Advice re: Family travel London

Hi all, whilst I know my way around on buses and trains in the uk, one area I've not a clue in is the cheapest options for London travel.

My wife, two children 10 and 9 and I are off to London on the Friday 12th until the Sunday 14th. We have two sets of singles back and forth for Liverpool to Euston (arriving at 3pm on the 12th and leaving at 12 on the 14th. Our hotel is in East Croydon and we will be travelling all around greater London on the Friday and Saturday (as far as Zone 6) and then we'll obviously need travel from East Croydon to Euston on the Sunday. So I'm after some advice as to the cheapest options, I've previously used travel cards but now I know that the oyster could be just as good value - if not better.

Specifically I'd like to know:-

1) our best option for Friday and Saturday and prices

2) what zones can be used on what options (I've seen there is 9 zones now??)

3) what ticket or option should we use for the direct Sunday morning journey back to Euston from East Croydon

From my own reading the Oyster card can be problematic when using the buses and ending up with penalty fares if you swipe out or something at the end of the journey??

It's clearly a minefield of options and I'm not sure what to do. So any help off you learnered members to help my little family get the best value would be really helpful and we'd be greatful.

Kind Regards,

Dave

Before answering fully it would be useful to know whether you have a family and friends railcard. Also, are you really likely to be travelling all over the place (is it a bashing trip?) or is most of your travel likely to be in zones 1 and 2?

Ecldkerr said:

2) what zones can be used on what options (I've seen there is 9 zones now??)

Click to expand...

Yes, there are 9 zones, but only in specific areas. North West London goes out to zone 9 on the Metropolitan line and zone 8 to Watford High Street. To the North East LO/AGA go to zone 8 at Cheshunt. Brentwood in the east is a lone zone 9 station between Harold Wood (6) and Shenfield (outside) while Dartford and Swanley are lone zone 8 stations to the South East. If you aren't planning on using any of these lines then zones 1-9 will be overkill.

Ecldkerr said:

From my own reading the Oyster card can be problematic when using the buses and ending up with penalty fares if you swipe out or something at the end of the journey??

Click to expand...

There can be issues with Oyster if you don't touch out (or in) at stations without gates. You just need to remember to seek out the platform validators instead. Buses are rarely a problem. If you were on one of the buses with multiple doors and touched out when getting off then the worst that would happen is you'd be charged another fare. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the bus will ignore any duplicate touches within a certain timescale anyway.

MikeWh said:

Before answering fully it would be useful to know whether you have a family and friends railcard. Also, are you really likely to be travelling all over the place (is it a bashing trip?) or is most of your travel likely to be in zones 1 and 2?


Yes, there are 9 zones, but only in specific areas. North West London goes out to zone 9 on the Metropolitan line and zone 8 to Watford High Street. To the North East LO/AGA go to zone 8 at Cheshunt. Brentwood in the east is a lone zone 9 station between Harold Wood (6) and Shenfield (outside) while Dartford and Swanley are lone zone 8 stations to the South East. If you aren't planning on using any of these lines then zones 1-9 will be overkill.



There can be issues with Oyster if you don't touch out (or in) at stations without gates. You just need to remember to seek out the platform validators instead. Buses are rarely a problem. If you were on one of the buses with multiple doors and touched out when getting off then the worst that would happen is you'd be charged another fare. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the bus will ignore any duplicate touches within a certain timescale anyway.

Click to expand...

Hi we'll probably be doing some bashing, we'd (me and son) like to see Heathrow and Gatwick (if this is possible) and go into the suburbs of London to see Wembley, or go from one side of the underground to the other (central line or district line) just stuff like that really whilst the girls go shopping.

We haven't got any discount cards as we tend not to use rail much, so wouldn't appreciate the value of the discount.

Thanks for replying to my thread

Ecldkerr said:

Hi we'll probably be doing some bashing, we'd (me and son) like to see Heathrow and Gatwick (if this is possible) and go into the suburbs of London to see Wembley, or go from one side of the underground to the other (central line or district line) just stuff like that really whilst the girls go shopping.

We haven't got any discount cards as we tend not to use rail much, so wouldn't appreciate the value of the discount.

Thanks for replying to my thread

Click to expand...

You can get free travel across London for the 9 and 10 year olds with zip oyster cards but there is a one off fee of £10 each for under 11 cards and they expire when they reach 11 years old.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/travel-for-under-18s/travelling-with-children

Without the zip oyster you can bring them on TFL (Bus, Tram, Tube, DLR) but not National Rail for free as long as they look like they are under 11.

Be aware that Gatwick is outside the London zonal area.

Travel in London with children is monumentally complicated, because of the incompatible fares policies of TfL and National Rail.

As well as zip, you can get an Visitor Oyster card:

https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/visiting-london/visitor-oyster-card

which offers child fares on the tube network.

You can order these in advance by post or get them from one of the Visitor centres that TfL run (NB. in order to improve the service, TfL have now shut all their regular ticket offices :roll: so please be ready for long queues of bewildered people at Euston LUL as they try and figure out what's going on...) There might be a visitor centre on the concourse there, I can't recall.

If you do not have an Oyster card with you on arrival, you can still access the tube by using a contactless bank card which will charge the same as the Oyster fare and comes directly off your bank account. Each adult will need a separate bank card but children are free on LUL.

Contactless is available on National Rail inside Zone 6 as well, but children would not go free on it.

To get to East Croydon, I would suggest walking to St Pancras Thameslink station and taking a train direct from there. It's about 800 yards, but it saves trying to use Victoria LUL/BR which can get very busy, especially the area around the platforms for East Croydon (P15-18). And then you can get a ticket all the way through on NR (which is cheaper) and child discounts as well!

The real fun begins when you become aware that National Rail offers some very attractive 2 for 1 offers at some of the key sites (eg. Tower of London, London Eye). The details are here:

https://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/2for1-london

However, these offers are ONLY available if you show up at the venue with a PAPER ticket, NOT an Oyster, so if you are contemplating using this offer you may find it better to buy a paper One Day Travelcard from East Croydon BR ticket offices (which is open, although often has massive queues) or the machines at the station for those days. The savings on the 2 for 1 offer are so huge (It's £21 to 28 per adult on the London Eye, depending on if you book in advance...) that it is worth paying the extra.

TfL do a pale version of this with their Visitor Oyster card but it's really pretty poor compared with the NR one. :cry:

All in all, I think you'll find Walrus much easier to use and wonder why London has made things so complicated!

Finally, the ongoing GTR industrial dispute affects services to East Croydon from Victoria which means that trains are cancelled at short notice etc. and passengers sometimes get irate, repeat irate. Best to travel at off-peak times, eg after 1900 on weekdays. This may sound crazy but once you are down here you will see what I mean. Thameslink is a little better, but the trains aren't really up to taking all of the people who switch to them when Southern is having problems.

Enjoy your visit,

G

Sometimes it can work well to buy a cheap deal from just outside the Zones. Last time I checked the Family Travelcard from the first Chiltern station outside (Denham?) was excellent value, a small discount for adults and up to 4 "kids for a quid". Can't be bought online, but any ticket office able to do Travelcards should be able to issue it.


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A lot of the 2 for 1 offers for London Landmarks have been suspended for the School holidays (back early September).

Tower of London and Hampton Court are two places we are going to in August but no discounts available with Rail Tickets because of the above.

Have booked through 365Tickets which give you discounts on on the gate prices and you print the tickets at home.