Transportation in London Question

Hi there,
I was staying by Finchley Road this past March. I used the Oyster and it was great! I go to London often, so I keep the card and reload $ onto it. You can use the card on buses too. My understanding is that if you are finished with the card, you can cash out whats left on the card.

Unless you want to walk everywhere (and the sights in London are spread over a large area), or have a big enough budget to take taxis everywhere (and that will indeed get expensive fast), you will need to take buses and the Underground (also called the tube). Note that "subway" in the UK is not an underground train, but an underground pedestrian walkway, so asking directions to "the subway" will not get you what you want in this case; ask instead for "the tube."

To take the bus or the tube, you'll need a ticket. An Oyster card is merely a thing that stores tickets. Other ways of paying are a paper ticket, which now is only sold for certain kinds of passes, or a contactless credit or debit card (you card has to have the "waves" Wi-Fi symbol on it; this is different from a chip). For most visitors, the Oyster card isn't just "worth it," it's the only practical way to go.

If there are two of you (or another even number like 4 or 6), you may want to investigate the two-for-one deal from Days Out, which requires a specific kind of paper day pass ticket. Otherwise, you will each need an Oyster card. You would get a Pay As You Go Oyster, meaning you put on some money (say, £20), and each ride is deducted as you take it. One great advantage of the Oyster system is automatic capping, meaning that once you have spent as much as a day pass, you don't pay any more. So, you don't have to know in advance how many rides you will be taking to decide if a day pass will be a good deal; if you take fewer, you spend less, and if you take more, you don't get charged more than a day pass rate.

Get an Oyster card, it's the only sensible option. LV is near Warwick Avenue on the Bakerloo line which has some useful stops within 15-20mins from where you're staying. The Bakerloo trains are the oldest on the network but the service is regular.

As an aside, i used the Bakerloo this morning and got off at Lambeth North, which is now open again and popped into the Imperial War Museum, just to see the Holocaust exhibit on floor 4. Very moving.

Right, Oyster is definitely the way to go, even on a short visit. It will give you the best fares for all your rides, whether few or many in a day. It has no time limit, only a money limit that you determine. Also it doesn't expire, so if you still have money on it and think you might return someday you can use it then. Last fall I brought back two Oysters my wife and I had used nine years before, both with a few pounds on them, and Transport for London consolidated them and added the amount I wanted. Now the consolidated one, with a few pounds left, is back in my desk drawer for the next trip (though I could have turned it in for the cash at the Heathrow tube station).

I don't actually use an Oyster Card, just a contactless credit or debit card... Works exactly the same as oyster if you have one.

Tips with this method...

Make sure the card is 'authorised for use' especially if a new card... Need to make any purchase using your PIN.

Try to have two contactless cards with you, then if you get problems with one, you can still travel using the other... Its happened to me.

Use the same card as much as possible for the cheapest fares/daily/weekly cap. Backup card for emergencies only.

And one more tip to add to Mike J's, for those of us not from the UK:

Make sure that your contactless credit or debit card has no fees for foreign use (or, of course, be willing to pay these fees every time you take a bus or tube). For instance, if your credit card has the contactless feature but has fees, and your debit card does not have this feature but has no fees, it will be cheaper to use the debit card to get cash from an ATM, and buy and refill your Oyster with cash.

Fares are totalled and taken once per day, rather than for each journey. However, if card fees are unavoidable, as Harold said, get and Oyster card.