O/T: Non-football London travel advice request

[ecc]

Good evening fellow Clarets,

I know quite a few of you live in or around London and i'd be very grateful to receive any advice concerning the following context.

I have a friend who has arrived in England this weekend and starts working tomorrow. She's never been to London before.

TBH I find the different ticket options rather confusing and the tfl site next to useless.

She will be living in Dagenham and using Becontree Tube station to go to central London. Her office is close to Vauxhall Tube station.

So, Becontree is in Zone 5.

I'm confused as to which option is best: Travelcard. I believe you can get a monthly card or annual but it seems a quarterly or six-monthly doesn't exist.

Then there's Oyster with PAYG. And then there's Contactless.

I can't work out what's the best option.

The bulk of her transport use will be her commute. But I'm sure she'll want to go into London at weekends.

Could any of you who are familiar with all these options please advise?

I'd be very grateful to you for any help kindly provided.

Thank you in advance.

ecc

[ClaretTony]

There will be people on this board who can offer far more advice than I can but Oyster and contactless on PAYG are both the same in what you pay. There's a daily cap and a weekly cap but I suspect doing a long commute every day means there will be a better way of doing it.

I'd await better advice but I have found this page on the tfl site (having entered zones 1-5)

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tub ... tcmp=54720

[aggi]

To start with I'd just use a contactless credit card. It caps at a weekly travel card price. Keep an eye on that for a month or so and see how much they're actually using the tube.

After that it can be worth getting a monthly, quarterly or annual pass. They're each progressively cheaper but only worth it if you're constantly using the tube.

Annual passes get you about 6 weeks free but obviously if you're away for 8 weeks or something or work from home sometimes that's not worth it.

[ClaretTony]

To start with I'd just use a contactless credit card. It caps at a weekly travel card price. Keep an eye on that for a month or so and see how much they're actually using the tube.

After that it can be worth getting a monthly, quarterly or annual pass. They're each progressively cheaper but only worth it if you're constantly using the tube.

Annual passes get you about 6 weeks free but obviously if you're away for 8 weeks or something or work from home sometimes that's not worth it.

aggi - is it worth downloading the app and registering your contactless card to help monitor your usage?

[dougcollins]

Always best to ask a local.

There's a number of dodges and wheezes (legal) that the regulars know about but you won't find easily on a website. Prepaid bus and tube combos, etc. And allowable zone transfers.

You could almost think the system is deliberately designed to fleece as much as possible from visitors to London..

[Rileybobs]

Surely she would be best speaking to someone at a ticket office in one of the stations to get the cheapest option.

[ClaretTony]

Surely she would be best speaking to someone at a ticket office in one of the stations to get the cheapest option.

I would think taking the advice of someone like aggi is the most sensible. He uses London Transport on a regular basis so will have the best, first hand experience.

[CombatClaret]

Tell her to spend £80 on a good second hand bike and take advantage of the wonderful car free separated Cycle Super Highway 3 & 5 which will see her at work in a little over an hour.

Save money on the gym membership and take in all the wonderful sights along the way.

Bike.jpg (691.1 KiB) Viewed 860 times

[aggi]

aggi - is it worth downloading the app and registering your contactless card to help monitor your usage?

Mine is registered on the website which I'd guess is the same thing.

It has some useful stuff. You can see your journey history, how much you've spent and see whether you've hit the daily or weekly cap.

Also useful that you can check for journeys where you've been overcharged (generally where you haven't touched out) and apply for a refund.

[aggi]

Always best to ask a local.

There's a number of dodges and wheezes (legal) that the regulars know about but you won't find easily on a website. Prepaid bus and tube combos, etc. And allowable zone transfers.

You could almost think the system is deliberately designed to fleece as much as possible from visitors to London..

That did use to be the case but with the oyster/contactless it's far easier to pay the correct amount than it used to be. Although you do still get screwed over if you just buy paper tickets.

[aggi]

One thing I would advise is to download the Citymapper app. It's by far the best app for getting around London and normally gives a few options so you can decide what you prefer if it's for a repeated journey like a commute.

[4:20]

I had this issue back in April, ecc, I had a party of 5 kids and 4 adults, didn't know my best options and decided to sort the ticketing out when I got down there. The information and ticketing booth attendents were superb for helping us out, they gave us a few options to jiggle about our party so we got the best deal and so we used both Oyster card and contactless and ticketing during our week there, the contactless option was probably the most convienient, it was as simple as could be, nobody in our party had any issues with their bank cards. The Oyster cards were organised there and then at the ticketing booth and we just topped them up with our bankcards at one of the machines in the station, simple but a little more work and awareness at the funds on the card being required, at the end of the trip you put your oyster card in a machine it gives you the remaining money back.
Short term, tourism etc i'd recommend contactless and long term, i'm not versed in all the Oyster deals but that would probably end up being the most economical option and maybe the most convienient

[thatdberight]

You could almost think the system is deliberately designed to fleece as much as possible from visitors to London..

Yeah. At a £35 per week all you can eat travel round London cap, it's certainly pricey. I mean you could probably get into Manchester and back and 2 bus rides into town for that.

[ClaretTony]

Mine is registered on the website which I'd guess is the same thing.

It has some useful stuff. You can see your journey history, how much you've spent and see whether you've hit the daily or weekly cap.

Also useful that you can check for journeys where you've been overcharged (generally where you haven't touched out) and apply for a refund.

I had problems after Spurs game. The touch pads weren’t working at Northumberland Park and I’d been overcharged by £5.80. It was useful having the info in front of me when I contacted them.

[aggi]

She will be living in Dagenham and using Becontree Tube station to go to central London. Her office is close to Vauxhall Tube station.

So, Becontree is in Zone 5.

One thing to note is that the next station down the line, Upney, is in Zone 4. Using this station would potentially save about a tenner a week. Furthermore, buses don't have a zone so if she got the bus to Upney and got on the tube there it would still apply a Zone 4 cap regardless of where she got on the bus.

Obviously if you're right next to Becontree tube this probably isn't worth it but if you're halfway in between and there's a decent bus service then it may be.

[jollyjack]

If you have a travelcard, you can get the discount from that (30-35%) added to an Oyster card which might make a difference in the longer term.

[thatdberight]

I had problems after Spurs game. The touch pads weren’t working at Northumberland Park and I’d been overcharged by £5.80. It was useful having the info in front of me when I contacted them.

I have to say when I've been overcharged before - similar issues or whatever, a quick phone call and simply telling them my journeys worked. That bit of their operation seems very good.

[ClaretTony]

I have to say when I've been overcharged before - similar issues or whatever, a quick phone call and simply telling them my journeys worked. That bit of their operation seems very good.

Done very quickly and painlessly but I suspect it helped that I’d been able to check it.

[ecc]

Hello everybody.

A sincere huge "thank you" to you all. Some great tips. I'm glad to see that it's not the easiest of questions.

My friend sends on her thanks.

Thank you once again! UTC: a true community.