upside down.

This is a very helpful thread, and I'm taking notes. Question: we are staying in Bloomsbury and plan to go to the usual sights as well as spending one day in Oxford and the Cotswolds. Will be in London for 6 nights. Flying into Heathrow and leaving via Eurostar to Paris. Is the zones 1 &amp; 2 pass good for us? It's possible that just the day passes might make sense, given that we can walk to some things from Bloomsbury.

Also, is the pass that includes the Heathrow Express worth it? I gather there is also transport by the regular tube.

Sorry, FlannerUK, no, we're not putting them in upside down. And it's not just us. A group got on the train at Slough and got off at Paddington when we did. Several of their group had problems getting onto the Bakerloo line at Paddington. Interesting how you and Robespierre think alike--if it hasn't happened to you personally, then the people it has happened to must be doing something wrong.

Grr, I used the log in of a visiting visiting here to join us for the French Week exhibition. She didn't log out.

This thread is getting rancorous. I quit.

BTilke: This wouldn't explain a whole group of people having ticket problems. But I used to have this problem from time to time and then discovered that the travel cards can easily be erased by being in proximity to a magnet. I frequently use a handbag w/ a magnetic clasp and figured out that was my problem. Not just when the card was in the purse, but also when it was in my pocket and the handbag/clasp was riding on my hip next to that pocket.

So I am now careful where/what the travel cards are next to and haven't had any sort of problem since . . . . . . .

Flanner/Patrick
I've got the cricket team (party of 21) booked in at the Clarendon Hotel in Blackheath from July 15 to July 22.
Good rate for multi share. This hotel is older than white settlement in oz!

I guess I should recommend they buy a Zone 3 travelcard for the week...to get to the tourist sites in the city.

I would think one day we will walk across thru greenwich and take the boat to westminster. Cheapest way on the ferry? (i hope it is just as exclusive as the scotland island ferry eh flanner)

We will be going to fixtures by coach.
Fastest route ex Blackheath to
Knebworth in herts?
Hampton in surrey?
Dulwich college?
Hambledon in Hants?

I know this is way off topic but....