What I was attempting to explain is that from Fleet to London (clearly
within the old NSE 50 mile limit) you would only expect Anytime Day and
Offpeak Day and SOP ( a day ticket). The longer period returns equivalent to
the old Opens and 'Savers', (and previously Network Away breaks) are
probably not available to London.

That's annoying, if you're going away from the weekend you can't buy
your ticket from a machine. It was annoying for me because I couldn't
get the ticket I wanted from LUL at St Pancras, and it would have been
even more annoying if I'd had a tight connection to get to Waterloo
and catch a train, or if there had been a serious price differential
between a single-with-tube and single+oyster. Or if you don't have an
oyster. I tried twice to buy a ticket from the ticket office the day
before - but it was closed - neither was it open at 7.45 on a Saturday
morning, not particularly early I wouldn't have thought (it's supposed
to be open at 6.10).

I assure you that returns valid for a month are available from machines
further from London where the fare exists, but you should be able to see
them by selecting a suitable long distance fare.

I will have a play with the machine sometime.

Another small point - are you looking at the first screen only, because it
only shows the most popular tickets from your station. Sometimes, if you
select your destination using the keyboard, other ticket types that aren't
often sold appear.

I often use the "any station" menu option, but again they're mostly
fairly local trips so again I will need to have a play.

After 1500 you can buy tickets for tomorrow, but you can only get
Anytime tickets, and you can't buy discounted tickets. *So not much
use at the weekend.

Try checking at a machine, you'll find on a Friday afternoon that all the
offpeak and SOP fares and railcard discounted tickets are available.
Presumably they don't want people buying and attempting to use invalid
tickets on early trains, same as if you use the machine at 0800 on a weekday
morning, Network Card doesn't appear until 1000 for instance.

I obviously need to check, but the SWT website
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...y+your+ticket/
does say

As well as at ticket offices, you can buy most tickets from our ticket
vending machines located at most of our stations. Tickets available
include:

7 Day Season Ticket renewals
Monthly Season Ticket renewals
'Tickets for tomorrow’ allowing you to buy Anytime Single and Return
tickets after 15:00 the day before you intend to travel
A wide range of tickets to most UK destinations
London Underground tickets inside London Fare Zones Area
Day Return tickets to London, including One Day Travelcards
Daily car park tickets.

So it looks like you can't.

If you buy a ticket for tomorrow, a screen comes up saying "you can
only use this ticket tomorrow" or words to that effect. So why you
can't buy off peak and discounted tickets with a suitable warning
message I don't know. You can buy them in advance at the station or
(presumably) online, although I haven't yet tried to buy online with a
local ticket as I'm only 5 minutes walk from the station and can't
normally get discounted online tickets for the journeys I do.

Thanks for the info on ticket pricing. *So it looks like, with the
introduction of SOP, I can no longer get the equivalent of the old
cheap day return to stations on other operators' networks.

Yes you can - 'Offpeak' is the equivalent of CDR as I explained before.

I checked a fare from Fleet to Rochester. Before and after 11.00 I
got the same price, where for Fleet-London I would normally pay a
different price due to the OP/SOP differential. So what price am I
paying for the Fleet leg of a Fleet-Rochester ticket?

But thanks for your posts. Having had a season ticket to London for
13 years (and lived in London for 7 of these when I used public
transport fairly heavily) I thought I had some knowledge about how it
works. How on earth are irregular travellers to cope?