London day trip Travelcard or Oyster?

BarGin

My family, 2 adults and 1 child, are planning a day trip to London in August. We will arrive at Paddington. From there I expect we will make about 4 journeys on the Tube including returning to Paddington. What would be the cheapest way to pay for the travel within London? Also can the tickets be paid for in advance?

spenderdave

Depending on the rail fare (not sure how far you are from London) a travel card works out the cheaper option if you need to do more than two inner zone tube trips. If you do it on the tube contactless is the best option (£2.30 for a single inner zone trip) but that may be fiddly if there are three of you as you will need three separate debit cards (or Oyster). But in your case with four journeys a travel card (or three of them...) wins hands down.

KeithP

Remember, if all three of you go down the contactless route, the fare for a child would be the same as an adult.

BarGin

Contactless seems to be the easiest for us - we have 3 debit cards. If we stay within Zone 1 there is a cap of £7.40 for the day whereas a Travelcard costs £13.90. Have I understood that correctly?

KeithP

If the child is under 11 years old they travel free if travelling with a fare paying adult.

MDMD

BarGin said:

Contactless seems to be the easiest for us - we have 3 debit cards. If we stay within Zone 1 there is a cap of £7.40 for the day whereas a Travelcard costs £13.90. Have I understood that correctly?

Not quite - the point made above about the travel card is (if you haven’t got the rail tickets yet) you can add the travelcard to the train ticket and it breaks even after around two journeys.

Depends where you come from but I got a zone 1-6 off peak travelcard on Thursday for £3.45 with my tickets.

BarGin

I have already bought my rail tickets. 2 singles worked out much cheaper than a return. The Travelcard was only offered if I bought return tickets. 

The child is 14.

daveyjp

Whilst tubes offer quick travel betwen stations, there may be a long walk between surface and platforms so don't forget the bus as an option.  Cheaper and you see more.

macman

Your first post asked 'which is cheapest'? Now you are stating that contactless is 'easiest'. Correct, but it's not the cheapest.

BarGin

macman said:

Your first post asked 'which is cheapest'? Now you are stating that contactless is 'easiest'. Correct, but it's not the cheapest.

Bearing in mind that I have already bought my train tickets, is there a cheaper option?

Indigo_and_Violet

There's a handy comparison here: https://visitorshop.tfl.gov.uk/help/ticket-comparison/

Short answer is that cheapest combo is probably contactless/oyster for the adults and a travelcard for your daughter.