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Visitor's oyster card

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I've just bought a visitor's oyster card for a trip to London. I have read that there is a cap of £6.50 a day on travel in zone1. How does this work? Does it just stop taking money from the card after you have spent £6.50? So if I load it with £13 will that do me for 2 days. Has anyone used these cards

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  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    ceewash wrote: »
    I've just bought a visitor's oyster card for a trip to London. I have read that there is a cap of £6.50 a day on travel in zone1. How does this work? Does it just stop taking money from the card after you have spent £6.50? So if I load it with £13 will that do me for 2 days. Has anyone used these cards

    Yes that's pretty much how it works.

    Read more about it here: Capping
  • pompeyrich
    pompeyrich Posts: 3,135 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I've used Oyster and contactless bank cards on many occasions and have found the system is very efficient with regards to the cap. The £6.50 daily cap applies to journeys at any time in zones 1&2 so £13 will cover you for both days, although not if you use the river bus or cable car as these journeys don't count towards the cap.

    Just make sure you tap in and out when starting/finishing your rail journey, you only tap in when you get on a bus and once you reach the cap no more credit will be taken.

    I expect you've checked the TFL site but if not, more details, including special offers for visitor oyster card users can be seen HERE.
  • ceewash
    ceewash Posts: 1,368 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    Thanks that's really helpful. Am I right in thinking the cap doesn't apply Saturday.
  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    ceewash wrote: »
    Am I right in thinking the cap doesn't apply Saturday.

    No, you are wrong to think that. It applies every day.
  • paddyrg
    paddyrg Posts: 13,543 Forumite
    If you load £13 you may find it doesn't let you travel fully on the second day as the system may try to earmark more than the second £6.50 just in case you travel to Zone 9 (but then when you tap out do the magic sums and only hit you for as much as it costs to go to the cap).

    If you have a contactless credit card, that's even easier as you don't need to top up or register or anything, you just walk up and tap on. All the caps etc still apply
  • peachyprice
    peachyprice Posts: 22,346 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    paddyrg wrote: »
    If you load £13 you may find it doesn't let you travel fully on the second day as the system may try to earmark more than the second £6.50 just in case you travel to Zone 9 (but then when you tap out do the magic sums and only hit you for as much as it costs to go to the cap).

    It doesn't work like that, as long as there is enough credit on the oyster for the minimum fare from that station it will let you through the gate, nothing is earmarked.
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