On Apr 26, 10:39*am, Rupert Candy
wrote:

Mr Thant wrote:
Cash in the Z1-2 ticket (~£650), buy an annual Z1-3 (£1208), cash it
in August (~£900), buy a new Z1-2 (£1028), cash it in in January (~
£600). Get the timing right and the net outlay by you is well under
£100 and you don't lose your Gold Card benefits. Obviously it requires
you to have some spare cash available.

Alternatively, the suggestion of a Bowes Park-Finsbury Park rail
season ticket is a good one (£46.90/month or £114.60 pro rata -
remember you can buy arbitrary length season tickets and Travelcards
at the monthly rate).

I'm interested by this suggestion as I'm in a similar situation- annual
Z1-4 on Oyster expiring August, will need zone 5 from June/July. Now I
originally thought I could do what Barry suggests downthread-effectively
adding Z5 for the remaining period. Out of interest I asked at the
Victoria TfL info centre yesterday, and couldn't get a sensible answer
because they were so confused about Oyster season validity on NR
(questions like 'Are you commuting to a Tube or mainline station in Z5?'
Er, it doesn't matter.) [...]

On first glance that doesn't sound too impressive - however perhaps
they weren't being as daft as you think, because if you were commuting
in on the Tube then you'd be able to use Oyster PAYG to automagically
pay the extension fare for zone 5. I'd think it wouldn't be cheaper
than changing the zones on one's Travelcard season though - each
extension would be £1.10 at today's fares - though that depends on how
long one would be doing it for.

But as you say, it doesn't apply in the case of journeys on most
National Rail routes... yet.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Oyster customer services has a department
that deals with changes to the validity of Travelcards, i.e. an
increase or decrease in the zones covered, so I suspect they're the
best people to go to if you have such a need.

[...] But having read this thread, I suppose I could
save quite a bit by going for a Shortlands-Bromley S paper season, and
just moaning every time I have to get it out for the barriers...

Indeed - forget not the rail-only season ticket! Very useful beasts.