On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:41:17 +0100, David A Stocks
wrote:

"Fig" wrote in message newsp.uw7k8eaom4iaeb@dell...
Hi Group,

I have to meet Mrs Fig at Gatwick (North) this evening.
This is not a common journey for me so, seeing as I've got a bit of
time, I thought I'd try and figure out my cheapest option. Wish I'd
never started!

The details:

From: Ruislip Gardens
To: Gatwick (North)
Flight arrives: 8pm
I need 1 return journey and 1 single.
We both have HMF railcards.
Neither of us have any season tickets but do have railcards loaded on
to Oyster for discounted caps.
I can buy an off-peak z1-6 day travelcard for £5 (if the ticket office
is open!)

What would be the cheapest option?

NR website is saying £11.20 for rtn from London Bridge, £14.50 for
return from Victoria and £19.00 for return Gatwick Exp.
I've got no idea about boundary zone 6 to Gatwick prices, but coupled
with a £5 travelcard that must be an option?
This looks like what you need - I reckon a CDR costs £6.50 as an ANY
PERMITTED fare (the NOT GATWICK EXP costs £6.90 more, go figure). At
that price I would just buy two of them, assuming you can also buy two
z1-6 travelcards. If you're buying tix at Gatwick I would get them
*before* meeting the missus.

Bear in mind that on the return journey we'll probably just want to get
on the first London bound train and not want to hang around for a
London Bridge train (I'm not sure what the frequencies are.)
FCC run half hourly at that time of night, but there are complications
due to the central section of the Thameslink route being closed
overnight.

NR planner is saying FCC run every 15 mins from Gatwick till 21:16. I
would hope that Mrs Fig has cleared customs and what-not by then, so I'm
going to travel via London Bridge with PAYG and FCC CDR. TFL journey
planner suggests this route is slightly quicker than via Victoria and
GatEx and it's a fare bit cheaper. ('scuse the pun).

Thanks to all for your thoughts.

--
Fig