London public transport: Is it possible to buy a paper ticket for a single journey?

5/18/2020 3:51:48 PM

I will only be in London for two days and plan to take the Tube no more than 2 or 3 times, so it doesn’t make much sense to buy an Oyster card.

You can buy single journey paper tickets for the tube, but they strongly discourage it through pricing. I just looked up a zone 1 Tube fare and it was £2.40 on Oyster but £4.90 on a paper ticket.

At those prices even if you don’t get your card deposit back (or you get the visitor card with its non-refundable charge) it doesn’t take very many journeys for Oyster to beat paper tickets.

Another option is to use a contactless credit/debit card but if you have a non-UK card beware of foreign transaction fees.

Also note that while you can use paper single tickets on the Tube you can’t use them on buses in London. Your only options there are Oyster, contactless and travelcards.

(I read there is an activation cost and you won’t get a full refund if you use it for such a short time).

There are two types of Oyster card Regular cards and Visitor cards. The Visitor card can only be obtained outside London. Regular cards can be obtained at any Tube station. The Visitor card comes with a few special offers for London attractions that the regular card doesn’t but otherwise the cards are much the same.

Visitor cards have a £3 non-refundable “activation fee”. With regular cards it depends on when the card was issued. For many years there was a £5 deposit that would be refunded on surrendering the card. However for cards issued from February 23rd 2020 they moved to a new system, there is now a £5 fee that can’t be immediately refunded, but which apparently will be automatically credited to the card after holding it for a year.

AIUI with cash at a machine you can top up any amount down to the smallest coins the machine will take while if you pay by card at a machine or pay at a ticket office the minimum top-up is £5.

Getting the deposit and remaining credit refunded used to require dealing with a manned ticket office but it seems it’s now possible to do it at a ticket machine.

9/30/2015 6:07:51 AM

Yes, you can buy a paper ticket for single journey. This ticket is available for peak price, an off-peak price, and a cash price. Now, all about your choice.

9/3/2015 3:01:58 PM

Very short answer: Absolutely!
You can get a ticket at the ticket office or the ticket machines in every station. You can use coins, notes (pounds) (you will get change unless otherwise indicated on the machine) or credit and cash cards.

However, it is more expensive to buy paper tickets.

5/15/2020 4:26:36 PM

There is the possibility to buy a simple paper ticket, but it is not actively advertised on the web page:

This page
states that paper tickets are available. In order to look up the fares, you can use the fare calculator. For example,
this link
computes the cost for a one-way trip from Paddington Station to Heathrow. Note that three prices are given: A peak price, an off-peak price, and a cash price. The latter is what you are looking for.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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