Rick Blaine wrote:

On my occasional trips to London, I would purchase a one week Zone 1/2
Travelcard, slip it in with my LT Photocard and be covered for most of my
transportation needs.

With the advent of Oyster, I'm not sure that's the preferred way, or even
possible anymore. Assuming I would need to be in London once a year or so, what
would be the best ticketing solution these days?

Thx

It depends on how much travelling you do.

Oyster Pay-as-you-go (PAYG), previously known as Oyster Pre-Pay, might
be the cheaper option if you're only using the Underground and buses.
When you use Oyster PAYG it imposes a cap on the amount you spend
during any one day - this is called daily price capping. The cap
imposed depends upon whether you've travelled before 0930 on weekdays,
whether you've just used buses or have used the Tube and buses/just the
Tube, and what zones you've travelled through. If you don't travel much
that day you may not reach the daily cap.

Nonetheless if you travel a lot during the week you're in London you
might well find that a weekly zone 1&2 Travelcard will still work out
cheaper.

If you're travelling on National Rail services, then (apart from a few
exceptions) Oyster PAYG is not valid so you'll find a weekly Travelcard
is the best solution.

Note that Oyster cards can also be loaded with season tickets, and if
you buy a weekly Travelcard from an Underground station or a newsagents
they will only sell you it on Oyster (and will provide you with an
Oyster card if you don't already have one). You can still get printed
season tickets from National Rail stations.

*If* you buy your weekly Travelcard loaded on an Oyster you do have the
added benefit of being able to travel out-of-zone (i.e. to zones
outside your Travelcards validity) and your Oyster card will then use
it's PAYG function to automatically buy an excess fare/ticket
extension, which is much cheaper than buying printed ticket extensions
(you'll need to add some PAYG credit to your Oyster to take advantage
of this). Note - this will *only* work when using the Underground - if
you're travelling out-of-zone on National Rail you'll need to buy a
printed excess fare as normal.

You no longer need a photocard to buy any season ticket Travelcard
(whether bought on paper or on Oyster). Notionally Travelcard seasons
aren't transferable but in practice there's nothing to stop this from
happening.

If you do get an Oyster card, whether for PAYG use or with a Travelcard
loaded on it, I'd recommend you register it at the time of purchase -
one benefit is that if you lose it you can get a replacement and the
credit you had on your lost card will be transferred. You'll need to
fill out a short Oyster registration form then hand that in at the Tube
or newsagent - I have found some newsagents don't actually pass on the
registration forms so I'd do it at a Tube station. Or buy it online and
it'll be posted to you [1]. There's a £3 deposit for an Oyster card if
you're just using if for PAYG, but no deposit if you're buying one
loaded with a Travelcard season.

Because fares are changing on 2 January '07 I'll just point you towards
the fares section of the TfL website where you can find (a) details of
Oyster PAYG single fares, (b) the Oyster PAYG daily price caps, and (c)
prices for Travelcard seasons:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/fare-info.asp

I hope that might be of some help but quite probably it isn't!

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Oyster online shop (buy an Oyster card):
https://sales.oystercard.com/oyster/lul/entry.do