Keep your travel costs down (Oyster Card)

Member Name: alexela

Product:	Oyster Card
Date:	17/06/09 (300 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper travel in the capital

Disadvantages: No pay as go you on national rail serives in London

To put things quite simply, if you're planning to travel around London using public transport, you need one of these. There are very few occasions where you would be better off buying a paper ticket and these occasions tend to be one day peak travel if you are in an area where you have to use mainline trains to get around instead of trams, tubes, buses, DLR or London Overground.

Most Oyster cards cost £3 to purchase with some specific ones being £5 (Child photocard, 16-17 photocard and the 18+ student photocard coming to mind). However, in most cases, this cost will be recouped within a day or two due to the significant savings you are likely to make. Buying an Oyster card is easy - most major London stations have small vending machines which sell them for £5 - the £3 deposit plus £2 of pay as you go credit, or you can buy them from an underground station ticket office or most newsagents. You can also go to any of these places to top up your oyster with additional pay as you go credit or to check your existing balance on the card.

A single bus ride costs £2 cash fare, but only £1 on the Oyster card - quite a significant saving, especially if you use the buses a few times a day or week. Also, the tube cash fare for any journey within zone 1 will be £4 at all times - on the Oyster card that is reduced to £1.60. Journeys within one outer zone (e.g. going from a zone 2 station to other zone 2 stations without crossing any other zones) have slightly cheaper cash fares of £3.20, but still compared to £1.10 Oyster fare it is far more than you need to spend!

The savings don't stop at individual journeys either. If you make several journeys in one day using only buses or trams, your fare will be capped at £3.30, 50p below the paper one day bus pass, no matter how many journeys you make using buses or trams that day. If you also use the tubes, DLR and London Overground, you will be capped at 50p below the day travelcard rate for which ever zones you travel in, dependant on the time of day. If you travel before 9.30am, you will pay no more than 50p below the peak day travelcard cost - £6.70 for zones 1-2, for off peak, travelling after 9.30 you will pay no more than £5.10 for travelling within zones 1-2, no matter how many journeys you make.

The savings don't end here either! If you know you will be travelling about London for a whole week or longer you can get a week, months or even years travelcard loaded on to your Oyster cards, these season tickets saving you even more than the daily oyster price caps would and these travelcards also allow Oyster to be used on national rail services within the zones covered by the travelcard. For zones 1-2 this would cost £25.80 for a week, however, if you're using national rail services, it's likely you're in outer zones like 4, 5 or 6 where a week's travelcard will cost £36.80, £44.00 and £47.60 respectively for travel between said zone and zone 1.

There are also additional discounts available on Oyster to the under 18s and 18+ students as well as a New Deal arrangement for the unemployed. For 11-15 year olds from outside of London, a photocard can be ordered at the price of £5, and this allows the holder to travel for free on buses and trams in London and have their pay as you go travel capped at £1 a day for travel within zones 1-6. For eligible residents within London, this card is free.

For those over 16 who are London residents in full time education, there is the 16+ Oyster card, entitling the holder to pay as you go at half the adult rate, but this is only available to London residents in full time education, those over 16 not eligible, must use the adult system instead.

The 18+ student oyster card is for students studying in London and entitles the holder to 1/3 off 7 day or longer travelcards, but has no effect on pay as you go fares and the New Deal photocard for the unemployed allows the holder to get 50% off the adult oyster rate on pay as you go.

Another discount available is that holders of the Young Persons Railcard can link their railcard to their Oyster card to save another 1/3 off the off peak daily price cap when using pay as you go. This discount cannot however be used for season tickets. For those who also use the student Oyster card, this can be particularly handy as it means you can cover both pay as you go and travelcards!

There is no question the Oyster system is very handy - no fiddly paper tickets which is also better for the environment, speeds up going through the ticket gates and the obvious cost savings. I would say an Oyster card is a must have for every London resident and for anyone who plans to stay and travel in London for more than a day.

Summary: A must for travelling in London