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7 day travelcard and oyster question

Hi,

My wife and I will be travelling to England for two weeks in late April, and after spending a week with friends in Wales and Bath, we are spending a week in London, near the South Kensington tube. Our plan is to get a 7 day travelcard so we can use the 2-4-1 deals and get a 20 GBP Oyster card for trips outside zones 1 and 2, like Kew Gardens and Greenwich. We are also planning to go to Windsor but that will be by rail. Does this seem correct or am I missing something? Thanks.

Ed

Posted by
31 posts

Emma,

Thanks for the information. Yes, I am aware we each need a travelcard and Oyster card, but I thought you could put as much money as you wanted on the Oyster? We will be arriving by rail from Bath, so we would pick up the travelcards at the rail station at Paddington before heading toward South Kensington. Thanks for the advice about the train to Windsor, I did not know that.

Ed

Posted by
8889 posts

Yes, you can put as much money as you like on an Oystercard. It was just a question of terminology. You said a £20 Oyster Card", but what you actually buy is a £5 Oyster Card with £15 credit on it. Of course you can ask for more credit when you buy it, or add it later.

Many small shops in Central London (newsagents, convenience stores etc.) can add credit to an Oyster Card. Look for the Logo in the window.

Posted by
4684 posts

There is a serious problem with your plan. The 2-4-1 deal only works with a paper Travelcard bought from a railway station. However, you can only use Oyster stored cash unproblematically to travel past the validity zone of your Travelcard if you have the Travelcard and the stored cash on the SAME Oyster card. If you have a paper Travelcard, then you will not have "touched in" your Oyster at the start of the journey and so will not properly pay the fare. When you touch your Oyster out at the end of your journey you will be charged a large penalty fare, and if a ticket inspector finds you outside Zone 2 you will be charged a VERY LARGE penalty fare. The only way to do this and stay within the law will be to get off the train at the boundary of Zone 2, leave the ticket-holders' area of the station through the exit gates with your Travelcard, and then go in again by touching your Oyster. This will be particularly inconvenient if you have to go up from deep tube level to the surface and back again.

The only convenient way of doing this is to get weekly paper Travelcards with more than 1-2 zone validity. Greenwich and Kew Gardens are both in Zone 3, and a weekly 1-3 Travelcard is £37.70 instead of £32.10 for a 1-2 one.

Posted by
31 posts

Philip,

That's a great idea, thanks for the advice. I will definitely get a zone 1-3 travelcard. It is probably cheaper than using the Oyster card exclusively outside zones 1 and 2.

Posted by
31 posts

Thank you all for your advice. Do I need to get an Oyster card at all, if I have a 7 day zone 1-3 travelcard? I am not planning any other trips outside the zone except for Windsor and a return trip to Heathrow.

Posted by
4684 posts

My personal reaction is probably not. I don't think the lower fare using Oyster to get to Heathrow and back will outweigh the deposit cost of getting the card.

Posted by
5311 posts

Be aware that with a 7 day travelcard you can buy individual extension tickets for journeys starting out at the boundary of the travelcard zone to your destination, including outside of London. Any savings may not outweigh inconvenience of going to a ticket office though.

Also bus journeys are not zoned so for example if your journeys into Zone 3 can be completed by a bus journey started from within Zone 2 you don't need to pay any extra with just a Zone 1-2 travelcard.

Posted by
31 posts

Are you able to buy the weekly travelcard at any railway station, or does it have to be a London train station? Thanks.

Posted by
32517 posts

Any railway station that has an open ticket window. Many of the smaller stations are operating under reduced hours, and some have closed completely.

Which station did you have in mind?

Posted by
31 posts

Nigel, I was thinking about in Bath, hoping it would be less crowded there, otherwise I will purchase it at London Paddington. Thanks.

Posted by
32517 posts

There will be plenty of windows available at Paddington.

If you wait until you get to Bath you will get confused looks from the ticket clerk if you ask for an inner London only Travelcard. They will expect to sell you a Travelcard valid for one trip into London, all the Underground you can eat that day and one trip back the same day. You will be faced with the dubious task of unconfusing them.

Now - I don't know the order you intend to do things, but if you intend to travel elsewhere in England (or Wales - there be dragons there) (or Scotland - they paint their faces blue and yell unintelligible noises) before London and then again leave London for other parts, both ways by train and you have those tickets, you will qualify for the Days Out Promotion (the 2-4-1).

If so, you can just whack a week season on your Oyster and can even get those from the TfL outlets because those train tickets are your golden pass to the 2-4-1 .....

Posted by
31 posts

Nigel, our trip plan is as follows, our friend picks us up at Heathrow and drives us back to his home in Wales, where we stay for 6 days. Take a train from Cardiff to Bath, stay a day, and another train to London, where we stay for a week. With your advice, I will probably just buy the pass when I am at Paddington and take advantage of the 2-4-1 for the rest of the week. Thank you very much.

Posted by
32517 posts

Edit to the previous answer...

By the way, with your name "driller doc" do you maintain and repair oil field equipment?