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London Transportation passes
OK so you can get a Travel Card for 1, 3, 7 or more days. The TC is good for the Tube but not the buses?
And you need a passport picture for the TC? In addition you can load TC and bus passes on the Oyster Card? It also seems, for a first-time visitor staying a week, that Zones 1-2 should cover most of the sites they are likely to visi? |
Tube AND Bus
No Yes Yes |
OK, the TFL site is a bit confusing.
A 7-day TC for Zones 1-2 is 22.20 pounds. There is a separate link for a 7-day Bus Pass good for bus and tram for 13.50. The TC would cover Tube, DLR, Bus and Tram then where as the Bus Pass is only for the last two? I understand the Oyster gives you discounts or caps on single tickets but not on passes? How much additional is the Oyster combined with a TC? Also, my hotel is Hilton Olympia, which appears to be on the edge of Zone 2. Anything of interest in Zone 3? |
Yes - any bus pass or TC is good for bus and tram in <i>all of greater London</i>.
Passes are intrinsically capped, because once you've bought one, you can travel as much as you like without paying more. There is a 3£ deposit for an Oyster card (which is typically waived if you load a 7-day TC). Oyster pay-as-you-go fares are capped at 50p less than the cost of a 1-day TC. The sights/zones table is here: http://tinyurl.com/p7wb6 (hit the Zone Guide) link. |
Remember that a central zone (zones 1 and 2) Travel Card also allows you to use buses all over great London - thus if heading for something in say zone 3 or 4 you could tube it to that last tube station in the zone and then hop the very frequent buses to your destination, all on TC good in zones 1 and 2.
I more and more eschew the tube in central London in favor of the bus - great views from top deck and after figuring in time getting down into the tube and out and often overcrowded over heated tube cars, buses may be just as quick and more comfy. A one day bus pass good for all of greater London costs just 3 pounds - cheaper by the week i suspect. Get a London Bus map free at any tube station - buy bus passes in machines at most bus stops. |
At £13.50 for 7 days, a TfL Bus Season Ticket might be the best transportation deal on the planet. Here are two maps that you might find useful (you can get them free at any Tube station):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/tourist.pdf http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/centlond.pdf |
OK, thanks everyone for the info. The posts clear up a lot.
I hope the bus maps are easy to follow. With more bus lines and more bus stops, you have to pay attention to find where to board and get off. I'm also thinking of the Original London Sightseeing Tour for about $30 for a 24-hour period. It goes to all the usual sites so you don't have to think as much about which stops to look for. It includes a ticket to a boat ride on the river. Only thing is the hours are only 9 to 5 PM? |
There are <b>Spider Maps</b> in every bus shelter that show where to board which bus and where its route goes. These are on line (the alphabetical list is the easiest for out-of-towners):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/buses_map.asp |
Great tips. Thank you.
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You can also email TFL to request a Bus Map and an Underground Map to be sent to you so you can familiarize yourself before the trip. I just did that and some staff emailed back in 20 minutes!
OK, now comes to my own question: We would be in London for 4 full days. On the day of arrival we would take the Piccadilly Line to our hotel Marriott Grosvenor House on Park Lane. On the morning of our 5th day, we need to take the tube from St.James Park station to Kings Cross station to catch the GNER train to Edinburgh. We also favor Bus in central London than tube. Should we buy our Oyster on our arrival? Or we should just get the Bus pass and pay as we go on the Tube? |
P.S.
Forgot to say, on the 4th day we have to change hotel to Crown Plaza at St.James Park - so there is a need for taking the tube for the hotel switch. (I wish the forum has edit function.) |
The difference between one-day bus passes alone and a Travelcard that covers bus and tube, or the capped rate if you prepay on Oyster, isn't likely to be more than £5 or so.
Your call as to whether that's all that significant, by comparison with Grosvenor House prices.... What would really rack up costs is to take more than one or two tube journeys paid for in cash. |
First and foremost, get an Oyster card if you're going to be in town longer than a day or so. The payback on the deposit is almost immediate.
If the total fares you will use while you're traveling in Zones 1 & 2 exceed £22.20 (accounting for Oyster caps and zones) regardless of how many days you're using TfL, then load a 7-day Travelcard on your Oyster. If not, just load it with the single Oyster fares and pay as you go. |
You know I've been reading about this issue for days. (I live where there's virtually no public transportation.) How do you load an Oyster Card? Is there a machine that you use along with a credit card at the bus and tube stations?
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Yes: you touch the Oyster on to a reader on the machine, which looks like the readers on the barriers, and follow the touch-screen instructions. You tell it what sort of ticket you want to load on it, then make your payment, and then touch the reader again (this is most important).
Remember (as TFL keep telling us), always touch in and touch out. You can make up your own jokes.... |
Presumably, all transactions can take credit cards?
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PatrickLondon,
The stay at Grosvenor House is on points - pay 0. Robespierre, I read your piece on Oyster - thanks a lot for doing that - It seems to work the same way as the Octopus card in Hong Kong, except it has a smarter feature - the daily cap. We plan to get the Oyster cards at LHR on arrival but not sure if the Travel Center is open at 6:30am?! (I gather you can only get it at the Travel Center next to the Tube station at LHR terminals, or I am wrong?) We plan to load the Oyster with may be 10 pound each and then top up as necessary. I have to commend the TFL staff who are responsible for answering e-mail requests. I got a reply 20 minutes after I sent my request for Transit Maps. That compares to the @%$#&* robot reply from the French people basically telling me due to tremendous requests they received everyday, they will ignore all of them.... The Brits are far more civilized than the French in my book! |
I forgot to mention one more thing.
On our last morning in London (the 5th day), we need to take the Tube from either St.James Park or Victoria to Kings Cross to catch GNER 0900 train to Edinburgh. I can still use the Oyster to pay for this trip, right? How much is the single fare on Oyster for this travel since it is the peak hour? I dont think we would use up the daily cap, given the central location(s) of our hotels. There could day(s) we wont use any transportation at all. I agree, the first 2 rides would pay back the 3 BP deposit already. P.S. to PatrickLondon - the Crown Plaza St.James Park stay is also on pt - pay 0. All 14 days of the whole trip, London/Scotland/Paris are on points, FWIW. |
St. James's Park and Victoria are both in Zone 1, so, the Oyster fare to King's X will be £1.50, peak or off-peak.
All the fares are at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick.../tubedlr.shtml |
A Travelcard (on paper or on an Oystercard), covers not only tubes, buses and trams, but trains. It also gives a one-third discount on most boat services in London on the Thames.
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Has anyone tried the Oystern Online Shop? Do they mail you the card or is there some kind of will-call?
Do the Oyster Shops or Tube stations take Amex when you buy the OC? If I'm just buying an OC and loading it up with a 7-day Travel Card, I shouldn't have to pay anything more than the 22.20 pounds for the Travel Card? Can I then reload that OC like next year? |
You have to enter a Royal Mail postcode to use the online shop. I suppose you could theoretically have one sent to your hotel, but then the timing becomes problematical.
When you load anything less than a monthly Travelcard on an Oyster, there is supposed to be a £3 deposit paid - but I've never seen this enforced in the case of tourists loading a 7-day. You can reload an Oyster indefinitely. |
no. think it would be will call for overseas orders.
yes. right. yes. lots of answers at the "ask oyster" feature which can be accessed from the tfl site: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/ click "tickets and oyster" then there's a button on the lower left for "need help? ask oyster". |
according to the "ask oyster":
"Q: Do I have to pay a £3.00 deposit for a 7 Day Travelcard on Oyster? A: No. From 14 August 2005, for a limited period, there will be no deposit to pay on Oyster cards loaded with an Adult 7 Day Travelcard." You can actually go to that Q&A and set it to notify you when the answer to the question changes. |
Robespierre,
The TfL person I emailed back, said he/she (cant tell with a name of Riki) ordered the brochure "Fares and Tickets" to be sent to me in a separate envelope. I was impressed by the service provided. May be I am just lucky to catch them at a slow time. The information on TfL site about Travel Information Center does not provide operation hours and when I clicked the "Location" tab, it gave me a 404 error. Therefore I haven't been able to find out if we can get the Oyster at LHR upon our arrival 6:30am. |
<b>Fares and tickets</b> is also available on-line at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...fares-2006.pdf
Underground ticket offices open at least a quarter-hour before the trains start running. |
Thanks Robespierre for the link.
This should help to figure out approximately how much we need to put on the Oyster to minimize the residual value. We are not frequent UK visitors so we really dont know when will be the next time we go to UK. Our next idea of going to the other side of Atlantic is to Southern Spain, portgul and may include Greece, with friends, in Fall 2007. This winter and next Spring are all pinned down - a December cruise and a 40 days to NZ/OZ in Spring. The next trip to UK would probably in 2008, if that! |
You don't even have to estimate very closely. Just load a few quid, use it up, and recharge. It only takes a few seconds. When you get down to Departure Minus One or so, you can probably calculate the last day's requirement to the p.
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Thanks Noe for looking it up.
So basically you get the Oyster Card for free with a 7-day Travel Card. |
that's how it worked for us. I just looked it up for official confirmation, as I was pretty sure that was the policy. We have saved our Oyster cards and will bring them back to London this August and load a new travelcard on them.
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Robespierre,
That is right, I keep forgetting the wonderful convenience called "topped up". I guess it wont let you go negative into the 3 pound deposit balance. (Unlike the system used in Japan you can go into negative to board the train/metro and then pay the difference when you LEAVE the transit system. At first we did not understand all those Japanese were doing at those machines at the exit area - it turned out the machines were used to calculate the price difference they had to pay on their journey when their existing tickets did not have enough value for the journey.) |
I just came accross about this post on FT, and copy it below - it seems any 7-day pass will do to waive the 3 pound deposit, not just the Travelcard, as the poster bought a zone 2-3 BUS pass.
Jun 8, 06, 7:01 pm #48 SFSC Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia Programs: QC Senior Life NB, DJ, GF Silver Posts: 42 This Worked for Us -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recently,we were in the UK for 3 weeks, spent our first night with relatives in zone 3, then some time at the Hilton London Olympia, went away from London on the holiday weekend and another weekend and went out to zone 3 again from time to time. Given the travel pattern above, we resolved to use the bus as much as possible so we initially bought zone 2-3 passes on Oysters at Northfields tube station and didn't top up. The big surprise was that the GBP3.00 deposit was not charged and all we had to pay was GBP14.00 each for the travel cards on our new Oyster. This was only 0.50 more than a seven day bus pass would have been. To get into town from Olympia, we used the 9 or 10 bus and took in the sights along the way. To get to our relatives place at Ealing, we caught a bus to Hammersmith, tube to Northfields and hopped an E2 or E3 bus for two stops up the street. When the initial 7 day pass ran out, we knew we would have some days we would be out of London so we put GBP10.00 on each of the cards and still travelled around by bus as much as possible. The bus travel on days we didn't use the tube was capped at GBP3.00 so we only had to top up our Oysters one more time and still have some credit left. We didn't register them so don't know exactly how much but think there will be enough to travel in on the tube from LHR next visit __________________ "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895 |
To clarify: this poster bought zone 2-3 Travelcards (not bus passes - they don't have zones) for Tubing out to their relatives, and traveled around in Zone 1 on buses.
They were able to do this because any bus pass or Travelcard is valid for unlimited bus travel in all zones throughout Greater London. |
On the first page of the same thread, I found this post, about the machine only allows you to top up with same credit card only one time per day! That is a surprise.
Robespierre, is this true? Apr 24, 06, 1:32 pm #5 jabrams72 Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: LHR/JFK Programs: AA Plat, BAEC Blue, UA, HHonors Gold, SPG, Hyatt Posts: 434 Quote: Originally Posted by jerseyfinn As you see, doing the math on which card works best is daunting when you factor in peak vs. off peak travel and zones. As of this year (2006), you're pretty much always better off using Oyster. Put cash on it (say £20 each to start) and then keep an eye on whether you need to top up. One thing to be aware of, if topping up using a credit/debit card at a machine, is that it will only let you use the card one time (in a day), so if you want to top up both of your oysters at the same time, you will need to use two separate cards to do so. I live in the UK, but am American and we seem to have people visiting us on a monthly basis these days! |
Does the Oyster card actually know what you bought? If it is a pure pre-prepaid card, then the Travelcard choices are merely being used for the calculation of initial purchase amount only instead of a "real" Travelcard. (It is the "capped" feature that leads me think this way - as it automatically converts your daily usage to the Travelcard value eventhough initially you never buy a Travelcard.)
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Sure it does. If you have a Travelcard, OysterNet knows not to deduct any value for any day your pass is effect unless you go outside your prescribed zones. If you don't have a Travelcard valid that day, it deducts value for each trip but stops when it gets to £4.40 or £3.
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From that perceptive, yes, you are right, Oyster knows whether a Travelcard is loaded or not.
About using credit card to top off, have you experienced such that you can only use the same credit card once per day, and if you have 2 Oyster to top off, you need to use 2 separate credit cards? That is a strange restriction. Because of the 3% currency conversion fee now being imposed by virtually 99% of the credit cards, I plan to exclusively use our Schwab MBNA card for foreign travel - despite BofA bought MBNA and reportedly the Fidelity and Merrill MBNA cardholders received notices that efective June 1, their cards will start charging foreign currency conversion fee, I have yet received any notice from my Schwab MBNA Visa. I have used it to buy tickets on EasyJet last month, there is no 3% charge (EasyJet itself charged 5 BP for credit card usage though). I just used it to buy train tickets on GNER site. Wont know until statement date to see if 3% will show up. I think my best bet would be to use cash to top off our Oyster. BTW, BofA lets you withdraw cash from Barclay in UK, and BNP in France, without the persky $5 international withdrawal fee and reportedly has very competitive rate. |
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