My daughter went into town last week and used her Zip Oyster
throughout. She traveled from Cheam to Green Park (via Victoria), and
returned to Worcester Park (then bus back to Cheam) due to the snow.
Note: Southern trains ran a limited timetable on the Friday, and
announced in the morning that trains would stop running shortly after
7pm. Separate gripe. The weather didn't get worse that day - in fact
it got better - a service could have been maintained until much later
- but I digress.

My daughter ended up being charged the full £7.50 adult day travelcard
rate (Z1-5). On doing some research, I discovered that Southern (and
SWT) do not participate in Oyster discounts for such 'students' - so
they are not fully signed up to Oyster. Secondly, if she had routed
via Vauxhall (via a change at Clapham Junction) and not Victoria, she
would have been charged about £1 less per train journey. Why?

Ken Wilshire wrote

My daughter went into town last week and used her Zip Oyster
throughout. She traveled from Cheam to Green Park (via Victoria), and
returned to Worcester Park (then bus back to Cheam) due to the snow.
[...]
service could have been maintained until much later
- but I digress.

My daughter ended up being charged the full £7.50 adult day
travelcard rate (Z1-5). On doing some research, I discovered that
Southern (and
SWT) do not participate in Oyster discounts for such 'students' - so
they are not fully signed up to Oyster. Secondly, if she had routed
via Vauxhall (via a change at Clapham Junction) and not Victoria, she
would have been charged about £1 less per train journey. Why?

Do the research first ?

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14308.aspx
==
{half} the adult rate when you pay as you go on bus, Tube, tram, DLR,
London Overground and some National Rail routes (PDF 229KB)
==
which means the rail routes that historically had U'ground ticket
interavailability and excludes the "new" NR routes.

and a solution, get a Railcard
==
Add a 16-25 NR Railcard discount entitlement to your 16+ Oyster
photocard. This gives 34 per cent discount on off-peak pay as you go
single fares when making journeys on London Overground, National Rail
or through journeys to/from National Rail stations. It also gives you
34 percent discount on an off-peak daily price cap
==

The "via Vauxhall" easement is quite old, has been mentioned here and
can of course be seen on the Single Fare finder (saving depends on
peak/ off-peak).

Keeps people out of a crowded Waterloo ?

Quoting Tom Barry --: TfL Farefinder -- 17 December 2009

What is the Vauxhall/Elephant & Castle Easement ?

One of the rules of Mornington Crescent, I believe.

*hehe*

It's a peculiarity of the £1.10 premium for using NR then TfL
farescales
into Z1 that if, when coming from outside Z2 you change to the tube at
a
Z2/Z1 border station it costs less (£5.00 instead of £6.00 from Z6, for

instance). You effectively get paid a quid back for walking across the

border (the £5 comes from adding Z6-Z2 NR = £3.20 to Z1-Z1 TfL =
£1.80).

{omitted discussion of other zones and other possibilities}
==


--
Mike D