Visting London this weekend for some cycling event.

I was planning on getting a couple of Oyster cards for my wife and I to get around, I’ve planned our transport and we use a combination of Southeastern High Speed, Southeastern normal trains and some DLR services.

They all seem to take Oyster cards, but it looks like I need to pay £5 for each oyster card.

I notice that you can use a contactless bank card instead of oyster now, does that cost the same for each journey, and can I use it on all of the above services?

Its flippin confusing this London transport stuff. Not like up ‘ere where we just ride t’ovis bike up t’t mill.

Yep contactless works exactly the same as oyster and also has the same daily charge cap.

Just remember to use the same card to tap in and tap out with.

yup, it works fine. it takes half a second longer on the reader to register.

Make double sure you’re touching in and out properly, as it’s a pain to get your money back – can’t got to a ticket window on the underground to sort it as you can with oyster.

Great, thats easy then.

Contactless should cost the same as Oyster.They both tot up your journeys and apply the best daily fare. There are some times when a Contactless card works out marginally cheaper. Just remember that each passenger needs a separate contactless card.
It all works fine on DLR and the Tube but can be a bit frustrating on the Trains if your journey takes you outside the Oyster zone.
I got stuck behind a large group of people recently that assumed that tapping in for a rail journey meant that you would be able to tap out at the other end. There are lots of Train stations inside the M25 that are outside the Oyster zone.
The frustrating thing is that it is really hard to find an up to date list of stations included.
Finally, please leave all the gold paving where you find it 😀

Oyster cards are pretty much redundant now (apart from for tourists and kids maybe). Contactless is the way forward, I binned my oyster card ages ago and now use contactless, or in actual fact apple pay on my watch 😆

They should cost the same but sometimes don’t….

http://londonist.com/2016/06/oyster-fares-and-contactless-not-always-the-same-price

Oyster is hassle free. Many people have had issues with contactless on their bank cards. Oyster’s good for pre-paid travel.

” in actual fact apple pay on my watch “

Make sure you only use that at quiet times, and not rush hour at Kings Cross, with a mssive que of people behind you, or you might experience hostility and possibly even violence, when you’ve held everyone up for more seconds than necessary. 😉

Or Apple Pay via phone or iWatch works the same way.