London Transport
 

First post , Wife and I arrive in London 1st April 15.30 and will be based in Regents park
Need Help on the following
1. Buy Oyster card upon arrival Heathrow(Price required for three days of travel)????

2. Buy London Pass online from Australia and enter over 50 attractions and have 3 day travel pass for 131 pounds for 2 people.

3.Jump on /off open doubledecker bus(17 Pounds) and pay as you go to attractions.

Thanks for your help.

You haven't said what help you need

If you are asking "which is the best option" then 1 sticking £20 on an Oystercard as PAYG is probably the best option. However this means you don't qualify to use www.2for1entry.co.uk for which you'd have to buy a 3 day Zone 1-2 travelcard (which is a paper card) instead and pay the extra for Heathrow to Central London

2 is a waste of money as a) many of the major attractions are FREE in London & the London Pass doesn't cover many major attractions that you pay for

3 gives you an overview of what's in London BUT it's useless as a general means of transport as a) it doesn't go everywhere you want to go, b) doesn't run directly to where you want to go, c) doesn't run when you want to go

&quot;no&quot; to the London Pass. It <i>looks</i> like a bargain - but it isn't. Yes it does cover a few major attractions - but you have to visit them on the day/consecutive days covered by the pass. Since one can't squeeze in more than 1 or 2 major sites in one day the Pass is waaaaay over priced.

&quot;yes&quot; to the Oyester - it is just the card that holds whatever transport tickets you need.

&quot;yes&quot; to the Hop-on-hop-off buses -- For <u>sightseeing</u> one day. But NOT for a transport option.

Thanks Alanrow and Janisj
Alan,I was asking which option was best
From your suggestions, you both are suggesting oyster card . Ok
How does that stack up against a 3 day travelcard and 2for1 entry.
Thanks for your comments

I'd buy a 3 day travelcard if you are intending to use ANY of the 2-4-1 offers.

A PAYG Oystercard is capped at 50p below the price of the equivalent 1 day travelcard so even if there wasn't a reduction for multiple days cards it would mean you'd have to find one attraction costing more than &pound;3 (2x&pound;1.50) to make it worthwhile and the savings on 2-4-1 can be measured in the 10's of pounds - just check that for the dates you are going to be there that the particular offer is valid as some are seasonal

it isn't &quot;3 day travel card vs. oyster&quot;. An Oyster is just the card that holds whatever tickets/passes/travelcard/money you choose to put on it. So you would put your travel card ON an Oyester card.

And let me ask for further clarification in simple language:

If you put 20 pounds on an oyster card and the second day you are there, after a couple rides and you have reached the price cap of a one day travelcard, then it stops using up the money on the card. You don't actually have to &quot;put a one day travelcard on the oyster&quot;. Right?

Correct. One- and three-day Travelcards can't be loaded on an Oyster anyway.

But to further the calculus of twofers with Travelcards vs. PAYG: a three-day Travelcard costs about &pound;5.50 per day (because there is no off-peak version), but the Oyster cap on PAYG is &pound;4.60 - 90p less.

So it becomes necessary to compare the twofer and river cruise savings to the total difference for both in the party = 90p times two people times three days, or &pound;5.40 - if the twofer saving is more than this, go with the Travelcard, otherwise Oyster PAYG.

It goes without saying that if you walk or use only buses on a PAYG day, you save up to an additional &pound;4.60 or &pound;1.60 that day.

per the tfl website page about 1 and 3 day Travelcards:&quot;<i>Travelcards are valid for travel on: The Tube, Docklands Light Railway and buses Trams . . . . . Scheduled Riverboat services at 1/3 off the normal fare. Just show your Travelcard <b><u>(or Oyster card with a Travelcard on it)</u></b> at the time of travel&quot;</i>

Now - the tfl website is clear as mud on a lot of things - but this section does say a Travelcard can be loaded on an Oyster.

See why we get so confused?

Disregard janisj's post. She's in &quot;make Robespierre wrong&quot; mode, and she just can't get it done.

The TfL site is quite explicit on this point: <b>&quot;...at present only 7 Day and longer period Travelcards are available on Oyster.&quot;</b>

tinyurl.com/2x4gld

talk about persecution complexes, my post had nothing to do w/ robes. Anyway - I KNOW what the tfl site says -- however on another page ( http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...elcard-day.asp ) - it says something different.

Just another example of the tfl website being just about useless w/ it comes to explaining things.

That page says you can present a Travelcard, whether on Oyster or not, to get the fare reduction.

It does NOT say that 1- or 3-day Travelcards can be loaded on Oyster.

If this distinction isn't obvious to you, there's no more I can do. I can only explain it to you - I can't understand it for you.

So what they're saying is you can present any oyster card for the fare reduction? Period. Since there is no way an oyster can &quot;contain&quot; a one day or three day travelcard, it seems silly that they said &quot;with a Travelcard on it&quot;. So long as you have an oyster loaded with the amount equal to the cost of a one day travelcard, then it must be counted as one?

They read your Oyster. If it has a valid Travelcard on it, you get the reduction. It would have to be a 7-day or longer. So the math I did above would pertain.

My guess for the reason that language appears on the 1&amp;3 page is that it was boilerplate text copied from the Season Ticket page and no one noticed it implied a conflict. Websites aren't all as perfect as Fodors, after all. :))

OK, here we go again. Why would I specifically load a 7 day travelcard on an oyster? If I were in London and only rode busses or tube a time or two per day, I wouldn't need it. Yet I thought that if I started riding five or six times a day, the oyster that I had loaded with a cash value would automatically stop charging when I was riding the amount that a travel card costs. So if I specifically loaded a 7 day travelcard on it, but ended up not riding much, I'd be out money. But if I ended up riding a lot, the oyster would stop charging me when I reached the cost of a Travelcard. What am I not understanding here?

The cost per day of a 7-day Travelcard is much less than that of an Oyster cap. A week's worth of Oyster caps is &pound;32. But you're right that if you don't use much, a Travelcard may not be the best deal.

Besides, if you don't load your 7-day on an Oyster, you have to pay cash fares for extensions (extortions).

Nothing - except that a travelcard gives you access to the offers on www.2for1entry.co.uk which could mean a substantial saving

If you stay above ground &amp; just use buses then a Travelcard makes less sense as the PAYG cap for bus use only is a lot lower than if you take a Tube ride.

What is certain is that buying individual tickets is expensive and any pass / PAYG would repay itself within a couple of journeys

Except those two for ones end in early June. I'll be there after.

They renew them like clockwork. Count on them being in effect no matter when you arrive.

hi, max,

I don't blame you for being confused.

I lived and worked in london for 15 years and i can't make head or take of it.

personally, I'd go to Paris!

regards, ann

Thanks everyone now totally confused.
From all posts I gather that the best way to travel is in the format of some pass.
Lets put it this way , I would like a ticket from Heathrow upon arrival 1st April and then be able to travel for 3 days above and below Ground
So is it a 3 travelpass that allow me to get 2 4 1 v Oyster Card.
Thanks

Just buy a 3-day, 6-zone off-peak Travelcard and everything will be covered. It's not an Oyster card, but that doesn't matter very much in your situation.

The London Pass is rarely cost-effective. If you use the twofers, it almost certainly wouldn't be.

Opinion on the ho/ho bus is divided. I think using your Travelcard on public buses is a better deal, using these two maps:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/centlond.pdf