Dave A wrote:
How very messed up.

Cheap Day Single fares seem to be different by direction... for example,
Luton to KXTL (using a Young Person's Railcard) is 7.85 but KXTL to
Luton is 8.20. CDR is 8.25. I got the same fares for Blackfriars and St
Pancras, but Farringdon was 8.20 to Luton and 7.20 from Luton (but it
gave me 8.25 again for the CDR).

Standard Day Singles were different by direction to and from West
Hampstead Thameslink, but not to any of the other stations I tried.

Maybe the planner is a bit confused...
No doubt about that. Theoretically you can get an ODT from an FCC Zone D
to an FCC Zone C station and return with it during the evening peak
(needless to say once you're in Zone 6 then you can do almost what you
like for the day until you make the return journey, or until 0430 :-)),
but it 'claims' that a CDR cannot be used during the evening peak if
your originating outbound station is Radlett. Even though Radlett is now
in FCC Zone C.

In the meantime I'm busy typing documents on legal ticket combos that
allow people to travel to London and back on off-peak tickets during the
evening peak. By the way they don't include the debatable BOJ at Elstree
when using an ODT - I believe there was an argument on whether *that*
loophole was iron-cast last year, but in the words of FCC (correct as of
December 2006):

"The return portions of Cheap Day Return, One Day Off-Peak
Travelcard, Family Travelcard and DaySave tickets are no longer
valid for travel where the return journey starts at any station in
area B (see map on page 9) and ends at a station in area D for
services that depart from Moorgate, King's Cross, King's Cross
Thameslink and St Pancras between 1630 and 1901 Monday to
Friday.
The above restriction also applies to customers joining trains in
area C if the ticket they are using is for the return journey from a
station in area B to a station in area D."

To summarise - they agree with Neil Williams as far as the BOJ issue is
concerned.

Having done some research earlier, I've done *CDR + CDR* (1) and *CDR +
ODT* (2) prices for journeys from an FCC Zone B station to Farringdon
(not KCM, simply because of the pricing discrepancy I highlighted
earlier). In case you're wondering (this applies to both ticket combos),
the first ticket covers a journey from Zone D to C , and the second from
Zone C to Farringdon, which of course is in Zone B.

Although you would have to catch FCC stoppers for it to work, tangible
savings can be made when comapred to SDR and ADT tickets for the entire
journey. Sometimes even the single ODT can be more expensive -
regardless of whether you choose combo 1 or 2.

I don't know about you, but personally I'd like to publish the
corresponding documets somewhere. What would an organisation like
Passenger Focus make of it (yes I know they're working on the EPR issue
anyway but I still might be of help)? What do you think? If you like, I
could email you a copy - if so, send me a short message to my email
address, if possible with the email address you want me to reply to.

One last thing - perhaps you know already, but 'LTN' is the Luton
Airport Parkway code. Luton is 'LUT' ;-)