London transportation oyster vs travel card

Travel cards and Oyster cards are 2 different animals. Oyster cards are a payment method. You can load them with Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) cash, daily travel cards, or multi-day travel cards. You can purchase an Oyster at Heathrow- and the deposit you 'pay' will be refunded (along with any remaining PAYGO cash) when you turn in the card at the end of your stay. HOWEVER, Oyster cards are NOT good for the 2-4-1 offers. To take advantage of the 2-4-1 offers, you will need to purchase a PAPER travel card from a NATIONAL RAIL office (not a Tube office). It is also helpful to go ahead and print at home the vouchers for any of the offers you plan to use (there are supposed to be booklets of them at the rail stations, but they sometimes run out). Using the 2-4-1s can save you some big cash. But if you don't plan to use any/many of them, an Oyster loaded with some PAYGO cash , or a 7 day pass would work as well. Oyster automatically calculates the least expensive cost for you each day if you decide to just use PAYGO- in other words, you'd never pay more than a single day travel card.

Toni has given you a very good explanation of the differences between Oyster cards and National Rail travelcards. You cannot buy National Rail travelcards at Heathrow because there is no National Rail office there. You could buy Oyster cards at Heathrow and load some pay-as-you-go pounds on them. Use them to get from Heathrow to London and return. Use them on any days you won't be taking advantage of any 2-for-1 offers. Top up the cards as needed. Buy one-day, zone 1-2 National Rail travelcards for each day you plan to use 2-for-1 offers. Or, to keep things simple, buy Oyster cards at Heathrow, load them with PAYG pounds, and use them to get to London and back to Heathrow. Buy 7-day, zone 1-2 travelcards at a National Rail station in London and use them every day except on the day you return to Heathrow.

Travelcards are great and convienent. Also gets you 241 discounts. That is what I did and would recommend for you.

Thank you all for your replies. do I still need a passport size photo for the 7 day travel card?

Yes you will need the photo- passport sized, but not necessarily passport quality. You can print out at home if desired. They make the free ID card when you buy the travel card. If you prefer there are usually photo booths where you can have them made for a few GBPs.

If you had a 7-day travelcard for Z1-2 you can buy an extension to take you out into Zone 6 going back to Heathrow. You could avoid Oyster cards altogether by taking a cash fare from Heathrow to a National Rail station in Zone 1 (which if arriving before 9:30 is not much more than the Oyster). Get your 7-day card, use it throughout your stay, buy the extension back to Heathrow. If you venture outside Z1-2 you could buy the extension or use the bus (which is covered throughout all zones on any travelcard). Might not be the absolute cheapest, but is probably the most convenient mixture for getting the 2-1. Of course people who arrive at Gatwick airport instead get the 2-1 simply on the basis of having a return ticket from Gatwick to London.