To have not reasoned how expensive travel within London is!

[Flippingflamingo]

Niece started uni in London a few weeks ago and I offered to pay to keep her Oyster card topped up as my contribution.

However I have just discovered she has spent £27 on it from Monday to Thursday this week!!

I really want to be able to pay it for her, but it’s not sustainable for me to keep topping it up constantly.

I didn’t realise it was this much and thought there were daily caps on travel!

She needs to get a student Oyster card - it will be cheaper.

Also I think you need to speak to her about doing research on these things - presumably she’s just had a whole summer ‘off’, she should have pre organised her student travel card etc. or at least known what offers there were.

What journeys is she needing to take? If her accommodation is far from her lecture theatres, that would soon add up in any city, or even town. Its less than four buses a day for example.

It is pretty cheap compared to other UK cities I have visited.
There are caps but if she is using the tube and travelling to zone 1 from say zone 3 that cap will be £10 a day - more if she is coming into zone 1 from further out. I think it is £50 a week?
Buses are capped at £5.25 all across London, single fares £1.75.

As a student in London I did not zip about on the tube, I walked most places and got a bus if a longer journey. Most students did to save money.

If she is a full time student isn't there a card she can link to her oyster to get a discount?

Maybe say you will top up a certain amount per week and she will have to pay the rest?

Ironically it's OP who needs to do their research. They offered without knowing how expensive it was and now they regret it

There isn't a weekly cap of £32. Where did you read that?

Also now tfl have a bus app and a journey planner app so she can see if best to use a bus.

Talk to her. Sometime it might be better to take a bus or walk. Eg clapham south - clapham north - take a bus not tube

Also why don't youngive her a set amount a week and then the owns the planning more as will run out.

She lives zone 3 and travels to 2, but has done some trips to visit boyfriend and go out with friends in other areas too.

I am sure her socialising budget will run out fairly soon anyway so she will be out less!

The cap for her area is £32 a week, I will have a chat with her if she keeps going over this with other areas and say I’m happy to pay up to this, but if she wants to travel into zone 1 she needs to cover it herself.

Bike is a good suggestion for some, but I wouldn’t want her doing it. She never had one as a child and so isn’t confident on them.

As others have said get her to use buses, much cheaper, and really easy once she works out her routes. My daughter used them while she was there 🙂

Make sure she has checked all the available offers etc.

Also factor in that she's a young person probably away from home for the first time, not used to paying for all the life things and may not have any appreciation for the cost, especially as on the face of it you've given her free travel! So it might be a good idea to go through it with her, find out what journeys are essential and modify your offer.

TFL said cap is £32 for zone 2-3.

It doesn't seem fair to me that OP has made an offer without seemingly any idea of what they were letting themselves in for. And now ironically, it's the student who has not unreasonably been using the generous offer who is being blamed for not being prepared.

This was very generous of you OP…but only give what you can afford ( without going short yourself)

It's cheap compared to here!
It would cost me pretty close to £5 just to go into town (6 minutes drive) return ticket. It costs less than that to park for hours

Unsurprisingly at that cost, the main people who use the buses are the over 60s with the free bus passes.
Apparently the bus company has to keep the price high to cover the cost as no one uses the bus!

She needs to get a student Oyster. It’s 30% off.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/18-plus-student-oyster-photocard#on-this-page-0

We looked into this but for the zones she is using it wasn’t cheaper as you have to buy a travel pass and can’t use it on pay as you go fares. I will have another look though just in case.

If it continues I may suggest instead of the Oyster card I just transfer her say £100 a month to her bank. Then she can choose whether to use it on travel, or if she finds more economical ways of getting about she has more beer money!

I'm surprised you think it's expensive. Buses around my Midlands town would cost considerably more for the same number of journeys and even more so if you considered the distance. London travel is really good value.

She does, except that you are still unable to apply for oyster photo cards following a cyber attack on TfL over a month ago...

TfL have given no indication of when they expect that side of things to be back up and running. It's a disgrace.

What zone is she living in?
I think the daily cap zones 1-3 if she has a student oyster is £35 but as TFL isn't processing student oysters at the moment she is probably stuck with the adult cap of £50 until they sort out their website.

As PP have said she needs to set up a
student Oyster Card and for certain routes may also need a student rail card (i have never worked out the joining to the oyster card bit). Only issue is the TFL website has been down because of the cyber attack on their systems so she needs to go to a station with a decent sized TFL ticket office. Busses are cheaper and walking is such a great way to learn about London.

Also make sure she is tapping in and out properly on the same card and that you aren't being charged the max journey ammt because she hasn't done that.

A monthly travel card with the 30% discount is likely to work out cheaper than PAYG, though, if she is using public transport every day.

I thought all bus rides nationally were still capped at £2 ?

I didn’t realise that. How ridiculous. They’re probably in no rush to fix it since all the students are now paying full whack.

There is a student Oyster but there are problems applying for and approving them since the TFL cyber attack a few weeks ago.

Buses are cheaper but also so is walking - zone 2-3 maybe not but if she's going into central she will probably find walking pretty easy sometimes, rather than jumping on the tube every time.

If you can afford a lump sum, a season ticket might be cheaper than PAYG. I pay £1800ish for an annual zones 1-3, then monthly and weekly. Without zone 1 is significantly cheaper, and then she can top up with PAYG credit to travel outside of her season ticket zones.

Often in London the bus isn't the easiest method of transport, if you have to get 4 buses that's £8 and it negates any saving!