In message ,
writes
As someone who also faces the unbelievable queues at Kings Cross St
Pancras my practice is to deal with my Oyster needs at my first
destination tube station (usually Westminster or St James's Park but
sometimes East Putney). Seems to work for PAYG top up getting change for
cash avoiding queues but I've not yet tried to load my Senior Railcard.
Must try doing so on Monday.

I hope you will let us know how you get on.

The reason I've been keen to do this is the discovery that the
difference in cost between a ticket to the terminus (KX-St.Pancras in my
case) and a 1-day travelcard is of the order of £4-30 (both with
Railcard discounts), so that for most trips to London when I don't
venture beyond zones 1 and 2 it would be somewhat cheaper to get my rail
ticket to the terminus and then use Oyster for the rest. Your mileage
may vary, as they say, but it's worth checking.

(In fact for the special case of starting from a station on the
Thameslink route there appears to be no ticket to London Terminals any
more, and my comparison is based on the London Thameslink day return,
which of course is valid as far as London Bridge or Elephant & Castle).

--
Clive Page

[Oyster and Railcard Discounts]

SamB wrote:

I've done it twice. The first time was at Canary Wharf, and, although
I had to fill in a form, worked fine. The second time was at Charing
Cross, and took a LOT of explaining what I needed, but once he got it
(and I wasn't very confident he did get it) it did work.

One of the conditions of having a Railcard (or Safeguarded TOC Staff)
discount set on an Oyster card is that you register the card first.

Not sure how it works on the LU Ticket Office Machines, but it's
probably much the same as Cubic FasTIS+.

Briefly: Touch card to reader, edit card details, enter Railcard or
Photocard Number (as appropriate) into relevant field, select
appropriate discount type in first available slot, enter expiry date
from Railcard, save the updated data to the card.

Cheers,

Barry

In article ,
() wrote:

Other TOCs than FCC charge seem to less for Day Travelcards, AIUI
(FCC also charge £4.25 from Bedford). For example NXEA charge £3.00
from Colchester while SWT charge £3.25 at Off-Peak rate and only
£2.70 Super-Off-Peak from Windsor. However, other stations seem to
be inconsistent, e.g. Winchester £4.95 Off-Peak, £2.45
Super-Off-Peak.

And I see that the London Terminals Day Return from Oxford is the same as
from Cambridge (£13.20, or £20 without railcard discount) but the Day
Travelcard is £15.20 instead of £17.50 from Cambridge. Humph! The TOCs are
both part of First Group too!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Uncle-C wrote

of problems and heated arguments with LU staff wrt discounted daily
caps for Railcard holders - several were 100% adamant that these did
not exist, they even showed my the relevant LU leaflets which did not
mention them. I told of that the information on caps which listed on
their website. There has definitely been a lack of information flow
and problems in edifiying staff of all the nuances of Oyster.

As noted elsethread

22-page document
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...s-zones1-6.pdf
which says at the foot of page 11: "holders of some National Railcards
can get discount off-peak daily price capping"

Which is just the PDF of the printed 2009 _Your Guide to fares and
tickets within Zones 1-6_ available at all tube stations.


The same document for 2008 had the actual caps but the split for zone 9
and Watford lost a lot of detail.

--
Mike D

In article , (Clive
Page) wrote:

In message ,
writes
As someone who also faces the unbelievable queues at Kings Cross St
Pancras my practice is to deal with my Oyster needs at my first
destination tube station (usually Westminster or St James's Park but
sometimes East Putney). Seems to work for PAYG top up getting change
for cash avoiding queues but I've not yet tried to load my Senior
Railcard. Must try doing so on Monday.

I hope you will let us know how you get on.

The reason I've been keen to do this is the discovery that the
difference in cost between a ticket to the terminus (KX-St.Pancras
in my case) and a 1-day travelcard is of the order of £4-30 (both
with Railcard discounts), so that for most trips to London when I
don't venture beyond zones 1 and 2 it would be somewhat cheaper to
get my rail ticket to the terminus and then use Oyster for the
rest. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but it's worth checking.

(In fact for the special case of starting from a station on the
Thameslink route there appears to be no ticket to London Terminals
any more, and my comparison is based on the London Thameslink day
return, which of course is valid as far as London Bridge or
Elephant & Castle).

Yes, I've been annoyed by that for some time. The Travelcard difference is
£4.30 (with railcard discount) from Cambridge too. It was just 60p when I
started working in London part-time in 2001, an increase outrageously
above inflation, even of rail fares!

It has meant difficult predictions whether Travelcard or Oyster will be
cheaper, depending on the actual tube and bus trips taken. I've bought
Travelcards and found I would have spent less using Oyster and vice-versa.
It's so annoying.

Now I have a Senior Railcard the range in which Travelcard is better value
should be much reduced and much clearer before setting out. But that
Oyster card has to be loaded with the railcard first. One complication is
that mine is not registered because I have preferred not to.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 29 Nov, 23:15, wrote:
And I see that the London Terminals Day Return from Oxford is the same as
from Cambridge (£13.20, or £20 without railcard discount) but the Day
Travelcard is £15.20 instead of £17.50 from Cambridge. Humph! The TOCs are
both part of First Group too!

Isn't the Cambridge - London Terminals fare set by FCC?

NXEA have their own 'NXEA-only' fare which indicates that they don't
set the Any Permitted' fare.

In article
,
(Chris) wrote:

On 29 Nov, 23:15, wrote:
And I see that the London Terminals Day Return from Oxford is the same
as from Cambridge (£13.20, or £20 without railcard discount) but the
Day Travelcard is £15.20 instead of £17.50 from Cambridge. Humph! The
TOCs are both part of First Group too!

Isn't the Cambridge - London Terminals fare set by FCC?

NXEA have their own 'NXEA-only' fare which indicates that they don't
set the Any Permitted' fare.

Precisely. Hence my puzzled comparison of FCC and FGW policies.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 30 Nov, 17:01, wrote:
In article
,

(Chris) wrote:
On 29 Nov, 23:15, wrote:
And I see that the London Terminals Day Return from Oxford is the same
as from Cambridge (£13.20, or £20 without railcard discount) but the
Day Travelcard is £15.20 instead of £17.50 from Cambridge. Humph! The
TOCs are both part of First Group too!

Isn't the Cambridge - London Terminals fare set by FCC?

NXEA have their own 'NXEA-only' fare which indicates that they don't
set the Any Permitted' fare.

Precisely. Hence my puzzled comparison of FCC and FGW policies.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Whatever works in their parish, is probably the policy.

In article
,
(Chris) wrote:

On 30 Nov, 17:01, wrote:
In article
,

(Chris) wrote:
On 29 Nov, 23:15, wrote:
And I see that the London Terminals Day Return from Oxford is the
same as from Cambridge (£13.20, or £20 without railcard discount)
but the Day Travelcard is £15.20 instead of £17.50 from
Cambridge. Humph! The TOCs are both part of First Group too!

Isn't the Cambridge - London Terminals fare set by FCC?

NXEA have their own 'NXEA-only' fare which indicates that they don't
set the Any Permitted' fare.

Precisely. Hence my puzzled comparison of FCC and FGW policies.

Whatever works in their parish, is probably the policy.

FSVO "works".

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
() wrote:

Hmm. Must try it myself. I was going to try St James's Park. If
they can't do it there, they can't do it anywhere.

Did so there today. It took a surprisingly long time but no hitches.

Apart from refusing my already completed Oyster registration form, that
is. OK, it did look rather moth eaten and my signature was dated March
2006. :-)

They just gave me a new one to copy the details onto and sign with today's
date. The piece of till roll the ticket office staffer got to attach to my
form was longer than the (at least A4) form, however.

--
Colin Rosenstiel