tada

I've searched the forum on this subject, but I find conflicting answers. So, I would like to ask an experienced traveler to the UK should I purchase a 3 day, zone 1 & 2 Visitor Travelcard from www.thetube.com prior to traveling for 13 GBP or just take a picture and pick up tickets at Heathrow when I land? Your answers are appreciated.

Tom

Lovejoy

A 3 day,all-day Visitor Travelcard is £12.80.If you buy a daily Travelcard it will cost you a total of £15.30 for 3 days.Both of these cards cover zones 1&2.If you buy the Visitor Travelcard in advance for zones 1&2 you will need to buy an individual extension from LHR,zone 6 to zone 2 for £2.20.

elaine

I am not an expert on travel passes and in fact the comparisons among various passes for public transportation usually give me a headache. For all the details, it often seems to me that over a trip of several days, the overall fare differences may not be that significant compared to what I'm spending on the trip as a whole. Maybe it's because I do so much walking and don't take the tube that many times each day, so I know I won't get the worth of the pass. Still, we all like to save money in different ways.

I believe conventional wisdom is that the Visitor Travel Card is not as good a bargain as a 2-zone 7 day travel card bought in London. The latter can be bought at Heathrow, and requires a photo. If you'll be there less than four days, you might just want to buy one-day passes. I think those are good Mon-Fri only, after 9:30.
And then there are carnets...
Ouch.

elaine

If the above is correct, than I am not.

pandora

Tada, Only those travelcards that are valid for 7 or more days require a photocard. So if you choose to purchase single day travelcards once you are in London, you will not need to bring a photo along.

Anonymous

As others have indicated, there are no 3-day passes available in London, just 1-day, 7-day, and weekend. Prices for Visitors Travelcards have dropped recently, making them a good buy for most visitors.

One-day travelcards are sold all day, but they are cheaper after 9:30 on weekdays. They cannot be bought in advance, they're good only on the day sold. So if you're in London for 3 days, you'd have to buy a new 1-day pass each day. No photo required.

There's also a weekend pass that's cheaper than 2 one-day passes.

PatrickLondon

I think, from watching this message board, that there may be some confusion between a commercial London Pass offering admission to a range of attractions as well as a travelcard (which many people seem to think is not great value for money), and visitors' version of the ordinary Travelcards which can be bought online in advance from London Transport. It looks to me as though there is some saving in doing so if it's convenient. There may not be a great deal in it, but you can get the Visitors' Travelcard to combine one return on Heathrow Express with a travelcard for just the zones you would use when here. You can compare the two at

http://www.ticket-on-line.co.uk/info...ickprice.shtml (which shows the prices for people in London)
and
http://www.ticket-on-line.com (for the online Visitors Travelcard)

gio60607

if you go for the travelcard that includes heathrow and back, buy your ticket in advance. will travel to london in 2 weeks and i tried but the website will sell only for dates that start in april, so good luck!

PatrickLondon

One point I forgot - once you're in London you can only buy one-day, weekend and seven-day cards. The option to buy for three days is only available (don't ask me why) to advance purchasers abroad.

JustinBbad

If you buy the trvael card from the London Transport website, I noticed that it had many 20% admission discounts, as well as some restraunts.

I plan on buying the 4 day card for my trip in May.

JustinBbad

Here is a little blurb from the website...

Why should I buy a Visitor Travelcard?

**Buying a Visitor Travelcard on-line gives you all of these benefits:

**Unlimited travel on tube and bus - the more you travel the more you save!

**No queuing for a ticket when you arrive in London

**No need to worry which ticket to buy

**No need to have the correct money or hunt for change

**Tickets are sent direct to your home address in advance of your visit

** Save up to £25 off top London attractions and restaurants with our free discount booklet

JustinBbad

And finally, this:

Can I use my Visitor Travelcard 24 hours a day?
Yes. The Underground operates train services between 0530 and 0030. (This is an approximate guide and you are advised to check specific times if you wish to use the service early in the morning or late at night). Between 0030 and 0530 your Visitor Travelcard is valid on hundreds of night buses which will transport you across the Capital.

Anonymous

Here's my rather cynical take on the sales pitch that Justin quoted above:

Why should I buy a Visitor Travelcard?
**Buying a Visitor Travelcard on-line gives you all of these benefits:
**Unlimited travel on tube and bus - the more you travel the more you save!

-- This is also true of the daily, weekend, and weekly passes that you can buy after you arrive in London.

**No queuing for a ticket when you arrive in London

-- True, but there's rarely a significant que.

**No need to worry which ticket to buy

-- Yes, there is -- the Visitors Travelcard comes in many versions encompassing days' duration, zones, and with or without Heathrow extension.

**No need to have the correct money or hunt for change

-- Also true when you buy a regular pass in London -- they take not only pounds in any denomination but also credit cards.

**Tickets are sent direct to your home address in advance of your visit

-- And therefore might get lost or delayed in the mail, adding a risk and hassle to your planning experience, plus don't forget to pack it, plus not refundable if you have to cancel your trip or change the dates!

** Save up to £25 off top London attractions and restaurants with our free discount booklet

-- Most of these attractions have other discount booklets readily available in London for everyone. Plus, so many museums in London are free, there's a good chance that you won't even want to use these coupons.

Anyway, I just wanted to play "devil's advocate" to put these visitor passes in perspective.

PatrickLondon

I think Anonymous has missed the point. The Visitors Travelcard is a slightly more advantageous and flexible version of the Travelcards available once you get to London, from the same organisation for the same purposes. It's offered in advance to visitors to minimise the hassle to all concerned of buying when you get here, and like all passes and cards to get the income in advance.

This is not the same as the (commercial) London Pass that has been panned here over and over again.

Anonymous

My point was that the visitors travelcards are not quite as "advantageous and flexible" as the promotional materials claim. IMHO, it's misleading for the travelcard promotion to say "Unlimited travel on tube and bus - the more you travel the more you save!" when that's also true of the passes you can buy in London.

Personally, I consider it less hassle to just buy my pass at the tube when I arrive, compared to the correspondence, waiting for the visitors pass to come in the mail, making sure I pack it, etc. On the travel boards that I frequent, once in a while there's a post from someone whose pass hasn't arrived yet, and they're about to leave on their trip. Mail delivery is only as reliable as the least-reliable hands that it must pass though.

Having used the London Pass, I have no confusion about which pass is which and honestly don't see why you'd think I do. I suspect that you're just not a careful reader: For instance, your post about travelcards on 03/17/2003, 06:15 repeats exactly what I wrote at 03/14/2003, 04:30. Nobody on this thread (except you) has mentioned anything related to the LondonPass.

xyz123

Just to put it all to rest..

Once upon a time, you had to exchange a voucher for the actual visitor's travelcard and the voucher was only accepted at certain stations. It was a pain.

Now you can buy the actual zones 1 & 2visitor's travelcard directly on line outside the UK. It is exactly 10p cheaper than the corresponding card bought in the UK. It also does not require a picture while the card bought in the UK does...that's the only difference. Some folks started polluting this bulletin board with misinformation that it was a different card or had different allowances as far as using the tubes and buses. That is nonsense...you get the same use of the underground and buses with a visitor's zone 1 & 2 as compared to the ones bought in London....

However, if you wait till London and you are not going to both the zoo and Greenwich and your hotel is in zone 1, you might consider just a zone 1 7 day card. This is not available as a visitor's card and is about 3.50 GBP cheaper. The zoo and Greenwich are the only tourist attractions in zone 2 not in zone 1. There are others such as Hampton Court which are not in zone 1 but even with a zone 1 & 2 you would need an extension ticket anyway. It's not a big deal but something to keep in mond.

Myself, it's far less hassle to me to buy the card in London...if you are tubing in from Heathrow you're going to have to go to the booking office anyway as you will need an extension. Once you have gotten a picture card, it's good indefinitely. One less thing to forget to pack, one less thing to wait for in the mail....

Hope everybody reads this carefully and understands....