For most visitors, travel on the Underground is limited to Zones 1-2 and the daily cap is £7.70. However, Heathrow Airport is in Zone 6, and the daily cap for travel between Zones 1-6 is £14.10.
Heathrow Airport is on the Piccadilly Line in London travel zone 6, so Travelcards covering only zones 1-2 will not be valid. You can use Travelcards when travelling on the Elisabeth Line services.
Contactless and Oyster can be used to travel with Heathrow Express. Simply touch in at the start of your journey and out at your destination and you will be automatically charged for the journey you make.
London's newest rail line can get you from Heathrow to central London in under 45 minutes, with trains every 30 minutes. Prices from Heathrow to central London (zone 1) cost £12.80. The easiest way to pay is using a contactless bank card or Oyster card, but you can also buy tickets and travelcards at the station.
Adult pay as you go with a Visitor Oyster card on TfL Rail costs for a single journey is £5.60 Peak/Off-Peak. Travel on Heathrow Express costs the same as a Peak or Off-Peak Express Single (£25 any-time).
As part of the London Underground network, you can pay for your journey to or from Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line with a single-use paper ticket, an Oyster Card, or a contactless debit/credit card. It's ALWAYS cheaper to use an Oyster Card or your contactless card than it is to buy a paper ticket.
A Travelcard gives you unlimited travel within London zones 1-4 or 1-6 on the Underground, Overground, TfL Rail, Docklands Light Railway, buses, trams, and most National Rail services in London*.
If you have an Oyster with a valid travelcard for zones 1-3, and you travel outside those zones, you will pay an extension fare for only the zones that the travelcard doesn't cover. For zone 4, this should be the price for a trip within zone 4 only.
The most convenient places to buy an Oyster card are Underground stations across London, including Heathrow airport. You can buy one using either cash or your credit/debit card. Although there are a few manned ticket offices in London, the likelihood is that you will buy an Oyster card from a ticket machine.
Is it cheaper to use Oyster or contactless? As both cards use the same Pay As You Go system and are compatible with the TfL Oyster & Contactless app, the costs are comparable. As a tourist in London, it can be worth getting an Oyster Card as part of the London Pass.
Fare zone 6 is an outer zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway, National Rail services (since 2007), and the Elizabeth line within Greater London.
The Elizabeth Line is about half the price of a full-fare Heathrow Express ticket, but takes twice as long to reach Paddington. Trains depart every 30 minutes and it takes just 35 minutes to travel between Paddington Station and Heathrow.
The journey from Heathrow to Paddington on the Elizabeth line is included in the zone 1-6 daily cap so if you continue to use your Oyster/contactless card to pay for travel in London until 04.30am the following morning, the maximum deducted from your card is £14.90.