London Tube/Buses and Oyster card

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:21:03 GMT, jimstevens
wrote:


I have read some of the old items on Oyster card and believ I
understand it.

On upcoming 10 day visit I assume it is best deal to travel daily in
Tube and Bus sytem in London.

We will rent car for three days and drive around outside London but
otherwise plan to use Tube most of time including trip from Heathrow
upon arrival.

Couple questions. We are staying in Bayswater and will probably only
be traveling in downtown Tourist type areas most of time after we get
from airport.

Is the card really best way to go? Just arrive and get one at
Heathrow? I don't mind losing the card deposit.


If you're in central London for 7 days in succession, I suggest you
get a weekly travelcard for zones 1-2, which will come as an Oyster
card, and will cover all your bus and tube travel for a week within
the central area. This card doesn't need you to pay a deposit and it
doesn't now need any photo id. You can then load some prepay value
onto the same card for your trip to/from Heathrow and any other trips
on the tube further out than zone 2.

Note that the travelcard also covers bus rides anywhere in London -
not just in the zones for which it applies - and national rail
services *except* Heathrow Express within the zones.

How do we pay after initial purchase? Do we just add to it with
credit card at any station?


Yes - either you can take it to a staffed ticket window, or you can
touch the card to a reader on a ticket machine and you'll be offered
'top up pre-pay' as an option. The big ticket machines at stations
take cards and cash and most stations have at least one machine which
takes cards only.

Or you can add credit at various local shops which advertise
themselves as 'ticket shops' - though they won't necessarily take
credit cards.

Martin