On 18 Feb, 20:57, MIG wrote:
On Feb 18, 8:47 pm, "John L." wrote:
Thanks for replies. The answers to the questions below a
1) We'll be in London for 7 days
2) We wont be using National Rail
3) Odds are we'll be traveling before 9:30am a few days (but not all)
5) We'll be coming in to London through Heathrow - not sure yet by what
means
6) We're coming from the US so it will be awhile before we're back again
7) We're bringing 2 kids (ages 14 & 6)
Thanks again for the help.
In that case the best thing might to be get seven-day travelcards on
Oyster.
1) If you get at least a seven-day travelcard, you pay £0 deposit,
which is one headache sorted.
2) With a seven-day travelcard, you can use it any time of day; no
waiting till 0930.
3) It will cover National Rail in the zones (whether you need it or
not).
4) It will still cost less than seven times the off-peak daily capping
limit, let alone the peak capping limit.
If you also put a bit of Pay as You Go credit on the card, you can use
it to go beyond whatever zones you get (on the Underground) and you
can use the travelcard on buses in any zone for no extra.
John, just to say I'm basically in agreement with MIG's assessment,
though I will add a little extra information.
First off, your 6 year old travels free at all times on the buses,
Underground and DLR. Your 16 year old meanwhile is counted as an
adult.
I don't know how you are planning to travel in from Heathrow to
central London. There are basically two options, the Heathrow Express
- a non-stop mainline rail service which takes you direct to
Paddington station - it's quick at just 15 minutes, departs every 15
mins but is quite pricey (though inclusive deals with airlines or
travel agents might make it cheaper). Travelcards and Oyster cards are
*not* valid on this service whatsoever - tickets can be bought
onboard, though they are cheaper if you buy before you board and
cheaper still if you buy online beforehand. Your 6 year old would need
a child fare for this.
Their website is he
http://www.heathrowexpress.com
(I should add that if you are going that way you might find it costs
much the same for four of you to get a black cab in to town, but
beware that this will take longer, especially when it's the rush hour
when the roads get jammed up.)
The second option is to travel in from Heathrow on the Underground,
specifically the Piccadilly line. It takes longer, at 45 mins, because
it stops a lot on the way in, but it's considerably cheaper plus it
might well get you closer to where you want to be in central London,
and if not it provides an opportunity to interchange with many other
Underground lines.
The reason why how you travel in from Heathrow is relevant to your
choice of ticket is this - Heathrow is in zone 6, so you can't just
use a zones 1&2 Travelcard from it. However it is possible to load a 7-
day Travelcard for zones 1&2 on your Oyster card, plus put some extra
money on it so you can use the "Pay-as-you-go" facility to
automatically pay the extra fare from Heathrow/zone 6 into zone 2.
This is obviously only relevant if you are going to be coming in from
Heathrow on the Underground, or otherwise making trips outside zones
1&2.
The thing is that whilst the "visitBritain" website allows you to buy
Oyster cards in advance and have them sent to a US address, it only
allows you to buy them loaded with "Pay as you go" credit, not
Travelcards as well. See:
http://www.visitbritaindirect.com/en...oductCode=T105
However visitBritain also allows you to buy paper Travelcards - i.e.
they are issued as a printed paper ticket, rather than being loaded on
Oyster.
The specific ticket you're after is the "Adult, Zones 1-2, 7-days,
Peak" at a cost of US$35.50:
http://www.visitbritaindirect.com/en...oductCode=T102
If you were to buy this paper Travelcard then it would *not* be valid
on the Underground from Heathrow in itself - you would need to buy an
extension ticket (or three!) from Heathrow to cover you to get into
zone 2, which would cost you GBP 3 each. Technically this could be
done from the ticket machines if you knew what you wanted, but it
would be easier to get it from the ticket office - the issue being
that the ticket office is often pretty busy. Coming back from central
London into Heathrow you would also need to buy extension tickets, but
would have to do so from a ticket office.
Of course when you arrive at Heathrow you could go and buy your zones
1&2 Travelcards loaded on Oyster cards, and add a little extra Pay-as-
you-go credit to cover the journey in from Heathrow plus the journey
back to Heathrow - the extra fare to cover your journey in from or
back to Heathrow if using Oyster Pay-as-you-go would is GBP 1.80 or
GBP 1.00 depending upon the time of day.
Whilst this again does mean you'd have to deal with this on arrival,
you don't have to go to the normal ticket office to buy these more
complicated tickets - you can go to a special Transport for London
Travel Information Centre that is located right next to the entrance
to the Underground station, but is separate from it. This is often far
less busy and has lots of helpful (and multilingual) staff, and is
more like a travel agent in that you can sit down in front of a desk
and buy your tickets in quite a civilised manner. (I'm pretty sure
that they can't sell single Underground tickets there, which in many
ways actually helps to keep it much less hectic.) You would be able to
buy your zones 1&2 Travelcards on Oyster and add some extra Pay-as-you-
go credit right here.
The Travel Information Centre at Heathrow is open 6.30am to 10pm and
is next to the Underground station for Terminals 1,2 & 3, rather than
the Terminal 4 station - so if your flight does arrive at Terminal 4,
please don't try and follow this specific bit of advice! The ticket
office at Terminal 4 station could of course sell you your Travelcards
on Oyster, but there might be quite a queue there.
If you do travel in by Heathrow Express, you could buy your
Travelcards from any Underground ticket office in central London, as
well as a number of convenience stores. Indeed if it's all a bit much
at Heathrow you could of course just buy a normal single fare on a
paper ticket for your journey in on the Underground, then deal with
all this Oyster card malarkey when you've had a nap and refreshed
yourselves!
Sorry for the extra long post, I guess this just goes to prove that
life is complicated! If you've got any other questions, or if the
above is about as clear as mud, then please feel free to ask away.