Please sign in to post.

Travel Card vs Oyster Card

I will be landing at Heathrow and staying close to the Victoria Station. I will be in London for 4 days before heading back to Heathrow to rent a car and head out for some car hiking. I plan to use the Tube for all my travel while in London. I am trying to decide between a Travel Card or an Oyster Card. I plan to stay in zones 1-2 the majority of my stay with the exception of traveling from Heathrow and to Heathrow. Which would you choose: Travel Card 7 Days?
Oyster Card? Also will my travel to and from Heathrow necessitate a Travel Card for all zones? Thanks

Posted by
3428 posts

You actually have several options. The main advantage to the 7 day Travel Card issued by National Rail is the 2-for-1 deals. If you are traveling alone, there is no need for that. (note- if you are traveling as a pair or more, you will need to have a passport sized photo with you. They will make a photo id card that you must carry with the travel card- it is free.) You can do several things with and Oyster Card.
1) Load Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) cash on it. Use it for all your journeys. Oyster will calculate the least expensive payment for you at the end of the day. You'll never pay more than a single day travel card. 2) Load a Travel Card- 1 day or 7 day (there used to be 3 days cards - not sure if Oyster still has them- I know there are no paper ones). You can choose which zones- 1 and 2 are probably all you will want- or you can get a zones 1-6 and not worry. 3) Load a Travel Card (3 day one in your case) and some PAYGO cash. If you go outside the ed zones (Your Heathrow travel, for example, or if you go somewhere like Kew Gardens..)Oyster will deduct the 'extra' fee from your PAYGO cash. When you turn in the card, you can get back any extra PAYGO cash and the deposit you paid for the card. You will have to do the math- estimating how many trips you will take to see if single day cards or a seven day card will be a better value for you.

Posted by
521 posts

Just a couple of clarifications: 1. There are no 3 day Travelcards any more, just 1 day and 7 day (and of course monthly and annual) 2. The shortest duration Travelcard that can be loaded on an Oyster card is 7 day and the paper 7 day can only be purchased at National Rail stations. To buy them on the Underground you must have an Oyster card. That doesn't apply to paper 1 day Travelcards To do the cost comparison that Toni mentions you will need to look at this table on the Transport for London website: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx Heathrow is in Zone 6, so you can see from the table that the Oyster pay-as-you-go off-peak single price to Zone 1 is £3, or £5 at peak times. A Zone 1&2 7 day Travelcard is £30.40, a Zone 1-6 7 day Travelcard is £55.60, so that's a "no-brainer".