London Underground travel with a 14 year old - can someone clarify please?

[thesugarbumfairy]

I seem to have been going around in circles but what I THINK is the simplest and cheapest way to travel will just be PAYG just on our debit cards for both of us because of the price cap.

We wont be using peak time tubes.
We don't live in London, dont go very often, and don't have Oystercards.
Will only be travelling in zones 1 and 2
Will be there two days.

I have looked at the prices for day travelcards, but for me it is more expensive to buy one at £15.90 because its zones 1-4 The price cap for zones 1-2 is £8.50.

For DS who is 14, it looks like if I get him a travelcard, its slightly cheaper than the price cap as the child travelcard is £7.90, but difference of 60p so not sure its worth bothering.

Does this sound right? I think it does - I just needed to write it down!

I got my dd a youth oyster. But you do have to pay for it. We don't live in London but visit frequently so in the long run it will be cheaper. Not sure for a one off visit

For a 14 year old he could just use his debit card.
Yes he will be charged adult price but for convenience it's better.

@Borris I did look at it, but its £15 plus some faff so I'm not sure its worth it. But. I just remembered we're doing Taylor Swift in August and will be there for two days. So maybe it is!

I agree it's a faff and it worth it. The card costs £7 for a start. My teens just tap and go when we are in London and pay the adult rate. We never hit the daily cap rate though as use it minimally.

The cheapest option is to get an oyster card and ask a member of station staff to add the young visitor discount to it
Visitor Oyster card - Transport for London (tfl.gov.uk)
This gives half price travel for up to 2 weeks - you need to have your young person with you when you request the discount

@Digimoor yes but you have to pay £7 just to own the card.
For 2 days of being in London it's not worth paying that 7 quid.

We did the 11-15 ZIP cards for our teens. It's £15 but we visit London a couple of times a year so figured that it was worth it. I think the price cap on the ZIP cards is under £2/day.
They take about a week to come and you need photo ID (passport) for your child to apply online. Pretty straightforward though and they last until the end of September after your child turns 16 (i.e the very beginning of year 12).

If you really won't be travelling to London often, you can get a normal visitors' Oyster card and get the staff at the tube station to designate it as a child's card and then the cap is 50% off the adult's cap. The cards cost £7 if you don't already have one.

I wouldn’t bother with the oyster for two days. Remember buses are free too - I think in theory a Zip card is needed for proof of age but my London resident teen has never been asked to show theirs.

thanks all. I don't think I'm going to bother with the general oyster as it only lasts a fortnight. The zip I'm thinking about, because I remembered we are coming back in August for two days, and if we can manage not to lose it, it will also be valid until he is nearly 17 (his birthday is November). And I'm pretty sure we will be back to London a few times before then. So it might actually be worth forking out £15 now.

We did this with DD when we visited for a couple of days last year, but we already had the visitor oyster card from when we visited a few years ago before we know about using contactless card (or perhaps before you could, I'm not sure), so didn't have to buy one. It worked well as saved a fair bit as we were staying in zone 3.

We visited again last week just for the day and I couldn't be bothered to find staff to get the discount put on again (because it only lasts a couple of weeks each time you do it) so she just used her debit card and paid the adult price and I'll pay her back. I think we spent 4.50 each (one bus and one tube in zone 1) so I guess we'd only have saved £2 ISH if we'd sorted it, but for 2 days and 2 zones it might be worth it for you?

I didn't know about the zip though. I thought it had to be the visitor one if you didn't have a London address, so will have to look into that next time.

Are buses free? I thought 11+ paid? Regretting my DD tapping on last week if I've got that wrong!

They have to tap their Zip though

We just tapped our phones using Google Pay to save messing. By the time we had messed about it wasn't worth the faff for a one off trip.

@Simplelobsterhat - only free with a 11-15 Zip card or I guess the right Oyster card.

But that's because they have the Zip card which you can only get with proof of age..

Just an update. I ended up getting him the 11-15 zip oyster. I paid the £15 as I figured it was worth it as we will be going again in August and will most likely be in London again after that and before it expires.
He used it over the weekend and I think he quite likes it as its separate from using his own debit card (even though I load the money onto whatever card he is using!)

Hi with contactless do you tap on and off the buses? We just tap on here, so just checking.

Buses and trams are tap in only.

IMO, TfL do not make the ticketing very clear or easy for infrequent visitors to London with children.
You can only benefit from the youth prices if you've planned well in advance and got Zip or Oyster cards.
Travel cards are a minefield.
I often ended up presenting myself to a member of staff, declaring the age of the child and what our travel plans were and they'd kindly tell us what the best ticket to get was.