London tube with kids

[sleepraptor]

I am taking three 11-15 year olds to London for the weekend and trying to work out how I navigate the tube with them as I would usually just use contactless card for me to tap in and out. I have read that I can buy a visitor oyster card and add a child - does anyone have experience of this? Can I add all 3 of them to my one adult card? And then how do we tap in and out at stations - will I be able to tap for all of us or is there a different method? Thanks!

the easiest is to have one contactless debit card per person and they can each tap in.

How much will you use the tube? It’s probably not worth buying Oyster cards and adding the child visitor discount for very few journeys.

Could you just buy kids travel cards for zones that you need?
Search the tfl website for day travel cards.
I think it may be slightly more than a contactless daily cap but saves faffing with temporary oyster cards.
Would also work on the buses.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/ways-to-pay/travelcards-and-group-tickets

Everyone needs their own card.
You have to pay for a Oyster Card (about 7quid) and then put more money on it for the journeys. The £7 is just for the physical card.
Contactless cards do daily price cap which is around £10 ish if you are in central London.
If you have enough contactless cards that they can use it's cheaper to just use those than purchase Oyster cards.

I've just been in London with my 13 yr old.

We bought an Oyster card from the machine at King's Cross underground station. It cost £10. Or if you already have an Oyster card from a previous trip you can use that. Ds had dropped his bwtween the train and the platform getting off the mainline train so we needed to buy a new one.

Then you need to find a staff member to set up the young visitor discount for you for the dates you will be staying. It only takes a few minutes and there's usually staff by the ticket machines at the big stations.

Then add money to the Oyster card using your debit card at the ticket machine. You can set up an automatic bank transfer top up but that is probably not worth the effort for just one weekend.

Each person needs their own card, either Oyster or debit/credit card.

The young visitor discount gives you half price fares so something like £1.70 per journey. So you need to work out if it's worth your while buying a card or not.

I like the kids having oyster cards even if buying and setting them up is a bit of a pain because it means I'm not handing out debit cards for them to tap in and out with.

Don't they have bank cards if their own? Just put a tenner a day on each and they can use them to tap in and out?

Thanks all, that's really helpful. My two do have cards actually so maybe that is the best option, it's just that contactless has to be reset every 5 uses i think but that may be the best option then the extra child I am taking can use my spare card. The Oyster does seem a bit of a faff.

You can use Apple Pay and the physical card for the same account so each debit card can be used twice at the same time.