Tube in England

Thanks, so what happens when it stops charging when you get your daily maximum--can you still use the Tube if you need to?

Determine if any of the sights you want to see are eligible for the 2 for 1 offers. . If they are, you probably want to get a Travelcard issued by National Rail so that you can get these discounts. If you decide on an Oyster Card, I would recommend that you just get the regular Oyster card; it is more flexible.

Annie, that is the whole point. Once you reach the max charge for the day, every ride after that is free - in theory.

Sounds good. I will look into those 2 for 1 offers. How is the regular Oyster card more flexible than the visitor Oyster card? They seem to be on two separate websites, too.

This visitor Oyster card has a 3 GBP non-refundable fee. You have to load a minimum of 10 GBP on it to start. You can only load pay-as-you-go money on it. You can only get a refund of the remaining balance by post. The regular Oyster card has a 5 GBP refundable deposit. You can load either pay-as-you-go money, a travelcard (although this travelcard is not valid for the 2 for 1 offers ... only the papercard issued by the rail is eligible), or both. When you go to leave London, you can get a refund of your deposit and any remaining pay-as-you-go balance at a tube station. I don't know why they even bother offering the visitor card.

Thank you for breaking that down.

Annie, just remember that each person needs their own either Travelcard or Oyster Card. You can't put everybody onto one. Everybody needs to go through the turnstile or tap in and out on their own.

Travelcards are a fixed price for the day. During that day, using the Travelcard, you can ride all the buses you want and all the Underground and railways you want within the zones that your Travelcard is valid for - most people choose zones 1 and 2 which is where 99% of all the attractions that a tourist would want to see are - but there are of no use whatsoever outside those zones. If you find yourself outside the zones that you have bought you are liable for large fines and you need to buy tickets to get you back to the zones you have bought. If you decide to walk instead of ride you will still have put that investment into the Travelcards. There is no deposit on Travelcards. If your Travelcard has been purchased from the railway - not Underground or any TfL outlet (it must have the National Rail logo of arrows on it not the TfL roundel logo) and they are valid on that day you can use them in groups of 2 to obtain the 2 for 1 discounts on certain attractions like the Tower of London and HMS Belfast. Oyster cards don't cost anything while they are not being used. I live outside London and keep mine in a drawer for occasional use. I top it up when it gets low and just use it as and when I need to. They do need to be bought with a refundable deposit. When using an Oyster Card you are charged Oyster Card prices which are dramatically lower than cash prices, for each segment you use. If all you do all day is ride one bus and one tube, that's all that will come off your card. If the amount of riding you do equals the cost of a Travelcard then that's what will be taken off. If you ride all day then as soon as you reach the daily cap, just under the price of the appropriate Travelcard, it stops charging you and all the rest of your journeys are not charged. You can go into any zone and the appropriate price will be deducted.

Where can one buy the Oyster Card? When we arrive at Heathrow (in only 10 days!!) we'll take the Piccadilly tube line to our hotel ... then all over London the following 2 days. Can we purchase Oyster cards at Heathrow? (In the meantime I'll be looking to buy senior railcards ASAP, since I booked about 6 train trips at that rate. I know those are not available at Heathrow.)

In a word, yes.