Oyster card or Travelcard
My husband and I will be visiting London for 3 full days close to Christmas then travelling out to London Heathrow airport to pick up a rental car to visit family in the Southwest. We plan on visiting the tourist sights as well as the Christmas markets. Which card best suits our needs? Please help!
Susan
Anna Maria Island,, FL USA 11/11/09
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If you are looking at public transport only then for 3 days the Oyster Pay As You Go card is guaranteed to be cheaper than Travelcard. However if you are doing the main sights, the if you buy a 3 day Travelcard from a mainline rail station you qualify for 2 for 1 admissions to many of the sights, theatres etc including amongst others the Tower of London. The savings on this can cover the cost of the public transport. Only get a zone 1/2 Travelcard and get an extention fare out to Heathrow (zone 6. You have to buy the Travelcard from Central London mainline railway stations (not Underground) who sponsor the promotion.
You say around Xmas - on January 2nd all the fares change and product conditions are often radically changed. The 3 day Travelcard is also being withdrawn then as an example.
For a detailed comparison of Oyster cards and travelcards, go to this page on the London Toolkit site. There is a link to the site that describes the National Rail 2-for-1 offers and how to download and print the vouchers for them.
Transport for London is trying to reduce expenses for printing paper tickets. Single paper tickets for any Tube ride, whether it's Heathrow to central London or a two-minute ride between adjacent stations, cost 4.00 GBP.
If you're going to take advantage of National Rail's 2-for-1 offers, buy Oyster cards at Heathrow and load about 10 GBP on them. Use them to get from Heathrow to London and back to Heathrow. Buy 3-day, zone 1-2 paper travelcards at any National Rail station in central London. Do NOT use your Oyster cards on days you use your travelcards.
Get a refund on any unspent money on yor Oyster cards when you get back to Heathrow.
Susan, how close to Christmas?
We will be there from 18th-22nd December.
We recently used oyster cards (bought from a machine at a tube station). We had no trouble getting the 3 pounds refunded, along with the unused credit on the cards. This took less than 5 minutes at a ticket office. Very easy.
Chris, I wonder if we can do this at St. Pancras station? We are going to Paris via Eurostar and not flying out of London.
Eli,
You can get a refund on your Oyster card at any staffed Tube station. That includes King's Cross/St. Pancras.
Thanks Tim. I saw so many comments about getting a refund at Heathrow that I thought we'd have to go back there!