We are coming to London June 11, 2012. We are considering buying a 7 day travel card, but are making a few trips out of zones 1and 2 and are wondering if a pay as you go oyster card would be better. We will be there until June 16. We are going from euston out to watford junction June 13 around 8:30 and returning that same afternoon. How much is it to add on to a travel card for zones 1and 2 to go out there?
Welcome to the forum
An Oyster card is an electronic medium, like a paper ticket.
Oyster
Pay As You Go (PAYG) is a product that is available with Oyster cards where you are charged for the journeys you make up to a daily
cap (you can find the fare for
any single journey here - in some cases "more than one fare" will be available depending on the route you take).
Travelcards are another product, that are available either on paper or on Oyster cards, that involve paying up front for unlimited travel in the relevant zone(s) during the period of validity.
If you are doing a lot of journeys in Zone 1/2, then your best bet may be to purchase a Zone 1-2 Travelcard onto an Oyster card. If you ever go beyond the Zones on your Oyster card, you will only pay the appropriate PAYG fare for the additional zone(s) that you travel through on your journey. Oyster allows a Travelcard and PAYG to be used together for one journey, to the benefit of passengers.
The price of a 7 Day Travelcard for Zones 1 & 2 is £29.20.
The cost of extending such a Travelcard to Watford Junction would cost £1.50 each way, providing the Travelcard was held on Oyster.
(For completeness, I will point out that Day Travelcards and out-boundary Travelcards are only available on paper tickets, not on Oyster cards, however that doesn't apply to this query).