London Pass

London Pass is 10% off through January at http://www.londonpass.com/prices.asp . I do not recommend it, too much racing from place to place to get your money's worth while avoiding the really free museums, art galleries, etc. Decide what you want to see in London and then decide if the London Pass works for you. Here is a helpful thread to help you determine if you can really save money: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g186338-i17-k3136319-London_Pass_Days_Out
WorksheetthruMarch2010-London_England.html

I think many people find that they do not see enough sites per day to make it worthwhile. The only way to know if it makes sense to you is to do the math.

Keep in mind that when you visit it London, you will probably mix expensive sites (e.g. Tower of London) with free sites (e.g. British Museum) with activities that are not free with the London Pass (e.g. a walking tour with London Walks). For me, I cannot imagine ever seeing enough places to make it worthwhile.

This has been discussed a number of times on the Trip Advisor London Forum, so you might do a search there to get more info.

Hi Jonathan, I think you've identified the problem with the London Pass: you need to construct a pretty fast-paced (or idiosyncratic) itinerary to get your money's worth out of the pass.

To be honest, I think you're going about it backwards. My advice is to ignore the pass for now and decide where you want to go and what you want to see. Then you look at the pass and see if make it work for your itinerary. Bear in mind that because the state owned museums and galleries are free you might not even spend £65 in entry fees.

P.S. I don't think Jonathan looking at the "Pass with Travel" but for anyone who finds this later by searching my advice on this is similar. The travel option sells a zone 1-6 travel pass at a discount, good deal right? Probably not, London's public transport is priced by zones, concentric circles radiating from the centre. Central London is most contained within zone 1 and 2, these contain about 99% of the attractions most tourists are interested in, zone 6 extends right out into the farthest suburbs and includes places not even in London, bits of Surrey and Hertfordshire. A normal zone 1-2 travel card is cheaper than the "pass plus" fee so it's only a bargain if you actually want a zone 6 travel card.

Very few people can make the London Pass work financially.
Write down first where you want to go first then see if the London Pass covers them. All the museums are free and art galleries are free anyway, its a bit of a con when the London Pass lists these as being covered.
Do the maths and you'll probably pass, even with the current promotion.

You'll probably find it better value to get a Travelcard and use the 2 for 1 admission vouchers.

By my calculation the London pass just wasn't worth the money. You had to hit at least 2-3 sites per day to break even. I did, however, find the Great Britain Heritage Pass was worthwhile because of the number of sites outside of London it covered (especially Scotland). The GBHP covered very few sites in London (Shakespeare's Globe, Apsley House and Wellington Arch come to mind) but it was enough to save me a couple dollars if I combined my savings in London with savings for sites in the rest of the UK.

thanks all!

May depend on when you are going. We are going in June and I think got 15% off when purchased two months ago. We bought 6 day and get 7th free. Also purchased it with travel. I did a lot of research and it seemed good since it is first time w/ teenagers and are hoping to see a lot. Travel pass is good from Heathrow and the train to Windsor. Also, all the buses. London Pass says that you can go to the front of the line at all sites that take LP. In the summer, I understand there can be very long lines. I added up all the places we plan to go and thought w/travel it was a saving. May not be if we don't make all the places plan to go.

Jonathan, I used it on my first trip to London, and we came out less than 10pounds behind. So we lost a little money but back then it wasn't as much as now! I'd skip it.

Hello Jonathan:

Last August our family of four spent three weeks in the UK, with 11 of those nights in London. The two things that we paid to get into were:
-Tower of London (and we spent an entire day there)
-Westminster Abbey

All of the other London attractions that we were interested in were free (national museums and galleries).

I looked into the London Pass but didn't go for it. Instead, we bought a 15 day Great Britain Heritage Pass and used it at many, many castles, cathedrals (including St Paul's Cathedral in London)around England. Many of our journeys out of London were day trips (we had bought rail passes).

When we went to Canterbury Cathedral (which was not covered by the British Heritage Pass), we chose to attend Evensong (by donation) at 5:30pm before heading back to London. It was amazing. After the service we were able to linger and look around (saw the place where Thomas Becket was murdered...big X on the floor).

What we found was that even with 11 nights in London (seven full days as we did day trips away), we didn't have time to see everything. We chose not to go to Buckingham Palace (too expensive and crowded) but we did make a day trip out to Hampton Court Palace which was one of our holiday highlights. We also spent lots of time just walking around taking in the sights.

I am convinced that we made the right decision regarding the passes. One day's admission to Warwick Castle for our family was GBP50 and our family pass was GBP165. I calculated that we used over GBP300 worth of admissions over the 15 days.

Best regards,
Helen