Oyster card question

[saz25]

Hi all,

Is there any benefit to purchasing an Oyster card online so that we receive it before we fly to Heathrow? I know they charge 3 Euros to mail it to you. Or should we just wait and by it there?

 

We plan to stay in London for 3 days before our cruise in August.

 

Just curious. We have a normal US credit card (not chip and pin). Would that cause an issue with purchasing the Oyster card when we arrive in Heathrow?

 

thanks in advance,

Steve

[orchestrapal]

It is very easy to purchase them in the Underground stations with no fee.

You will want a chip and sign card before going to London because most establishments now require them. Get one that also has no foreign currency conversion charges.

[Pet Nit Noy]

It is very easy to purchase them in the Underground stations with no fee.

You will want a chip and sign card before going to London because most establishments now require them. Get one that also has no foreign currency conversion charges.

 

Our no-foreign-currency-conversion-fee card is swipe and signature. The machines didn't always read the magnetic strip the first time anyone swiped the card, but there was only one instance when the swipe card failed completely. Then, we switched to our chip and signature card to complete the transaction. Certainly, no one refused to try swiping our antiquated card in any transaction. Nevertheless, we're going to see if our no-fee bank has finally introduced a chip card before next year's trip.

[saz25]

So are you saying that we can't purchase Oyster cards upon arrival at Heathrow with non chip/pin credit cards?

 

Are there manned booths or just machines?

 

Just trying to decide whether to plan on paying cash (pounds) for the Oyster cards?

 

We won't have chip/pin cards. It's availability in the US is still out into the future.

Thanks

Steve

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[orchestrapal]

So are you saying that we can't purchase Oyster cards upon arrival at Heathrow with non chip/pin credit cards?

 

Are there manned booths or just machines?

Just trying to decide whether to plan on paying cash (pounds) for the Oyster cards?We won't have chip/pin cards. It's availability in the US is still out into the future.

Thanks

SteveSent using the Cruise Critic forums app

 

You just need a CHIP and sign all over London . Don't know if the Heathrow station has a person or only machines. The US has had chip and sign for years.

Eventually we may even get pins.

[Pet Nit Noy]

You just need a CHIP and sign all over London . Don't know if the Heathrow station has a person or only machines. The US has had chip and sign for years.

Eventually we may even get pins.

 

I can only repeat what I've posted before. Travelers do not need a chip and PIN card to do business in London (or France for that matter) as long as a human is conducting the transaction. There's an advantage using a chip card in added security against remote readers, but the word "need" is an overstatement as long as a human is processing the charge. If you think you're going to be in situations with a non-manned pay station (e.g. parking lots, train ticket kiosks, toll booths), be prepared with cash.

 

With a chip card, you'll have added security against the devices that can read a card remotely, so you might want to carry a chip card despite my reassurance that you can travel in England and France with your old-fashioned swipe card. But, bottom line: For the moment, the devices that ring up charge purchases still work almost 100% successfully with the swipe and sign cards.

 

Our swipe and sign card did not work when we tried to purchase tickets from a human in the Paris Montparnasse train station. The employee expected the card to work and tried swiping it about five times before asking if we had a chip card. We did and used it successfully. However, since that card imposes currency conversion fees, we weren't willing to use it as our primary card during the trip.

 

This information should be reassuring to travelers who are leaving soon and don't have time to open a new account or travelers who don't want to open a new account for reasons having to do with impact on your credit score. (Your credit score tends to go down if you hold too many charge cards.)

[Globaliser]

Is there any benefit to purchasing an Oyster card online so that we receive it before we fly to Heathrow? I know they charge 3 Euros to mail it to you.

The main benefit that I can see is not having to stand in the queue at the Tube station ticket office. If €3 is all the extra that you'd be charged, when compared to what you'd pay at the Tube station, that might be worth paying. In particular, the queue for the ticket office at the station for Terminals 1, 2 and 3 can get quite long at busy times (perhaps 20-30 minutes).

It is very easy to purchase them in the Underground stations with no fee.

I don't know what the deposit arrangements are if the card is bought online in advance, but if you buy them at Tube stations there is a £5 deposit, refundable when the card is returned (together with all unused credit). It's not a fee, but I mention it for completeness so that there are no unexpected surprises.

[saz25]

A related question. Can we buy a single trip fare using pounds (i.e.: cash)?

 

This is if the queues are too long.

 

I was thinking that I would buy a single fare with cash assuming the machines accept that, then buy the Oyster card when we arrive in London. Does that work ?

Thanks

Steve

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[Globaliser]

Can we buy a single trip fare using pounds (i.e.: cash)?

 

This is if the queues are too long.

 

I was thinking that I would buy a single fare with cash assuming the machines accept that, then buy the Oyster card when we arrive in London. Does that work ?

Yes, if you don't mind paying the cash fare, which is higher than the Oyster fare. The difference depends on the time of day.

 

If you start your journey from Heathrow to central London between 0630 and 0930 Monday to Friday, the Oyster fare is £5.00 (this is the amount deducted from your Oyster credit). If you pay cash, it's £5.70 (at any time).

 

The difference is more marked if you start your journey at any other time. The Oyster fare is then £3.00, although the cash fare remains £5.70.

 

The other thing that you miss out on if you buy one cash single at the start of the day is that that ticket won't count towards the day's price cap. If you use your Oyster enough during a single day, you can reach a price cap for the day. You won't be charged more that day than any applicable price cap, although the exact amount of the applicable price cap depends on the travel that you have done (including the types of travel and the zones and times of travel). All of the cost of travel using your Oyster will be taken into account that day, but the cash single will not.

[Pet Nit Noy]

... If you use your Oyster enough during a single day, you can reach a price cap for the day. You won't be charged more that day than any applicable price cap, although the exact amount of the applicable price cap depends on the travel that you have done (including the types of travel and the zones and times of travel). All of the cost of travel using your Oyster will be taken into account that day, but the cash single will not.

 

The following information is for saz25 but it seems useful to add it to Globaliser's post.

 

For our most recent visit, we only used the Tube for one day. (We walked to our remaining destinations other days.) We added 7 GBP per card to each of our existing Oyster cards for one day's worth of unlimited travel in zones one and two. London Heathrow is in zone 6. Someone else will have to tell you how much you'd need to put on an Oyster card for a single trip from Zone 6 plus unlimited zones 1 & 2 travel.

 

Last year, we purchased Oyster cards for unlimited travel in zones 1 & 2 for one week. Last year's price per card was 35 GBP. I don't know the current price for this type of card.

[Globaliser]

For our most recent visit, we only used the Tube for one day. (We walked to our remaining destinations other days.) We added 7 GBP per card to each of our existing Oyster cards for one day's worth of unlimited travel in zones one and two. London Heathrow is in zone 6. Someone else will have to tell you how much you'd need to put on an Oyster card for a single trip from Zone 6 plus unlimited zones 1 & 2 travel.

The Oyster price cap doesn't work like this. It doesn't depend on you choosing your zones or price in advance. You simply pay for the travel you use, and the system automatically applies any price cap that you've reached when looking at the travel that you've done that day.

 

So you wouldn't price in advance a single trip from Z6 to Z1 plus unlimited Z1-Z2 travel. The cost (and the applicable price cap) will depend on the time of day and modes of travel.

 

Suppose you start your journey from Heathrow at an off-peak fare time (not 0630-0930 Mon-Fri). An Oyster single fare from Z6 to Z1 is £3.00. Suppose you then use another £5.00 worth of Tube travel within Z1-Z2. You don't reach the Z1-Z2 off-peak cap (£7.00), and you don't reach the Z1-Z6 off-peak cap (£8.50), so a total of £8.00 is deducted from your card that day.

 

Suppose, instead, that after arriving in central London you use another £6.00 worth of Tube travel within Z1-Z2. Again, you don't reach the Z1-Z2 off-peak cap because you haven't spent £7.00 on Z1-Z2 travel. However, you do reach the Z1-Z6 off-peak cap of £8.50, so on your last Tube journey you actually have less than the full cost deducted so that a total of £8.50 is deducted from the card that day. The trip from Heathrow to central London is taken into account, because doing that gets you to an applicable price cap.

 

In contrast, suppose you start your journey from Heathrow at a peak time and then later do £5.00 of off-peak Z1-Z2 Tube travel. You will have £5.00 deducted for the first trip from Heathrow. As you don't reach the Z1-Z2 off-peak cap (£7.00), and you don't reach the Z1-Z6 peak cap (£15.80), a total of £10.00 is deducted from your card that day.

 

If after arriving in central London you use another £6.00 of off-peak Tube travel within Z1-Z2, you still you don't reach the Z1-Z2 off-peak cap (£7.00), and you don't reach the Z1-Z6 peak cap (£15.80), a total of £11.00 is deducted from your card that day.

 

But if after arriving in central London you use another £8.00 of off-peak Tube travel within Z1-Z2, you reach the Z1-Z2 off-peak cap. So on your last trip you have less than the full cost deducted so that you've paid a total of £12.00 for the day (£5.00 peak Z6-Z1 plus £7.00 off-peak Z1-Z2 cap). In this instance, the Heathrow to central London trip is not taken into account, because you haven't reached the applicable price cap if you add that journey in (which would be £15.80), but you have reached the applicable price cap if you leave it out of account (£7.00 for all the subsequent journeys).

 

While Pet Nit Noy is right to say that putting £7.00 of credit is enough to pay for a day's off-peak Z1-Z2 travel, it wouldn't be right to think of this as a decision in advance to pay £7.00 for unlimited Z1-Z2 travel, to which you add the cost of a Heathrow to central London single fare. Depending on your actual travel that day, you might need only 8.50 to pay for unlimited Z1-Z6 travel simply because the time of your Heathrow to central London journey ultimately triggers that cap instead. And even if you only do off-peak Z1-Z2 travel, if you use less than £7.00 worth then you will only pay for what you have used. The cap is a maximum amount, not a fixed price.

Last year, we purchased Oyster cards for unlimited travel in zones 1 & 2 for one week. Last year's price per card was 35 GBP. I don't know the current price for this type of card.

A 7-day Z1-Z2 Travelcard is currently £31.40.

[lilybob]

Globaliser-that is the best explanation of how the zones work on your Oyster card and it is a definite "Save" and "Like" from me!:) Thanks!

[Pet Nit Noy]

The Oyster price cap doesn't work like this. It doesn't depend on you choosing your zones or price in advance. You simply pay for the travel you use, and the system automatically applies any price cap that you've reached when looking at the travel that you've done that day.

 

So you wouldn't price in advance a single trip from Z6 to Z1 plus unlimited Z1-Z2 travel. The cost (and the applicable price cap) will depend on the time of day and modes of travel... While Pet Nit Noy is right to say that putting £7.00 of credit is enough to pay for a day's off-peak Z1-Z2 travel, it wouldn't be right to think of this as a decision in advance to pay £7.00 for unlimited Z1-Z2 travel, to which you add the cost of a Heathrow to central London single fare..

 

Globaliser, I salute your superior knowledge and, above all, your gracious willingness to share it with this Board.

 

The employees who man the booths at Underground stations are remarkably patient in explaining options to we tourists, but your post is simply stunning in its clarity, thoroughness, and utility since we can read this in advance and consider our options at leisure. Thank you so very, very much.

 

Does anyone know if there's a way for us to petition the mods to include Globaliser's answer with the posts that appear in the permanently displayed posts? Someone would have to add a sentence to indicate the prices he/she quoted are correct as of 2014, but I'm assuming that his tour de force explanation of the Oyster Card works will remain relevant for some time.

 

Globaliser, your post is simply stunning. Again, thank you.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Pet Nit Noy

[Globaliser]

You're welcome!

 

But I think that the advice for most visitors who are going to use public transport for a few days should really be quite simple:-

• Decide whether you want to buy a paper Travelcard for the 2-for-1 offers.
• If not, then get a pre-pay Oyster and use it without over-thinking the charging permutations. The system can be trusted to give you the best deal for the travel you actually do.

[insanemagnet]

Also be aware that from the 6th July 2014 you cannot pay for a bus fare in London in cash. You either need an Oyster card, a day Travelcard or if paying by credit/debit card, it must be a contactless card.

[onthelake]

Also add, we (OK, I) thought Oyster Cards could be redeemed/turned in at Gatwick as well as Heathrow. Not true. We came home with 4 Oyster cards which we will now try to return for the 5£ deposit on each. Lesson learned.

[insanemagnet]

Also add, we (OK, I) thought Oyster Cards could be redeemed/turned in at Gatwick as well as Heathrow. Not true.

 

There are three ways to get a refund on Oyster cards -

- Take the card to a tube station

- Post the card back to TFL customer services

- Phone TFL customer services

 

The second two options are probably not viable for non-UK visitors as the refund is made either by cheque (in pounds sterling) or to a UK bank account.

 

If you take the card back to a tube station, note a tube station, not a train station (Heathrow is a tube station, Gatwick is a train station), then you need to provide proof of your name (passport) and address (utility bill, bank or credit card statement). You must also bring the debit or credit card that you used to buy the tickets or pay as you go credit.

[MATHA531]

There used to be humongeous lines at tube stations on weekdays as 0930 approached. People waiting for the off peak cap or off peak price for a z1/2 card to come into play. So tfl solved the problem. There is no longer an off peak z1/2 one day card available which also affects the cap on PAYG. No need any longer if you're just doing central London to wait till 0930. (But of course, you pay more. What a pity). At least this is what I believe I read when they updated the fares for 2014!

[MATHA531]

There used to be humongeous lines at tube stations on weekdays as 0930 approached. People waiting for the off peak cap or off peak price for a z1/2 card to come into play. So tfl solved the problem. There is no longer an off peak z1/2 one day card available which also affects the cap on PAYG. No need any longer if you're just doing central London to wait till 0930. (But of course, you pay more. What a pity). At least this is what I believe I read when they updated the fares for 2014!

 

Actually I just checked the table. Off peak zone 1 & 2 will cap at £7 instead of £8.40 for PAYG oyster so to save that £1.40 it may pay, if that's important to you, to wait till 0930 on a weekday for your first trip on the tube.

 

However if you buy for cash a 1 day travelcard, there is no longer one that is cheaper for use after 0930 weekdays; well actually according to the table if you wait till after 0930, you save 10p (£8.90 instead of £9 for the 1 day cash zone 1 & 2 travelcards).

[insanemagnet]

There used to be humongeous lines at tube stations on weekdays as 0930 approached. People waiting for the off peak cap or off peak price for a z1/2 card to come into play.

 

Although TFL say off-peak starts at 0930, it actually starts around 0925, to allow for variations in the timing of the clocks in the barriers.

[Globaliser]

If you take the card back to a tube station, note a tube station, not a train station (Heathrow is a tube station, Gatwick is a train station), then you need to provide proof of your name (passport) and address (utility bill, bank or credit card statement). You must also bring the debit or credit card that you used to buy the tickets or pay as you go credit.

Heathrow has Tube stations, and as insanemagnet says, you need to make sure that you go there. There are also train stations at Heathrow, which (AFAIK) will not do refunds.

 

The blurb on the TfL website talks about all of these requirements, but my recent experience has been that a passport alone will do the job when refunding a pay-as-you-go Oyster. I haven't been asked for proof of address.

[Globaliser]

However if you buy for cash a 1 day travelcard, there is no longer one that is cheaper for use after 0930 weekdays; well actually according to the table if you wait till after 0930, you save 10p (£8.90 instead of £9 for the 1 day cash zone 1 & 2 travelcards).

Depending on what travel you're doing, the one-day off-peak paper Travelcard can still be good value. This is because for £8.90 you get a Zones 1-6 one-day off-peak Travelcard (and this is cheapest one-day off-peak Travelcard that you can get that includes Zones 1 and 2). While the Zones 1-2 one-day peak Travelcard is only 10p more, the peak Travelcards that include any further zones are considerably more than £8.90 - so the off-peak Travelcard is a greater saving.

 

More information in this PDF: http://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/tube-dlr-lo-adult-fares-jan-2014.pdf

 

That table also underlines the fact that the pay-as-you-go cap is now (once more) less than the equivalent one-day Travelcard, so you're always going to be better off using pay-as-you-go Oyster (so far as the fares paid on a particular day are concerned).

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Are there manned kiosks that see the oyster cards in LHR or are they only machines. I am afraid my credit card may not work. [swipe and sign]

 

When a large department store had a security breach last Christmas many of us we given new credit cards as a precaution. The letter with mine said it had a chip. But, I have never gotten any type of pin--and US retailers do not use chip and pin, so I have never seen if it works.

[Globaliser]

Are there manned kiosks that see the oyster cards in LHR or are they only machines.

I'm pretty sure that the LHR Tube stations serving T123 and T4 both have manned ticket offices. At T5, I think that there's a desk selling tickets within the terminal building, just before you go outside to take the lift down to the station.

[LiftLockCouple]

I'm pretty sure that the LHR Tube stations serving T123 and T4 both have manned ticket offices. At T5, I think that there's a desk selling tickets within the terminal building, just before you go outside to take the lift down to the station.

 

When I arrived at Terminal 1 and went through Tube Terminal 1,2,3 in November it was manned and is where I purchased my Oyster Card. When I arrived at T5 on the tube, there was a manned ticket booth at the platform level, outside the gates. That is where I obtained my Oyster card refund before my flight home.

 

We are arriving in Mid August at T2 at 9PM. I am expecting to find a manned ticket booth at Terminal 1,2,3 so we can get our Oyster cards. We are planning to get the refund at T5 when we depart to Edinburgh.