Spend the night in Rushmore Hotel : 11 Trebovir Road, Earls Court, SW5 9LS London (Underground/Tube: Earl’s Court Stationè Tube fare is paid by an Oyster Card. ￡3 deposit when purchasing an Oyster card for the first time is a must.)

夜之談詩作詞築夢鄉：住宿旅館Rushmore Hotel

~ London Oyster Card ~

Official Web Site of Oyster 

The vast majority of Londoners use an Oyster Card routinely to pay for all their public transport needs. For visitors its not so clear cut, there is sometimes a case for visitors to use the alternative Travelcard scheme.

Unless you are going to make one single journey on public transport in London then you should really be looking to either purchase an Oyster or Travelcard and not pay for single tickets.

Oyster cards were introduced in 2003 aimed at keeping London's public transport moving faster and more efficiently. The Oyster card is a permanent reusable electronic ticket which is topped up from time to time by its owner. Londoners also have their season tickets loaded onto Oyster Cards as well and there are passes for one weekly and monthly durations. All can be loaded onto the one electronic card.

Travelcards were the pass system that dominated before Oyster. Travelcard is still around today and has its place. (See our Travelcard v Oyster page).

Types Of Oyster card

You can use Oyster Cards in two ways.

Using Oyster 'PrePay' mode - you purchase say £10 to be loaded onto your card, every time you make a journey the appropriate fare is deducted automatically from your original £10 on the card. The fare deducted is far cheaper than if you purchased tickets individually.

You then top up the Oyster Card with further amounts as required. A key point is that there is a daily price cap where however much you travel in a day your total outlay never goes above this price cap.

The other alternative is to purchase season tickets. These are flat fare passes where you pay an amount for a set time period, no matter how often you use the pass in that period.

For the visitor the most popular pass is 7 day Travelcard which rather confusingly although called a Travelcard comes loaded on an Oyster Card, (though if you purchase from a railway, not underground station it is still in card format).

Oyster Card is the cheapest way of using public transport in London. Savings are shown in the table below. For many short term visitors, the alternative Travelcard may be more attractive.

See our Travelcard v Oyster page.

Oyster v Normal Fares - London Underground from 2nd January 2010)
	Zones	Adult single fare	Oyster Pre Pay Peak*	Oyster saving	Oyster Pre Pay off peak	Oyster savings
One Zone	1	£4.00	£1.80	£2.20	£1.80	£2.20
	2, 3, 4, 5 or 6	£3.50	£1.30	£2.20	£1.30	£2.20
More than 1 zone	1-2	£4.00	£2.30	£1.70	£1.80	£2.20
	1-4	£4.00	£3.10	£0.90	£2.40	£1.60
	1-6	£4.50	£4.20	£0.30	£2.40	£2.10
	2-6	£3.50	£2.20	£1.30	£1.30	£2.20
Buses: £1.20 per journey on Oyster * Peak for fares = Mon-Fri 06:30-09:30 and from 16:00-19:00 For children (under 18) free or greatly reduced travel is often available, see our children's section below