Oyster Card, Westminster, London

love it, love it, love it.
it’s become so much a part of my life in london it’s like breathing. auto top-up is the coolest thing - saves me time and bother of queuing at busy newsagents and ticket booths. plus children 16 and under travel free on buses on an oyster photocard.

i agree there’s the big brother aspect of journeys being tracked but it’s been useful for me. my work involves moving round london a lot so i get a regular online oystercard statement that helps me claim expenses.

gripes? i have one. pay-as-you-go is not yet accepted for trains in london. but plans are afoot to include rail travel.

when that happens my love affair with oystercard will be complete.

this is a briliat peace of invenshon, is helps me save time with tickets, but i only realy save money on the busses! thay becom 99p for one jerny! its briliant

Fantastic invention which makes for easy cashless travel in London. One major drawback though, sometimes the card doesn’t register on the reader as you approach the barrier. The result is you walk straight into a closed barrier at speed and look like a complete tw@t.

Great easy way to get around however you have to remember to top up or check how much money you have on your card before traveling.

As a visitor to London on a fairly regular basis I have found the Oyster Card a real godsend for convienience, time and money saving. Right from go this is a slick easy to use service, just get on line at the Transport For London website and order your card(s) before you travel. Full instructions on how to use, check balance and top up is there on the site and I found it very easy to use.
The practicallity of using the card while travelling is very benificial for the visitor, no queuing for tickets, chepaer fares and easier faster to get about whether it be bus or tube you opt to use.
I found the staff on the ground very helpful too, anyone that I ever approach when I had a query were efficient in sorting the problem (they have these handheld devices that “read” your card and can quickly sort ant queries). My advice is don’t go to London without one of these you will waste money and time!

Every once in a while comes an innovation so brilliant that it makes you wonder how you managed without it. Instead of queueing up for hours to buy a ticket, you can press your Oyster card against a panel and walk straight through. No need to work out which zones you’re travelling through and therefore how much you need to pay - the Oyster card does it for you. Much cheaper than regular tickets, and much easier. Quite why so many people still don’t have one is beyond me.

Such a fan-bloomin-tastic idea!

I don’t live in London, so it’s a serious pain the the be-hind to sort out underground tickets from Reading station….

Love it - saves me time & money. My 2 most favourite things! ;)

The only way to travel in London! My parents live out of the country and own one, my sister lives in Preston and has one….! I moved down here just over a year ago and I think it’s been the biggest money saving I could have made. Cheapest way to travel by a mile!

So what’s a ManchesterPerson doing with an Oyster Card? I only visit London two or three times a year…

We first got an Oyster Card when we were planning a couple of days in a London hotel (courtesy of Tesco Clubcard!) with our two kids (aged 3 and 5). We wanted an easy way of getting round all the tourist attractions in the city centre. After several 'phone-calls we were told it was best to get Visitors’ Oyster Cards (for the two adults -- the kids travel free, which was a pleasant surprise), and we duly got them.

The system worked quite well: we used it mainly on the Underground. It’s cheaper than standard tube fares (which are horrendously expensive) and the swipe-in/swipe-out system was quick when it worked (although (a) trying to get kids through as well was a hassle and (b) one of the cards was rather temperamental. There was one time when it didn’t register and we had to ring the help-line for a refund when we got home).

However once we were in London we found that the Visitor’s Oyster Card was a bit of a con. It costs a non-refundable £2; if we’d gone for a normal card we’d have paid a fully-refundable £3. There were other disadvantages too I think, although I can’t remember the details. We ended up getting normal cards as well and we wrote to complain we’d been 'missold’ Visitors’ Cards -- our complaint was rejected.

We’ve kept the cards for our occasional trips to London and despite the hassles, we’d say that travel around London is better (and certainly cheaper) with one than without.

The Oyster card is usefull & easy to topup in a variety of places. Being a single mum i was pleased when they started to do half price fares for people on benefits about 6mths ago, you had to go & renew your application every 3mths with a photocard & proof of your benefit entitlement but when i went for the 2nd time a week ago i was told by a post office worker that this scheme had now stopped, i was very disappointed & surprised as i had seen nothing to say that it had been cancelled plus there is news of fares going up again shortly. I do still think it is good value for money at the moment being £1 per bus & capping at £3 in the same day but did use it more with the benefit scheme.

The 'Pay As You Go’ Oyster Card is a plastic card, the size of a credit card, that you credit with money and then it gets deducted each time you use the tube or the buses. There are many positives to the Oyster card, which include: it is cheaper than paying cash for London Transport journeys; it is extremely easy to 'top up’ at newsagents or underground train stations; furthermore there are no forms to fill in or registration required; additionally more money can be saved on family days out. The only drawback is a £3 deposit that you have o pay which you will make back quickly with all the money that you are saving.
All-in-all the Oyster card is a must who lives or is even just visiting London, to reduce the cost of living.

You cant go wrong with an Oyster card. It might cost you £3 initially, but thats refundable if you return it. And it saves you money thereafter e.g bus journeys are more than half price with an Oyster .. winner!!

I would be completely lost in London without my Oyster card!

I travel into central London often for uni and nights out so I get a student monthly pass which is 30% cheaper than a standard pass.

However, even if you don’t do that, it’s definitely worth getting an oyster as journeys are always cheaper on it, whether they’re single, return or travel card!

Another advantage is you can top up online/automatically with an oyster which allows you to avoid queues at the ticket office etc.

I do think that the price of travel in London is absolutely ridiculous but the oyster card softens the blow a little. It is much more convenient and I would definitely recommend it to anyone in London. (for £3 which is returnable once you’re done with the card, you can’t lose really!)

I would most definately suggest that anyone heading into London and using the bus, DLR, underground etc wshould purchase an Oyster card and make the saving that comes with it. Without the card, even a single journey can be relatively expensive so why not make that saving for yourself.
By pre-paying on to the card there is no hassle everytime you need to make a journey as you already have your 'ticket’.
A convenient feature for regular users is the automatic top up - you can arrange for your card to be credited from your nominated account every time you go below a certain amount on the card, meaning you never have to worry about running out of money on the card or searhching to top-up at the last minute.
Fianaly, definately keep a rough idea of how much is on the card as if you fail to touch in (start) or touch out (end) for your journey correctly or it doesnt register you end up being charged a lot more. Unlike some other peoples experience, when this happened to me i was able to get it resolved swiftly and efficiently directly with staff at the station which i found very good service.

Best way to travel around London. Cheap, fast and convenient. Travellers could get special edition of cards.

Visiting / Moving to London? The very first thing you need when you get here is a Oyster card. It is essential. You do need to cough up a £3 deposit which of course you get back if you hand in your oyster card (you dont even need a receipt for it!) it then gets recycled to make a new one.
Yes TFL have bumped up cash fares on the tube so much that if you dont use an oyster, your paying through the nose to use public transport.
If you travel once or twice a week in london, its better to just pay as you go - like a mobile phone, you load it with £5-£10 (or any amount if loading up at a newsagent) then touch in and out - it caps your usage from 0931-0430 (off peak) or 0700-0930 (peak), but if you travel both peak and off peak, youll end up paying £9-£10 (if travel within zones 1-2) so in some cases its still better to pay for a paper travel card.
Ovearall the system generally is one of the best in the world! yep, we actually have something thats certainly better than ~Paris, Berlin, Madrid ect…
Bus single fares are 90p - you can go from kingston to Oxford street for just 1.80 return!
Great card, just remember the peak/off peak times and note how much is deducted when you check in/out. Ive had no problems apart from one card stop working, i managed to get a refund - did take 15mins at a ticket office though. Oh and the actual card i didnt have a wallet for, it was fairly scratched etc… so make sure you put it in a wallet by itself as it has a computer chip inside.

I recently noted that my Oyster card was at times charging me more money than it should during journeys I made on Pre-pay. Most recent I put £10 into my card and made a quick journey to zone 1 from zone 3 off-peak and was charged £8, I didn’t notice this until after I had made two bus journeys and was about to take the tube again and was told that I did not have enough money to take the tube. I checked my usage statement and noticed the charges and spoke with ticket staff who told me that I have to call Oyster card helpline to get a refund. Luckily a friend of mine was able to lend me some change as I didn’t have any extra money with me or my debit card.
I called Oyster card helpline the next day and was a bit angry about the fact that it was a 0845 number, since I do not have access to a landline, calling from mobile made it more expensive. I personally think that London underground makes enough money as it is and think that charging customers to call their helpline is just pure greed from their side.
Anyhow, I was on the phone with them for 28 mins as the person I was speaking to kept on putting me on hold to figure out how and why i’ve been charged the amount i was charged. I mostly use my bike when traveling to central london and will continue to do so in the future. The only reason i am giving them one star is because the matter got resolved in the end, I have probably paid more than i am getting back from them on mobile phone charges.
I would love to say that i am never going to use London Underground service again, but thats a bit difficult cause we don’t have any other options. I will hope for a better future with a underground system that benefits Londoners and doesn’t rip them off and make it more difficult for us to get our money back when we’ve been wronged by making it obligatory to call a 0845 number only. What’s wrong with the ticket staff at the station dealing with this matter?

Everyone should get one! All tourists should be given one at Heathrow with a few quid on to start. Since London as a whole is too expensive, any way to some some cash is welcome. Luckily sterling’s recent plunge makes London less of a robbery than usual. Oyster makes travel quicker, and always a bit, or much, cheaper. swipe the loaded card on the yellow reader by the turn-style and you are in business. its the flat blue key to London.

If you are a regular user of London’s underground or bus system the Oyster card is certainly worth the three pound investment to get one. The three pounds is a sort of deposit so if you ever wish to hand it back you get the three pounds back.

One important tip is to make sure when leaving the underground system that you swipe the card over a machine. If you don’t do this the central computer will assume that you have made the longest journey possible from your starting point and charge you correspondingly.

Otherwise the savings over the normal journey price are considerable.

Because your fares are cheaper using an Oyster Card it’s an obvious acquisition upon arrival in London. The savings can mount up rather quickly, even over a stay of a few days, so the earlier you pick one up the better. In this regard it’s a very good system.

BUT …

The Oyster Card system should really be so much better and is yet another example of how large public projects have been botched in Britain.

The thing I hate the most about it is that the ticket machines are frequently out of order (although this is less of a problem on buses as it just means they fail to charge you) and it can be difficult to convince the system that you have completed a journey.

If I could suggest improvements to the system the first would be that in the event that you can’t touch out at the end of your journey it assumes you only traveled within that zone and charges you for a single journey within that zone. Having to contact them to explain incomplete journeys is a huge frustration and merely relieves the company administering the system of the burden of doing it efficiently and fairly. The customer should not be responsible for ensuring they are charged the correct fare.

The second improvement I would suggest is that the card covers all public trans port within the M25. It’s incredible that it doesn’t and inspectors will quite happily hit you with a fine if you stray onto a service that isn’t covered.

The third improvement would be for the card to have multiple uses like the Octopus card that it’s based on.

A quick and convenient way to travel - you can put travel cards on Oyster or just cash for individual journeys. One gripe I have is that for individual journeys they are not accepted on South West Trains (travelcards ok). You save lots of money using them on buses too - 90p a journey rather than £2 if you pay cash.

A quick, and far cheaper way, to get around London via tube, train and bus. Simply top up a set amount (£5/£10/£15 etc) and you’re off. And the great thing is that once you’ve clocked up a certain number of trips in a day the fare will automatically revert to a travelcard. Watch out for pre-pay not being permitted on trains and DLRs.

Slight question mark over the logging of your travel as the TFL know your whereabouts and travel routines etc. Big Brother is watching you…

The London Oyster Card is a fantastic way to get around London use its entire transport network. The Oyster Card costs only three pounds to buy and is reusable. It can be loaded with a season ticket of a week, a month or a year. It can also be used in a pre pay fashion, where the oyster card can have money loaded on to it, which is then deducted based on the cost of each individual journey. It can range from £2 for a tube journey to 90p for a bus ride. All in all this is pretty good value compared to using paper tickets! If you are a tourist getting a oyster card will really help to save money!

I hope to never use a paper ticket again!
The Oyster card makes me wonder why I had to pay so much more for London Transport for so long and how I managed it.
Young students in London get a very nice discount on top of their Oyster Card too - lucky things!

Aside from the obvious use of Oyster, I’ve been using it on the Overground service for the last year and It’s much better value than National Rail’s paper tickets.

Oyster Pay As You Go should be more widely available on National Rail though (which is pending but is taking ages). I also have trouble topping up late at night when in need of a nightbus and the self-service ticket machines is only in tube stations and most vendors are closed.

The wallets they come in always split open though. I put mine in my normal wallet along with my money. You can then put your wallet on the reader without having to open it or take out your Oyster – genius.

It is a must have for anyone travelling in London. It is the cheapest way to travel around London. Having an oyster can save you £1 each time you travel on the bus!

The oyster card is like a debit card. You load money on it and use it whenever you travel on the London underground or buses. You just touch the reader at the gate of the train station before going in and when exiting at your destination and the correct amount is deducted automatically. The same applies on the buses but you only touch the reader when boarding and there is no need to touch it when exiting.

Not being a Londoner I had heard about the Oyster card but thought it would be complicated but nothing could be further from the truth.

Frankly I was still amazed at all the people queueing for one-off tickets for £4 for a single journey, swiping with Oyster card would have cost just £1.50 for a single journey.

I bought my Oyster card online at
https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do

Especially useful at peak times & the best thing about it is it is not just for payment on the underground but also buses and the Docklands Light Railway

All in all I think the Oyster Card is quite effective, however I do have some concerns with it. One is that if you have sent off for a new oyster card, you can’t use your old one and so have to pay full fare on public transport. Another flaw in the plan is the machines are often not working, meaning that adding money to your card takes longer than it should. And yet another is that if you send off for a new one because you’ve been told you need to, TFL are unwilling to refund the money from your old card and put it onto your new one. Other than that, this is a good system.

The oyster card is a great idea. It makes travel easy and accessible. No longer to you need to queue up and buy each individual ticket. Now you can top up as much as you want eg. £2/£20/£50 say per day/week/month etc. making your travel experience faster and less hassle. It also means cheaper travel. It is cheaper to use the oyster than buy a travelcard or seperate tickets. Overall it is a quicker, cheaper, more london friendly idea. And it works.

The Oyster Card is genius!

No more do you have to buy a travel card or ticket at a busy newsagents or train station!

No more do you have to wait in line to pass through the ticket barriers!

The Oyster Card has made travelling in and around London so much easier and it makes travelling cheaper too.

You can top-up at an Oyster Ticket Shop (most newsagents) or you can do it over the Internet if you want to save time.

Totally worth getting one of these if you live in London as you can use them on the Bus and save £1 (fare is £0.90 instead of £2) and worth getting also if you are visiting London and will be travelling around