Great value but defintly a flawed system. If your planning on using the underground and buses a lot then by all means purchase a oyster card and top it off otherwise just stick to travel cards. The reason iam saying this is after about 8 pm at night there will be barely any staff on the underground stations and the turnstills will be wide open now being a law abiding citzen i allways swipe my oyster card but when you get to the next station and swipe again you ALLWAYS get charged for a double trip which is insane. Until they fix these bugs in the system in my opinion you can save more money just buying travel cards.

thanks for all your information - might think about buying one when I’m on holidays there in July! Will I also be able to use and reload it again when I come back months later for a visit or will it be unvalid after a long break?

so much easier than travel cards!!

If you plan on going to London on vacation for at least 3-4 days you definitely need to pick up an Oyster Card! These stylie little cards let you on to the tube and the buses without fumbling for change every time you get on. And they definitely save money - instead of 2 quid every time you get on the bus it’s like 5 quid for an entire day.

My favorite thing about the Oyster Card is that you don’t have to interact with the drivers/station agents at all - you hold it up to a sensor and it beeps, allowing you through the gate or onto the bus. A much better system than MUNI in my hometown of San Francisco.

This is a very convinient way to travel in London. All you need is this card, load it with money and you can use it in the tube and buses in London. If you travel often you can get a weekly or monthly travelcard loaded in it and don’t have to worry about it for a whole month/week. It is great. I get my travelcard every month and not having to worry aout getting tickets everyday or if my piece of paper ticket is bent and folded, will it still work. The oystercard saves paper as well as it is reusable which is great. All you have to do is touch in and touch out and its all sorted.

Oyster cards are convenient, especially on days you are heading out early on the bus and there’s no cash points nearby! (Assuming you have it charged of course…). They do have their pitfalls though…

One problem is that you must touch your card both in and out at tube stations. At some of the outlying stations where they don’t have barriers it’s very easy to miss the touch point, and sometimes involves running up and down stairs if it turns out to be back on the platform! If you don’t touch out you will be charged a penalty fare.
One time I made a journey which involved going above ground when changing lines, and I had to touch in and out of both lines, and one of the touches didn’t register. The fare for the whole journey should have been (if I remember the figures correctly…) £2, but they charged me £2 for the first leg, then £4 penalty fare for the second!

I had to phone up to get a refund (see website) which was a pain, but they did send me a cheque without bother.

You only need to touch in on busses. Don’t get confused!

Coverage can be tricky: I think I’m right in saying if you buy a travel card on your Oyster (which gives extra discounts over a periods of a week or month) then it will cover some rail as well as tube lines. But a plain ordinary oyster won’t cover the same places… very confusing! If you are going somewhere off the tube network, best to ask! I think they do have plans to sort this out…

You can re-charge your card at many newsagents shops etc. or at tube stations, at the service window or on one of the self-service ticket machines. If you use the machine you can also check the balance and see recent transactions. I make a habit of checking my transactions occasionally, as mistakes can occur!

I agree Oyster cards are quite a good thing.

However, the fact they are cheaper is entirely contrived by TfL in order to get everyone using Oyster cards and to exploit tourists who have to pay extortionate cash fares.

Oyster cards do make travel much more efficient - to the point where I get furious with people who have paper tickets at rush hour.

A recent addition is that anyone with a young person's railcard can get 1/3 off pre pay daily travlecards on their Oyster which is really worthwhile.

As a German, it feels strange to me to be he first one to tell the English-speaking Qype crowd about one of the most convenient (and inexpensive) ways to use a great British institution: the London Underground. But since nobody else has bothered, so be it. ;-)

Oyster is a ‘smartcard’ you can use to pay for your rides on the Tube, trams, buses, DLR, London Overground and some national rail services in London. The fares generally are much cheaper – e. g., a single Tube fare of £4 just costs £1.50 with Oyster. At the end of the day, you never pay more than the equivalent of a day pass (Travelcard). It also is transferable – anybody can use it.

You can store up to £90 on your Oyster. When you buy it, you also have to leave a deposit of £3. But you get reimbursed should you decide to return your Oyster. You also get back the unused portion of the prepaid fare.

The card can be purchased at most Tube stations and at 2.200 Oyster Ticket Stops. You can register Oyster online if you have a British address - this way, the tickets and the cash stored on the card are protected against theft or loss.

If you want to get your Oyster before your trip to London, you can order it at www.visitbritaindirect.com.