Looking at a tube price schedule I see there is a 7 day Zones 1-2 Oyster Travel Card for 27.60 GBP. Does that mean I can travel in zones 1-2 for 7 days unlimited for 27.60?

If not, I will be in London Wednesday thru Sunday and will ride the tube around four times per day. What kind of card should I get?

"<i>Does that mean I can travel in zones 1-2 for 7 days unlimited for 27.60?</i>"

Yes.

Meant to add -- you'd get zones 1-2 on the tube and zones 1-6 on buses . . . .

Instead of loading a 7 day pass on the card, can you just add a fixed sum of money if you'll only be in London a few days and the 7 day pass doesn't make financial sense?

Is that a total of 27.60? Or 27.60 per day?

It's £27.60 for 7 consecutive days starting on the day you designate usually the day of purchase.

However, for a Wednesday through Sunday, I might consider pay as you go. In this scenario, you purchase a certain flat amount of money to put on the oyster card and each ride is deducted but, and it's a big but, there will be a cap each day equal to the cost of a one day travelcard so if on one day, you only do two trips or on any day you only do buses, you will come out slightly ahead this way. The only caveat is that if you use PAYG on weekdays to get the lowest cap, your first trip of the day, unless all you do is use buses, has to be after 0930. But the difference in money isn't all that much so it might be just as easy to put the 7 days on the oyster card rather than PAYG.

Of course, then there are the 2 for 1 discounts that you're not eligible for that are all over this bulletin board others might wish to explain to you.

Total of &pound;27.60. It's probably your best bet and certainly the easiest. How are you getting to/from London?

air/Heathrow

You can get to and from Heathrow on the Tube, but it is in Zone 6. You'll need to add a little bit of pay-as-you-go credit to the Travelcard, if you go that route (the ticket agent can tell you how much - it's been a couple of years since I did so).

If you decide to take the Tube to/from the airport and haven't booked a hotel yet, it would be most convenient to stay somewhere near a stop on the Piccadilly line (dark blue on the Tube map).

"<i>However, for a Wednesday through Sunday, I might consider pay as you go. </i>"

PAYG is OK of course -- but for wed-sun a £27.60 7-day travelcard is usually cheaper.

I'd load a 7-day zone 1-2 travelcard plus a little extra PAYG to cover the journeys in from/out to LHR. How much to add for the LHR extension depends on the times you travel in from and out to the airport. So just go to the ticket window at LHR and tell them you want a 7-day zone 1-2 travelcard plus LHR extension and they will sell you the correct amount. Not to worry and no need to complicate things.

Is "I" actually "I" or is it "we"? If the latter then the answer may change due to the offers on daysoutguide.com which can be used with a Travelcard bought at a train (rather than Tube) ticket office. In that case you need to tell us where you are staying so you can be directed to the nearest train station.

Hello...

I may have asked this question before on another thread...but I'm old, and my memory is fading

Can I use my Oyster card (with money on it) to:

(a) travel from LHR by train to the city after 9:30 a.m. and...

(b) travel on the SAME DAY on tube and bus in the city...

...and expect it to only deduct the value of a 1-DAY OFF-PEAK travel card (zones 1-6) for both the train and the in-city rides?

If I read the TFL site correctly, that is how it works.

SS

In case it helps, I've recently been in London twice for 3 days each time and finally got round to getting an Oyster card. I loaded £30 on it and spent £15.60 over the first 3 days and £14.20 over the second 3 days. Each trip involved a journey each way between Heathrow & Piccadilly Circus plus use of the buses & tube while I was there. Easy peasy. You can buy a pay as you go card from some of the machines at Heathrow - preferably to queuing up for goodness knows how long to speak to a real person (I started queuing last week and gave up after 15 minutes when the queue had not moved at all).

ssander...by train, do you mean the tube (subway, underground) specifically the Picadilly line. If that is what you mean, the answer is yes. Your outlay for the day will be capped at the rate of a zone 1-6 travelcard no matter how many rides you make on the tube and/or the buses. The only thing you have to watch is peak vs. non peak. The cost for a one day zone 1-6 travelcard is somewhat higher and hence the cap is somewhat higher if your first journey is before 0930 on a weekday (don't have all the prices here but you can look them up on the tfl web site)....as you do each ride, it is deducted from the travel card until you reach the cap and everything thereafter is free.

What we were discussing here originally was a zone 1-2 travelcard with extensions needed for trips to Heathrow on the tube.

xyz123...

No, I meant the train from LHR. I can take the tube if necessary, but the train is a little faster. I am NOT planning to take the Heathrow Express -- just the regular Heathrow Connect to Paddington.

A little background: I am very familiar with getting from LGW to the city by Southern Rail (and using the 2-for-1 coupons)...but those evil folks at USAir no longer fly from Philadelphia to Gatwick. Heathrow is a new thing for me, and I'm only going to be in London 1 day (then off to Paris on the chunnel train and back to London later)...so I was hoping I could just use my Oyster and get a full day's travel including the LHR train (zone 6) for the price of the 1-day off-peak 1-6-zone cap (my plane doesn't arrive till 10 am so I'm OK there).

If I can't, then I'll use the tube, of course.

I hope I am making my aims clear here.

SS

Anything 4 days or over, I buy the 7 day card. But then I use the tube and buses A LOT!!

one more thing xyz123...

More Background...

I also know that to use the 2-for-1 coupons, I'll need actual train tickets or travel cards purchased at the train station -- but I won't do that till I return to London from Paris.

And I have my own Oyster card that probably (though I haven't checked) still has some money in it - if not I'll deal with at when I arrive at LHR.

In the past we've stayed in London for exactly a week (flying into LGW), so the 7-day cards loaded onto Oyster have been standard operating procedure for us.

But this broken up visit with 1 day at the start has forced me to learn new strategies.

So I appreciate whatever suggestions you might have.

SS

"<i> . . . the train is a little faster. I am NOT planning to take the Heathrow Express -- just the regular Heathrow Connect to Paddington.</i>"

I wouldn't take the train (either the Connect or the HEX). I'd take the tube. The tube is cheaper than the train of course. But it is also often faster to get anywhere interesting.

The trains only gets you to Paddington and from there you either have to queue for a taxi or take the tube to your final destination.

avalon...

I agree with you about the 4-day cutoff - we use the tube and buses alot too. We'll definitely use the 7-day card (paper card with Nat. Rail symbol) on our return (4 days)...it's that damn single day at the start that's a pain to plan!!

SS

Maybe I should have been more explicit - I suppose the point I was trying to make is that if I was only spending c.£15 over 3 days using pay as you go, including to & from Heathrow on the tube, would it be worth spending £27.60 for a 7 day pass to cover 4 days ? At the rate I was using payg, I wouldn't have spent more than £20 for 4 days.