The London Pass

Q: I've read about the London Pass, online. It's 117 euros with travel (tube regions 1-6)for 6 days. Would this be somehthing worth purchasing? I don't know how much a tube trip costs... so.. :-) Thanks! Location missouri, usa

A: Understanding London's public transport fare structure would probably be considered a degree level course in some countries. There are loads of different types of tickets, different zones, different times of travel and so on.

The easiest thing to do is to consider where you are likely to travel to, what time of day and how many trips you are going to do per day. If you are only going to be seeing London's central tourist sights and not using the underground to travel out to heathrow (zone 6) then its likely you would only be travelling within zones 1 and 2.

And if you are happy not to travel on the underground before 9.30 am on weekdays (a wise decision in my view, unless you want to be crushed by commuters!) then you could use an offpeak ticket.

Putting that together, you could buy a one day travelcard each day for unlimited travel in zones 1 - 2 after 9.30 am (to midnight). This would cost you £5.30 per day, or £31.80 for 6 days' worth.

Not sure of the currency exchange but I suspect this is much less than 117 euros

London Pass v Oyster Card

Q: When comparing the London Pass + travel to the Oyster card - which repreesents the best value for money? We are a family of 5 (youngest is 12)

A: You don’t say how long you are going to be in London for so let’s assume you’re here for 3 days for price comparison purposes.

You can currently buy a 3 day adult London Pass including travel for £73. Given the London Pass without travel is £54, you are basically paying £19 for a 3 day travelcard for one adult. (Or £6.33 per day.)

Compare that against using an Oyster card. You have to pay £3 per card, and then you put credit on it. Once done, you can use it as a one day travelcard for only £4.60 a day for within zones 1 and 2 (per adult.)

However, the London Pass also includes the train journey to Windsor, as well as all Underground zones within the price. To use the Oyster Card for zones 3 – 6 the price is slightly higher than £4.60.

All in all, I guess it depends on where you intend to travel to and what you plan on seeing. If you don’t intend visiting many sights and you’re sticking to central London (zones 1 and 2), an Oyster card for each of you is probably my recommendation. But if you do intend seeing lots of tourist attractions, maybe going on a trip to Windsor and so on, probably buying the combined London Pass with Travel is a better deal.