Yep, another Oyster question

You can choose the start date of your travelcard.
Options for start day:

Arrival day: this will allow you to only pay the excess fare from zone 6 to the boundary of zone 2. You will have 1 PAYG day at the end of your trip, capped at £6.50, plus the cost of your journey to Heathrow.

Day 2: Because you are traveling from Heathrow, your arrival day of travel will cap at £12, the approximate cost of a 1 day paper off-peak travelcard.

What time is your arrival and where are you staying? That would determine which day to start the travelcard. The earlier the arrival or the less central the accomodation would have me choosing to start in arrival day.

I'm in the same situation, except I will take the heathrow express to Paddington. I'm glad you asked this question!

My understanding of your question is this:

If we buy a 7day travel card and some extra for payasyougo for the extra days, will we be able to choose which day our 7 day starts or will the clock automatically start ticking with our first tap.

Otherwise I suppose we can just add a bit the first day and then the second day purchase the 7day

Miranda, since I know we'll be brain dead and we won't be doing much but roaming our neighborhood and getting groceries on the arrival day, I'd like to avoid "wasting" a day on the Travelcard just to make the trip in from Heathrow (we get in about noon, putting us to the rental near Holland Park sometime in the early afternoon).

Since with the Oyster card, TFL says it's less than 3pounds to make the trip from Heathrow, it seems silly to make that the start day of my Travelcard and then be left with a full day (Day 8) during which I'd have to pay for another day of fares, whereas if I start the Travelcard on Day2, I will get 7 full days of use out of it. My thought right now is that I may save myself the worry and just add a Travelcard to the Oyster on the morning of Day 2 of my trip. (Again, being brain dead, I could see myself forgetting to pick the correct start day! :))

Debbie,
This is exactly my question. Miranda does make it sound like you can pick the start day, but I might just put some Pay As You Go money on the card when we arrive and then add the TravelCard on my first full day to avoid any chance of "wasting" a Travelcard day with a single trip in from the airport. By the way, the Express train is pretty nice, if you're in the Paddington area. We took it to the airport last visit. But the Tube is more convenient to where we're staying this time (we also took the Tube from the airport last time since we needed to make a connection at King's Cross.)

Unlike in some cities, Travelcards don't "activate" as soon as you use your Oyster card, they start on specific days. However, the default is to start on the day you buy it, so if you want it to start on a later date you should ask the person you buy it from. There is only a traditional staffed ticket office at the Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 tube station - I'm afraid I don't know if ticket machines allow you to select a later date.

Ticket machines allow a date to be set, but I can't remember if it only allows for the current day or the next or if you can select a day further in the future. There are staff helping at the machines who can help.

Thanks Philip and Miranda,
Knowing how brain fogged I am when I get off the plane, I think the safest bet will be to just get some PAYG money loaded onto the Oyster and then add on the Travelcard the next day. I've been to the manned ticket window at Heathrow and remember them being a tad bit surly when people started asking too many questions...and when turning the card in for the refund :))