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!

I didn't know this. I thought my son was fibbing and being disorganised when he said he couldn't get one!

@Kitkat1523 @itwasnevermine in London single bus fares are £1.75 and you are capped at £5.25 (3 journeys).
You could travel on 100 buses a day and you will never be charged more than £5.25.
In places with the £2 fare if you are doing more than 2 journeys (ie not just there and back) it's usually cheaper to buy a Day Rider ticket. Prices for those vary from town to town. I think my mums town the Day Rider is £4.25. So any more than 2 buses you are only paying 25p for all of them.

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!

This is the way to do it.

Could you pay for a zone 2-3 travel card (likely cheaper than the weekly cap overall) and then your niece can pay for the top up if she travels out of those zones? That way you will be finding her travel for studies and she supplements for her social life

Here you go

Just reposting this.

I’m currently staying in London for a week (zone 2) and have travelled around a lot mainly into zone 1 and I’m pleasantly surprised how reasonable it is and more importantly how reliable and plentiful the public transport is. Where I live there is no public transport unless you want to drive for 40 mins to it. I think there’s a good case for having plentiful reliable public transport at a reasonable price than non existent public transport and be completely dependent on your car with its associated costs.
I have noticed other things are more expensive petrol is at least 10p a litre more expensive here, the cost of a cinema ticket £4 more than I pay at home and obviously housing is extortionate .

I was just about to say this. You sound lovely op.

She needs to apply for a student oyster and you will be better off paying for a monthly student travel card.
Student daily cap should be between £8.50 and £15.60 depending on which zones she travels through. Monthly travelcard is between £114 (Z1-2) and £209 (Z1-6) respectively. So you are actually only paying for 14 days to get the rest of the month free.

My dc live in London. One cycles a lot and they both walk a lot (eg for both of them it’s an hours walk each way to and from work, and this is what they do most days unless the weather is really bad - they say not much longer than bus or tube at peak times.

I'd give her a budget (that you can comfortably afford) and then it's up to her to decide when to walk / bus to make the most of that budget.

There's plenty of much cheaper ways to get around London and I think it's a good opportunity to learn the value of things!

Madness isn't it. I no longer go to the office as it's too expensive.

Wouldn't she be better just getting a student season card? Big one off payment then she doesn't need to think about it again.

Where is she living and studying?

Look into a season ticket.
Also, the bus is way cheaper than the tube.

You can buy a Railcard with Tesco club card vouchers too.

£27 on travel over four days these days is not much.

@eqpi4t2hbsnktd where are you commuting from and how cheap do you think travel should be?
I think the London capping system is pretty good value.
The £32 cap mentioned above is less than a fiver a day. I don't think it could go cheaper and still be able to run the service.

Is "here" somewhere like Merseyside? In most areas outside London you can't get a free bus pass until pension age. Very few issue them at 60.

I'd get her a 3 year travel card (70 quid or less if you can get a special offer or use Tesco points) and she can link it to her Oyster for discounted PAYG tube/overground fares. Then offer her a set cash amount per week to contribute towards her travel, which will motivate her to take cheaper choices where possible.

Once the TfL website is finally fixed she can get a student card to get discounted bus travelcards.

I’m not sure if the student oyster card gives discounts on pay as you go fares, or just season tickets. I took my nephew into London Bridge station with his Oyster card and his 16-24 rail card and the staff linked the two so he gets 1/3 discount on all pay as you go fares. He mainly gets the bus to make his credit go further.

I think if you send her x amount of money a month ostensibly for travel that would work better. Buses are cheapest. DD is in London and spends no where near that and walks alot as well. You can get discounts as a student but I think you need a student rail card which is payable although free with some banks. Take Student card and oyster to a manned station and I think they can sort the discount on her Oyster.

Its something you have to consider when finding accommodation - how far to travel to 1. college and 2. regular night life etc

£35 a week for student travel and assume they are in London at least 36 weeks a year. That's £1260 a year just on tube. Holy shit.

(mentally crosses UCL and Imperial off ds' list of university options.)

Thank goodness my DS doesn't like cities. 😮🙂

This sounds a better option. You sound like a very kind auntie

You can have more than one Oyster card, so it may be worth paying for a student discount Oyster for her trips to college (if they are regular) and then adding the student railcard discount to another one which she can use for off her social trips and other journeys.you do have to be organised to tap in and tap out with the right card.

@Meadowfinch that's a fiver a day.
How cheap do you want it to go?
The reason so many places outside big cities don't have any public transport is because it's expensive to run.
If ticket prices go too cheap - services stop.