In case you haven’t been to London, or haven’t been here in a while, there is a fairly new system for paying for public transportation called the Oyster Card. It might seem a bit confusing at first, but it is by far the best and cheapest way to get around, so using one is pretty much mandatory for everyone who will be taking more than a single ride during their visit.
Buying an Oyster Card
There are multiple ways to buy an Oyster Card, including buying one online, but for most tourists it’s easiest to just buy one in person at the first Underground station you want to use. Chances are this will be either at the station below Heathrow Airport, or the station attached to St. Pancras (where the Eurostar arrives), but you can buy an Oyster Card at virtually any tube station that has an attendant behind a window, as most of them do.
The card itself costs £3, which you will get back when you are done with the thing. You have to stand in line at a station to return the card, and the lines can be long at some of these popular exit stations, so take that into account.
In addition to the £3 you’ll want to buy credit on the system, so if you hand them £13 you’ll get the card loaded with £10 of credit. Adding more credit to the card is fast and easy and can be done in a variety of ways. You can give the card and more money to someone behind one of the windows at the tube stops, and they’ll add that to your balance and return the card. You can also add credit the same way at many tobacco shops and news dealers around town, so don’t worry too much about trying to buy all the credit you’ll need in your initial purchase.
Using the Oyster Card in the Underground
This part couldn’t be easier. It’s simple enough to figure out just from watching others do it ahead of you, since nearly all the locals use this system as well. But just to prepare you all you do is wave or hold the card just above or on the yellow circle on the entry gate. The system will record the beginning of your journey, open the turnstile, and flash your current balance on the small screen near the gate.
The most important thing is to remember to also scan the card when you leave the Underground. This will record the number of zones you’ve traveled, and deduct the appropriate amount from your balance. If you just slip out a gate behind someone else without using the card again you will be charged for a 6-zone fare, which is much higher than the 1 or 2-zone rides most tourists will be taking.
Advantages to using an Oyster Card
The price alone is enough to get you to use an Oyster Card. They have raised the cost of a journey on the Tube without an Oyster Card to an unbelievable £4 for even the shortest journey, while a 1-zone ride with an Oyster Card is only £1.50, and a 2-zone ride is only £2, or £1.50 after 7pm and on weekends. One doesn’t need to be a maths genius to see that the card will pay for itself immediately as long as you can return it for your deposit back at the end of your London stay, and it’s a close call even if you don’t return the thing.
The Oyster Card is better than the 1 or 3-day Travel Card
This part is quite amazing and really a huge boon to Oyster Card users. Simply put, you can buy a 1 or 3-day Travel Card, which gives you unlimited rides within the number of zones you pay for, but those actually cost more than just using your Oyster Card instead.
Nearly all tourist attractions are in Zone 1, and most of the rest are in Zone 2, so the cheapest Travel Card that covers only those two zones is the best option for most tourists. If you buy a Travel Card it will cost £6.80 for one day, or £5.30 if you don’t need to ride until after 9:30am. But if you just use an Oyster Card normally instead, you’ll never pay more than £6.30 or £4.80 respectively because the daily cost automatically caps itself at 50 pence below the Travel Card price.
For example, if you take three 1-zone rides on the Tube, it will cost £4.50 from your Oyster Card balance. When you take the fourth ride of the day it will only deduct 30p more for that journey, and every other ride (within Zones 1 and 2) for that day will cost you nothing.
Needless to say, this gives you full flexibility. If, say, you only end up taking two 1-Zone rides in a day, it will cost you £3, where as with a Travel Card you’d still have paid £5.30 for the day. And the following day you might be zooming all over and take 7 or 8 rides on the Tube, which will only cost you the maximum of £4.80 if you started after 9:30am, or £6.30 if you started before that.
