Oyster Card or Travel card? Helppp!!!!!

Question

I am due to start work in London in Septmeber. I currenlty live in Ashford in Kent (south east) and will need to buy a monthly season ticket in order to commute to London everyday.

I have spoken to the national rail who have given me two prices for a monthly ticket one with tube travel and one without. Please see below:

£332.20 Without Tube Travel

£382.10 With Tube Travel

Bearing in mind that i will only need to travel in zone one, peek time on weekdays, would it be cheaper to buy a monthly season ticket without a travelcard and buy an oyster card separately, or buy a travelcard with my ticket?

Would really appreciate any advice, iv looked on various forum's but its really confusing me!

Thanks :-)

Answer 1

You just need to do the calculations.

As you said, a monthly ticket with tube travel is £382.10.

If you get the ticket without tube travel you have 2 options:

1. Get a monthly zone 1-2 travelcard (you can't get travelcards for just zone 1) on an Oyster card which costs £93.  Add this on to the price of your train ticket (£332.20) and it will cost you £425.20.  This is therefore more expensive than getting the train ticket with tube travel.

2. Get a pre-pay Oyster card.  Each zone one journey on a pre-pay Oyster card is £1.50.  Therefore, to and from work will cost you £3 a day.  If there are, say, an average of 20 working days per month this will cost you £60 a month (£3 x 20 days a month).  If you add this on to the cost of your train ticket (£332.20) it will come to £392.20.

Therefore, as you can see above, both options involving Oyster cards will be more expensive so it will be cheaper for you to get a train ticket with tube travel.