I have read (re-read) the other posts about this. It's still not clear to me. If I arrive on Thursday morning at Heathrow, am staying in Marylebone and leaving Tues AM. is the Oyster the best bet? I will be doing the usual sites, Tower of London, major musuems, maybe a play. I do like to walk but understand that London is large. Is this the closest pass to a Carte Orange in Paris? I understand it must be loaded with #s unlike an unlimited pass.

It was also suggested I take the Heathrow Xpress in (about 45 min?). Tube is so much cheaper it appears. Can someone tell me how long that would take? Thanks for any info.

An Oyster Card is analogous to RATP's <i>Navigo</i> - it's a form of payment, not a pass. The analogy to a <i>Carte Orange</i> is called a &quot;Travelcard&quot; in TfL-speak.

From Heathrow to Piccadilly Circus, the HEX and Tube are almost a dead heat, because the Express terminates at Paddington, some distance from the center.

Any day you use an Oyster Card, your total expenditure is capped at the price of a one-day Travelcard for the zones you transit. The bus+tube cap for the inner zones is &pound;4.40, and for zones 1-6 (which includes LHR), it's &pound;5.80. If you use buses but not the Tube, the cap is &pound;3.

Here's what I would do:

Load an Oyster Card with &pound;29.20 - the total of two &pound;5.80 days (Thursday and Tuesday) and four &pound;4.40 days (Friday through Monday). This will get you from and to the airport plus as much Tube and bus travel within the inner zones as you want. Whatever value you don't use will be refunded. Each day you <i>only</i> walk, you can deduct &pound;4.40 from the total, and each day you only ride the bus, the decrement is &pound;1.40.

If you were to load a 7-day Travelcard for zones 1-2 (&pound;22.20) plus two extensions for zones 2-6 for the airport (&pound;3.60), it would total &pound;25.80 - but there would be no possibility of a refund.

Oyster is not a single ticket in the sense of Carte Orange...it is a means to put different kinds of tickets on it depending on your needs...

You will have 5 full days of use (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday) and I suppose you are going to do something on Tuesday AM whether it be to head for Heathrow or a train station to catch the Heathrow Express or whatever...

My general rule (mine mind you not that it is written anywhere) is that for 5 days of use you should go for the 7 day zone 1 &amp; 2 pass (&pound;22.20)...it is loaded onto an Oyster card...if you use the tube in assuming it is after 7 AM you will need to add an extension to the oyster card for &pound;1.80 if you are using the tube in...if taking the tube back and starting your journey from Marylebone, it will be another &pound;1 for the extension or after 7 AM then &pound;1.80...with this card you are set for the week and no worrying each day. Is it possible you will overpay a bit and could do better loading the oyster card with say &pound;20 for prepaids, yes but the difference is miniscule. No need to worry about Monday to Sunday as with Carte Orange in Paris.

Now for your second questions, well it's a trade off....HE is now what around &pound;12 or something like that vs. &pound;1.80 for the extension on the tube...figure about 50 minutes on the Picadilly line then a transfer to the Bakerloo line there yuk (there are other ways with 2 transfers such as Picadilly line to District line to Bakerloo line and there may be stations just as close to your hotel as Marylebone; a Londoner can help with that.....but you have to decide if more than 10 quid is a price to pay for a more direct comfortable ride (incidentally I always use the tube in from Heathrow but usually where I stay means switching to the District line at Earls Court a somewhat shorter trip)...some will say always take HE, others say take the tube, others say car service. It is a tough call.

xyz123, thanks! I didn't realize you could get an unlimited pass. So that's #22.20 and includes bus and tube? Sounds like a good deal. The cost of HE is #26 for a roundtrip tix. At first I thought it was one way! And could you please tell me how to make the # sign! Thanks again!

Not a technology whiz understand but if you have a windows keyboard hit the alt key, hold it down and type 156 on the number keypad and voila &pound;

(Some have told me on this board there are better ways involving the &amp; sign but ALT 156 works for me (incidentally ALT 155 gives you ¢...ALT 0128 gives you &euro; and if you're going to Japan, ALT 157 gives you &yen;

Yes the 7 day zone 1 &amp; 2 pass includes all buses in London and tube and DLR in zones 1 &amp; 2 which includes Greenwich.

Using ALT key combinations produces character codes that are not rendered accurately by all browsers.

The HTML standard way of writing &pound; is <b>&amp;pound;</b> (note the trailing semicolon).

Robespierre, thank you for the additonal info. Don't know why this seems so complex! Your suggestion works for me for the &pound; sign.

Oh, by the way -

The &pound;5.80 for the trip to LHR on Tuesday I assumed above is the Oyster cap for that route. But if you go straight from Marylebone to Heathrow and don't use any other transport that day, your fare will be &pound;2 if you leave before 7:00AM, or &pound;3.50 after that.

If you don't use the Tube except for the airport, you can get away for as little as &pound;19.80 (and that includes unlimited Tube in 6 zones on Thursday).

All things considered, I think the pay-as-you-go route (rather than a Travelcard) will be cheaper for you.

Robespierre...

One other quick point on your scenario, bear in mind the &pound;4.40 cap only provides for off peak use of the 1 day travelcard on weekdays...if the person uses the tube or a bus before 0930 then it becomes a peak period trvelcard and is priced like &pound;1 higher..

I still think it's easier with 5 days of use to get the 7 day card and extensions..remembering again the extension to Heathrow is &pound;1.80 after 7 AM and befor 9 PM weekdays and &pound;1 other days...the fact is it's very close and the difference is not all that much..

One other thing....I don't know if tfl is charging the &pound;3 deposit for the oyster card for the 7 day travelcards...they had said in September when they dropped the paper 7 day passes they would waive the &pound;3 deposit for 7 day passes for a time...when I got mine in January they were still not charging the &pound;3 deposit for the 7 day pass they might and probably do for the prepaid....

Again it's a close call and not all that different one way or the other!

The PAYG method is more attractive to me because I don't feel I'm spending money for transportation I'm not using.

Even if gomiki uses the Tube <u>every</u> day (but only once on Tuesday, before 0700), the total is 40p <i>less</i> than the Travelcard + zone 6 extensions.

Deduct 1.40 for any all-bus days, and 4.40 for any all-foot days. Add &pound;1.50 for after 0700 on Tuesday.

<i>p.s.</i> The Oyster &quot;Peak&quot; is 0700-1900 (not 9PM).

...but I think we can all agree that one way or another the difference is not going to be great and it will run pretty much the same whichever way the op goes

ps thanks for correcting me...I can never remember when peak ends..I know when peak starts because of my trips to Heathrow but I never come in from Heathrow or go out to Heathrow evenings.

Mea culpa.