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Old April 24th 09, 08:35 AM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london
Mizter T Mizter T is offline
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Default Railcard changes w.e.f. 17/05/09


On Apr 24, 1:45*am, "Andrew Wilson"
wrote:

"John Salmon" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote
I shall have to try buying one for myself from an LU station then. Unless
I've gone mad the price of the Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards I've
bought from NR stations lately has been £5.00. I can't think why LU would
charge a different price! (Unless LU round things down, and NR rounds
them up - but that doesn't make any sense as two-thirds of £7.50 - the
full price of a z1-6 Day Travelcard - is bang on £5.00.) The strange
mysteries of ticketing...


The railcard discount is 34%, i.e. slightly more than one-third, so the
rounding up/down theory *may* be correct. *I have a feeling that the
£4.90/£5.00 discrepancy between LU and "NR" has been mentioned before on
uk.r or utl, but I could be wrong. *You are right that (at least some)
National Rail stations charge £5.00; I haven't bought one from LU
recently.


Has LU started offering railcard discounts recently? Every time I've tried
to buy a Z1-6 Day Travelcard with my disabled railcard I've been told that
LU don't do them so I normally to buy them from NR stations. If this is now
the case however do you get more for your money if you buy one from LU?
Regards
Andrew Wilson


No, LU stations have always offered them - or at least they have for
many many years. However this fact is notably absent from any Railcard
literature - indeed some Railcard publicity specifically states that
you can't get discounted tickets from LU ticket offices whatsoever,
which is just plain misleading - see:

http://www.16-25railcard.co.uk/faqs/validity#9
---quote---
9. Can I use my Railcard for tickets for travel on the London
Underground?

All discounted rail tickets bought using your Railcard routed 'between
London termini' are valid for cross-London transfer on the London
Underground. Off-Peak Day Travelcards (All Zones only) are also
available, subject to a minimum fare. Please note, however, that you
cannot use your Railcard to obtain a discount when purchasing tickets
from a London Underground booking office.

If you have an Oyster card, you can get your Railcard discount loaded
on to your Oyster card to save 1/3 on the daily cap on pay as you go.
---/quote---


I'd expect the problem is that LU ticket office staff are really not
au fait with Railcards, which is why you've not had much success. FWIW
a ticket clerk at an LU station almost refused to sell me a discounted
Day Travelcard when I presented a Network Railcard recently, as they
were insistent that I needed to present my photocard and were
convinced that all Railcards come with accompanying photocards, which
is just plain not true - only 16-25
Railcards require photos. I suspect that 16-25 Railcards are the one's
that they come across most of the time.

You don't get any more for your money if you buy one from LU, though
you used to - until recently LU would issued Railcard-discounted
Travelcards for zones 1-D, that is z1-6 plus zones A-D which
encompassed the extremities of the Metropolitan line (zones A-D were
effectively thrown in 'for free').

However zones A-D have since been incorporated into zones 7-9, which
were introduced at the same time as London Overground took over from
Silverlink Metro (on the Watford-Euston DC line Carpenders Park,
Bushey and Watford High Street are now within zones 7 and 8). At
around the same time LU ticket offices started issuing two separate
Railcard-discounted Day Travelcards - the standard one for zones 1-6,
and a slightly more expensive one for zones 1-9.

London Overground ticket offices should also be able to issue Day
Travelcards (both discounted and full-price) for zones 1-9 (indeed
cheaper full-price versions are available that omit zone 1). AFAIAA
other National Rail ticket offices don't do this, apart I think from
London Midland - but then perhaps only at Watford Jn and Euston
(though maybe at other stations north of Watford too, though given
that the world ends north of Watford there are some metaphysical
difficulties with this notion!).

HTH.