London travel question

[Joolee1980]

What's going to be my best option. Over the course of a month I have 15 off-peak journeys to make mostly from zone 6 into zone 1, with a small handful into zone 2 only. 10 of them will be zone 6 direct by rail to Waterloo with no need to change anywhere or travel on to anywhere.

My question is, what's going to cheaper for me. Shall I just buy individual tickets, or is there an oyster/travelcard option that would be better? I do often also make a £2 train journey on my way home from work, or use a bus, so would that tip the oyster/travelcard option in my favour?

I already have a pay-as-you-go oyster card that I top up.

Thanks!

[rockyracoon]

Oyster cards automatically deduct the cheapest fares for the day so that will probably be your best bet. I recently went from zone 6-3 off peak, it cost me £8 for a travel card, if I'd had my oyster card then it would have been £2.80 return, huge difference.

[Joolee1980]

Thanks - so you reckon it would be better for me to load up my oystercard and just use that, rather than buy a Waterloo return each time?

[SeaJayPea]

Without a doubt.

[Joolee1980]

Thank you.

[Joolee1980]

Oh now hang on - this is where I get confused. 10 of these journeys are going to be returns from my zone 6 local station to Waterloo. A paper return comes up on National Rail website as £10.80. It says the oyster charge will be £8.40, a clear saving of £2.40 - all well and god. But if I just bought a paper travelcard, it's be £8 - cheaper still. And over the course of 10 journeys, £4 cheaper. So the oyster doesn't save me anything then.

[dzug2]

The Oyster should cap at £8 - though it's not entirely clear if it works that way on National Rail only journeys. So it shouldn't cost you any more.

[Joolee1980]

^^ Right okay. I suppose I could just try it on the first one and see what happens. Where it seems clear to me is with the zone 2 journeys - £7 by rail tickets, £4.40 by oyster