The Oyster deposit is refundable, as is any residual value on it. But since it is valid forever, about two trips to London will amortize its cost. If you don't travel a lot every day, you might even break even on one two-day trip.

Recharging my Oyster on line and never having to queue at a ticket window again: priceless.

"about two trips to London will amortize its cost."

Why do you write that? If it's refundable and I want to be sure that I'm not losing anything, why don't I just the card to a ticket window at the end of a trip to get everything refunded? Seems like the real cost of an Oyster card is 0.

Am I missing something?

Yes. You can queue at the window, fill out the form, and get your three quid back.

The next time you come to town, you can queue at the window, fill out the form, and get another Oyster.

Or you can blow the $5 and never queue again. Your call.

Oh, so that's the catch. Is the form easy to fill out?

Maybe I should just get two 1 day travelcards. (The Oyster saves me 50 p each day, I guess.)

I may take the Heathrow Exp to Paddington though. Haven't decided yet.

When you pay as you go, the Oyster CAPS at 50p less than a one-day Travelcard.

So if you don't reach the cap (£3.00 bus, £4.40 bus + Tube) on a particular day, you don't pay for transport you didn't use. Since an off-peak bus ride is only 80p, this might easily happen.

I see what you mean -- but I doubt that those situations will apply to me on this trip. I'll take the tube to Heathrow when I leave on Sunday, and presumably I'll use the tube a few times that day. So I'd imagine that my best bet is the one-day TC (unless I buy Oyster, which will save me 50 p that day).

Tomorrow it's a little tricky. I don't know if I'm using Heathrow Express yet. If I do conceivably I can save money by using buses in central London. But I think that's unlikely as I don't know the bus routes and it will be much easier for me to use the tube. In any case, given how quickly I move from place to place, even if I rely solely on buses I'd probably need a one-day bus pass (so again, Oyster would save me 50p that day).

Bus travel is a piece of cake.

Go to the nearest bus stop and look at the spider map on the wall of the shelter. Odds are about 20:1 there's line that goes where you want to go. Examples of these maps are at

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/

(The easiest way to find a stop is by using the alphabetic index at the bottom.)

Oh - just as a germane example, here's where you can go from the HEX:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/pdf/paddington.pdf