London: Oyster Card

You can use a contactless credit card. There is no monetary advantage using an Oyster for a five day stay.

No, not really, unless you have some extenuating circumstances with younger kids.

Given the cost of the card, you will not recoup it in a month, and it is much more convenient just to tap with a credit card or phone/watch.

Each of you need your own card/device combination, so either separate cards, or each have the same card loaded on a phone or watch.

You will hear concerns about safety, or having to pull the card out, but the same concerns are there with an Oyster card, and the gates at the Underground are some of the safest spots around (lots of cameras and staff)

Tapping with a credit card offers the same discounts as the Oyster card.

Bill - Good question, plus I'm piling on with my own. Rick's London Guidebook (pg 32) says the best choice if you're staying six days or longer, and intend on using transit at least 3X/day, is the 7-day Travelcard loaded on to an Oyster card. You'd load the card based on which zones you need to travel to (zones 1-6). Apparently, that's cheaper than just loading funds on to an Oyster card.

What I can't figure out is how to order the 7-day travel card in advance at the online site. Maybe someone can clarify that plus how long it takes to get if you order online.

https://www.visitbritainshop.com/us/en/uk-travel-passes-and-transport-tickets/london-transport-tickets

Jim S.

Rick's London Guidebook (pg 32) says the best choice if you're staying six days or longer

You would still need to do the math. Contactless tapping gives you the same discounts for daily and weekly caps.

However, with contactless (card or Oyster) the weekly cap starts on Monday and extends through Sunday. The weekly travel card starts on your first day of use. So technically, yes, if you were to need transport for 6 or 7 days, out of the Mon-Sunday cycle, you might save. But for 5 days, no savings.

I'm not sure why you would want to order it online and wait for it to be shipped. You can just buy it when you arrive. As to its value, it MAY be a better value than an Oyster card alone, but only if you will travel across multiple zones every day. And it won't be a better value than contactless, which has all of the daily and weekly caps, without the cost of the Oyster card.

jlstanton6532
I believe, or I don't think you can get a 7 day travelcard on the Visitor Oyster Card. As far as i'm aware its only for pay-as-you-go. If you want to go that way, just wait till you arrive in London and get a regular Oyster Card with a 7 day travelcard.

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2005/august/a-faster-easier-7-day-travelcard-on-oyster

Although there is paying contactless with your CC and daily & weekly fare capping.
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/capping

Rick's London Guidebook (pg 32) says the best choice if you're staying six days or longer

Except Rick didn’t take into account that the Oyster card now costs 10 GBP. If you already have an Oyster, a 7 day travelcard can save money if you hit the cap each day AND your first day is a day other than Monday.

Both pay-as-you-go and a 7-day travelcard have the same daily and weekly cap. The main difference is that the pay-as-you-go week is Monday to Sunday. The 7-day travelcard can start on the day of your choice.

No, just use your credit card. You basically get the same prices as the oyster card without having to buy an oyster card.

If you also have a senior railcard or disabled person's railcard, a registered Oyster Card allows you to receive discounts off Transport for London Fares. People often forget this benefit, but it saves me quite a bit.

Also note that the area covered by contacless payment is much larger than that covered by Oyster. If you plan to go on day trips contact less is the way to go.

In August and September I/we used contacless for most trips, but bought tickets to Cornwall (to get a reserved seat) and back, London to Cardiff (but there was no reserved ticket,, and no need for one), Chester to Hartlepool and Hartlepool to London. All the rest was just tap-in/tap-out.

Also note that the area covered by contacless payment is much larger than that covered by Oyster. If you plan to go on day trips contact less is the way to go. In August and September I/we used contacless for most trips, but bought tickets to Cornwall (to get a reserved seat) and back, London to Cardiff (but there was no reserved ticket,, and no need for one), Chester to Hartlepool and Hartlepool to London. All the rest was just tap-in/tap-out.

Another of those simplistic answers. If you pay contactless to go to Bletchley Park for instance you don't get to benefit from the 2-4-1 offer there. If you have a Zone 1 to 6 travelcard due to the journeys you are making (Hampton Court, Greenwich etc) you don't then have to ticket to Windsor from London, you ticket from a mythical place called the Zone 6 boundary without knowing where the Zone 6 boundary is. Unlike with contactless you don't have to tap out on a Travelcard (so don't have to switch train). The same principle applies to Gatwick Airport. Zone 6 is at Coulsdon South (well south of East Croydon) so that is the cheap way to get to Gatwick depending on the overall plans for the week. Likewise to Watford Junction where the Zone 6 boundary is at Hatch End (4 stops on local trains before Watford Junction, and you can use London buses from other Zone 6 boundaries to Watford Junction).
The train does not have to stop at the Zone 6 boundary station to be able to use that benefit.

This comes up a lot. For me, there is no reason to get an oyster card unless you are eligible for a discount (e.g. senior railcard). It's so much easier to just tap in with your card. In general we use contactless to pay for pretty much everything in London.

Now granted, this could have just been my boyfriend, but he had multiple issues using both his phone contactless pay and then physical CC with the Tube. My physical Oyster card I got from many years ago, no issues. So just saying, sometimes the physical card is nice to have even if you may not save money. It also makes a nice souvenir!

Cat VH - I totally agree!

That said, I just read that the application fee for the senior rail card went up 75% and that Transport for London (TfL) increased the annual fee for the 60+ Oyster card's eligibility check from £10 to £18, effective from July 22, 2025.

So the value proposition may be decreasing. :-(

If you have Apple Pay (or the like) enable your card to be used for transit and you can just tap your phone (or watch) and go. So easy.

That said, I just read that the application fee for the senior rail card went up 75% and that Transport for London (TfL) increased the
annual fee for the 60+ Oyster card's eligibility check from £10 to £18, effective from July 22, 2025.

The first part is not true. The senior rail card increased from £30 a year/£70 for 3 years to £35/£80- which is not 75%. Just in the last fortnight I have renewed my 3 year (physical, plastic) senior railcard for the said £80.

And the 60+ Oyster Card is only for residents of London to get free off peak travel until they qualify for a Freedom Card (free travel for life), so not unreasonable that they contribute something for their free travel.

Traveling with 2 teens who don’t have their own cards and in the NYC subway I could tap my phone 4 times to get my family in. Does that work in London? Would it work on the Oyster card?

No, you need tour own unique method of payment - you could tap your card, and give one of them your phone (when you load your card to your phone it creates a unique card number, so it's an extra method of payment), but that only gives you two forms of payment. Likewise the Oyster card can only be used once.

So your options are either:
- Buy oyster cards for them
- Let them use one of your debit cards if you have one
- Get them their own accounts wirh debit cards or open an account with a fintech like Wise or Revolut (you can open a kids account on their behalf).

No Leah. Each person needs their own method of payment, be that a contactless card, smart watch or phone pay. They can all be linked to the same account. But children between 11 and 15 can get half price travel bu getting an Oyster card and having a discount applied. That would be worthwhile as long as your trip is not very short.

I have my card loaded on my Apple watch and iphone in addition to the physical card which would cover the three of us (my husband can use his own phone) but my children will be exactly 11 and 15 so maybe the oyster would be a good call for at least one of them? We arrive around noon at LHR on a Wednesday and fly out of LHR in the afternoon on the following Tuesday and plan to use tubes, trains and buses the whole time.

Leah, If you are there for just under a week then there is no question that the cheapest option for the two children will be an Oyster Card with Young Visitor Discount on it. Including the journey in from Heathrow you only have to do one journey a day to amortize the £10 cost of the Oyster Card.