Sam wrote:

Hi all,

I've been trying to get my head around some odd ticket pricing, and I
just wanted to check that what I'm seeing is correct. All of this
refers to off-peak one-day Travelcards.

If I buy a cheap-day return from, say, Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire,
to London Liverpool St, it costs £10.50. However, the same station
will sell me a ticket with a one-day Travelcard included for £14.50.
Hence it's cost me £4.00 for the Travelcard. But the cheapest I can
get a Travelcard from an UndergrounD station is £5.10 - and that's
just a Z1-2 card, whereas my National Rail one is Z1-6.

Is this really right? Buying a travelcard with a train ticket costs
just £4.00 - better than the standard Travelcard price, and better
even than the Oyster pay-as-you-go capped price (which I believe is 50p
less than the equivalent Travelcard).

(I also note that if I have a Railcard, then the discount applies to
the Travelcard portion of the ticket, too - e.g. with a YP railcard I
could get a One Day Travelcard from Sawbridgeworth for just £2.60 more
than the CDR alone. Or with a Network Railcard, I hit the minimum fare
of £10 and my Travelcard is free!)

It seems odd that train users are afforded this perk of cheap off-peak
travelcards. It's also odd that these prices beat PAYG Oyster, when I
understood the whole pricing methodology these days was to encourage as
much Oyster use as possible.

All comments welcome.

Thanks,
Sam

It's true.

Your ticket isn't to Liverpool street. Its to the edge of zone 6.
(whatever station that may be)
Then the 1-6 Travelcard takes over.

Finding out the prices of these tickets will tell you if you are
actually saving a few pence.