London Banter - View Single Post - New fares from 2 January 2006

Paul Corfield · **New fares from 2 January 2006 - pdf**

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 15:16 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(James Farrar) wrote:

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 10:26 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

This year a one day travelcard from Cambridge with a Network Card
costs £1.65 more than the day return fare to London Terminals. There
is no ticket, Oyster or not, that I can buy in London that gets near
that.

Fair enough - that's a no brainer where the ODTC is at such a small
premium and you need the flexibility.

So why are you worrying about tube singles?

Because on occasion, e.g. twice (on the same visit) this year I couldn't
use Travelcards because they only work with day return tickets from
Cambridge and I needed to make journeys beyond what is permitted on a
Saver Return to Underground Zones 1 and 2. Yesterday and today I am
making such journeys within what is permitted and don't need to buy any
singles.

I suspect you will still disagree on the basis of "too much hassle" but
given that you need an element of "beyond Z12" flexibility I would still
have an Oyster Pre-Pay and load it with the bare minimum amount of value
for the trips you are likely to make and on the final trip allow the
card to go negative. This means you get discounted fares and value from
the deposit - i.e. you're using it rather than TfL banking it. When you
next need to use the card you simply top up again. This obviously
requires a bit of calculation and forward planning on your part and you
could legitimately say "why should I have to worry" but there are
"tunes" you can play with the Oyster concept if you so wish.

This is what I do with my Octopus card in Hong Kong - I run it close to
negative and then use it for my final trip to the Airport to eat into
the deposit. It gets replenished next time I use it - possibly a year
later.

As it happens I travelled to

... the land of invisible people :-)
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!