Oyster Card & Tube Travel

completelybonkers_2

Please help me. We are coming to London for the first time from The North!!!! OMG!!!! We will be staying on the Docklands, and have looked at buying a 7 day tube pass, but this says we need an oyster card! What is one of these, how do we get it? How much is one? Is this the cheapest way to get around the sights for a week???? Sorry but please help!!! Thank you xx:beer:

Haushinka

If you sign up on the website you would normally get one delivered to your house prior. If you haven't got the time then I'd say go to the nearest tube to where you're staying (or DLR as you are in docklands) and buy your oyster there. They cost £3 each. You will need to sign up with your name and address for you to buy a weekly travel card (I think) and if you'd want to see all the sights, work out what zones you're likely to go through. Given that you're staying in docklands, I'd say you'd probably only need a zone 1-3. The absolute easiest way to travel is on the tube and buses. Check before you travel whether any of the stations you want to go to are open, as there is always some engineering works happening on a weekend. Once you know how everything works it is relatively simple. Check the TFL website and if you aren't completely sure call there hotline and they should be able to help. HTH

CharlieBilly

no grabbit then

savemoney

Try asking in right forum like travel forum not grabbit

heatherw_01

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email !!!!!!.

alanrowell

Assuming OP is taking the train then they can buy a 7 day Travelcard at their London arrival station at either the train or Tube station booking office. As they will have train tickets they don't have to worry about getting a paper one if they want to use the 2-4-1 offers on daysoutguide.com

hyperfunk_d

completelybonkers wrote: »

Please help me. We are coming to London for the first time from The North!!!! OMG!!!! We will be staying on the Docklands, and have looked at buying a 7 day tube pass, but this says we need an oyster card! What is one of these, how do we get it? How much is one? Is this the cheapest way to get around the sights for a week???? Sorry but please help!!! Thank you xx:beer:

Yep, a travel card on an Oyster is what you need.

Search for the TFL (Transport For London) site through google and you will see a link to Oyster on the front page.

You can either order online or purchase from a station (go to a kiosk and just ask for one - when I did it, I didnt need to give any details at all). Once you have it ask for a 'Zone 1-6 Weekly Travel Card' to be loaded onto it, which basically means you can travel anywhere in London on it (even buses, trams and some national rail trains that are within the 6 zones).

This is most definitely the best bet for you - the only other option is pay as you go, but while that would work out equal money-wise, you need to remember to keep topping up and also if you forget to tap in or out (touch your Oyster to the reader) at a station, you are charged the maximum for the journey - usually over 2 times the price you should normally pay, whereas with the travel card you dont need to worry about forgetting to do that. Once you have the card you will see a card reader (a round, usually yellow pad) on either the station gates that open once you touch your Oyster to the reader, or a reader based along a platform (usually the case on DLR stations which wont have gates).

Believe the cost of a weekly all zones travel card is around £50ish, perhaps a bit more with the recent increases.

Hope that helps - any other questions let me know!

Soundgirlrocks

Hi Just a quick note my inlaws came down from Scotland yesterday for a visit., Oyster cards have gone up they are £5.00 now, but you can get this back if you return the card as it is a deposit for the card (although I have never seen one be reissued) I would think your best bet is to pay as you go with pre pay as it never charges more than a one day pass, and some days you might use it less. They do make using the transport system so much easier. As for not touching in and out it is quite hard to do and if you have a problem sort it out there and then and they generally sort the charges out at the station

KiKi

Just to add (because no-one's actually said this yet!) that an Oyster card is a 'credit card' (literally a thick, plastic ticket) for the Tube, buses, trams, DLR and London Overground rail. You pay £5 for the actual card itself. Then you have to top it up with cash to pay for your journeys.

It is MUCH cheaper to do it this way. It's cheaper to buy a ticket - of any length on any day - for an Oyster 'top up' than it is to buy a paper ticket. As an example, a *single* journey in zone 1 (central London) is £4 for a paper ticket. To top up your Oyster for the same journey it's £1.90.

TfL want people to stop buying paper tickets, simple as that, so they've made them horrendously expensive whilst keeping the same fares on the Oyster system down. Plus, it's quicker to use Oyster, as you just touch the card (it looks just like a credit card) on the yellow readers, rather than showing a ticket to someone or putting it through the gates like you do at mainline rail stations.

As others have said, order your Oysters, add the cash (you can do all this on the TfL website) and off you go.

HTH
KiKi

dzug1

hyperfunk_d wrote: »

Once you have it ask for a 'Zone 1-6 Weekly Travel Card' to be loaded onto it, which basically means you can travel anywhere in London on it (even buses, trams and some national rail trains that are within the 6 zones).

!

If you are in Docklands you are very unlikely to need zones 1-6

More likely 1-3 or 1-4 at most - which will be a bit of a saving.

hyperfunk_d

KiKi wrote: »

It is MUCH cheaper to do it this way. It's cheaper to buy a ticket - of any length on any day - for an Oyster 'top up' than it is to buy a paper ticket. As an example, a *single* journey in zone 1 (central London) is £4 for a paper ticket. To top up your Oyster for the same journey it's £1.90.

KiKi

I would advise against topping up - as i explained in my earlier post... if you miss a tap in somewhere (on dlr stations its really easy to forget due to there being no gates to pass through) and then dont tap out, you get charged the maximum for the journey - something like £5 instead of £2 for example.

It is indeed cheaper to top up rather than buying a paper ticket - but this is only on a single/return journey... for a week long stay a travel card is exactly the same amount as the topping up would work out to, except you take the 'missing a tap in/out' situation out of the equation!