I have a rate sheet that shows Travelcards 7 days, 45.20L for zones 1-3. Then there is pay as you go and for zones 1-3 it is 45.20L for Monday to Sunday. Are one of these the Oyster Card? If you buy the Oyster Card they will mail it to you--even out of the UK? I will be there from Saturday afternoon till Friday, so a 7 day card works for me. Thanks.

don't bother getting the Oyster card mailed to you. Just buy when you get there.. with this Oyster card you can claim back any money left on card

The oyster card is just the implement -- you can load a seven day travelcard, on it, or you can load pay as you go £ on to it . . . or both depending on how long you will be in London.

Normally with a combination of tube, buses and DLR the break even point for a 7 day travelcard is 4.5 days +

Pay-as -you Go is what it says . . . you pay per journey so if you are not using the tube very much but a lot of buses, it is better to use PAYG because buses are cheaper than the tube.

(Not sure I understand what you mean by "Then there is pay as you go and for zones 1-3 it is 45.20L for Monday to Sunday." since PAYG is just that - you Pay per journey so there can't be a set cost)

For 5-ish+ days most visitors are best served by a 7-day zone 1-2 weekly travelcard plus a little PAYG added to cover any train or tube trips outside zone 2 (Hampton Court Palace, Heathrow, etc)


DO NOT pre-purchase an Oyster card and have it mailed to you. You can esily buy them at ticket machines at LHR or at any tube station.

PAYG also has a daily cap, i e , whatever your pattern of travel, you will never pay more than that within the day.

​​​​​​And what is more, if you have a contactless bank card (debit or credit) or mobile phone payment system, you can use that rather than the Oyster Oyster card.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-...-pay-as-you-go
I believe some US cards might not work for this, but plenty do: and there is always the Oyster as a fall back.

I'm a little rusty. So I touch Oyster on (and off? Can't remember.) the bus as usual and it caps for the day?

Tap in and out for Underground and other trains.

On the buses, tap in only.

If your Credit card is a tap card, you don't even need to get an Oyster card. Just use that instead. We did that a few weeks ago.

Just depends on how comfortable you are taking your credit card out every time you enter and leave a tube station. Most the time its fine but there are often masses of people at the barriers.

I use tap & pay in stores all the time but I still feel better using an Oyster. YMMV

We were a little uncomfortable using the CC at first, but felt more at ease on each subsequent trip. Plus the line for the machines to get the Oyster card was long and some transit guy came up to us and said if we had a Tap and pay to just use it. I can see using an Oyster card if the idea of using the CC is uncomfortable for you.

I'm a 'special case' I don't really need to queue at the machines at LHR since I always come home with at least a little PAYG balance remaining on my Oyster so the next time I'm in London I can load more at my leisure . (Or -- If I take a car service in to town I wouldn't need it right away). If faced with humongous lines at the LHR tube station that could make a difference.