Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

I will be spending two nights in London next week with only early evening
engagements (in Westminster) so I fancy a bit of gricing during the day on
Monday and/or Tuesday. I will have a bike with me but it could be the
folding one.

I could use Oyster but I fear exceeding maximum journey times. I don't
plan to go outside zones 1-3.

Would a Cambridge-Zones 1-3 Off Peak Return do the job? It might be Zones
1-4.

I can't find the ticket online (FCC only do Zones 1 & 2 and East Coast
only have one via Tottenham Hale) but I pretty sure they exist and have
bought one in the past. I can't find the same fare on other webtis sites,
Southern at least (Chiltern is down as I write). FCC have a zone 2 return
at the same fare as the East Coast U123 option. I'll pop down the station
later.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote:
I will be spending two nights in London next week with only early evening
engagements (in Westminster) so I fancy a bit of gricing during the day on
Monday and/or Tuesday. I will have a bike with me but it could be the
folding one.

I could use Oyster but I fear exceeding maximum journey times. I don't
plan to go outside zones 1-3.

Would a Cambridge-Zones 1-3 Off Peak Return do the job? It might be
Zones 1-4.

I can't find the ticket online (FCC only do Zones 1 & 2 and East Coast
only have one via Tottenham Hale) but I pretty sure they exist and have
bought one in the past. I can't find the same fare on other webtis sites,
Southern at least (Chiltern is down as I write). FCC have a zone 2 return
at the same fare as the East Coast U123 option. I'll pop down the station
later.

A ticket from wherever to U123 or U12 is intended for use as part of a
single overall journey rather than as a Travelcard type ticket to just
wander around the network in London, so when you ask whether it would "do
the job" I'd suggest that it doesn't really - it's certainly not designed to
do such a job.

A ticket to U123 or whatever is only valid where the Underground / TfL
tariff applies, i.e. LU, DLR, LO and those select NR lines that have
interavailable ticketing with LU - it has no validity on other NR lines
(e.g. Waterloo to Putney). Also, as it's intended for single trip use one
has to stay within the system - exit and the journey is over (whilst
out-of-station interchanges should work, I'd not be totally sure of them
always working smoothly in practice, in particular say a change from LU to
NR where there is interavailbility such as Liverpool St LU to Liv St NR for
a journey out to Stratford).

The best ticket for 'gricing' is a Day Travelcard.

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

wrote:
I will be spending two nights in London next week with only early
evening engagements (in Westminster) so I fancy a bit of gricing
during the day on Monday and/or Tuesday. I will have a bike with me
but it could be the folding one.

I could use Oyster but I fear exceeding maximum journey times. I don't
plan to go outside zones 1-3.

Would a Cambridge-Zones 1-3 Off Peak Return do the job? It might be
Zones 1-4.

I can't find the ticket online (FCC only do Zones 1 & 2 and East Coast
only have one via Tottenham Hale) but I pretty sure they exist and
have bought one in the past. I can't find the same fare on other
webtis sites, Southern at least (Chiltern is down as I write). FCC
have a zone 2 return at the same fare as the East Coast U123 option.
I'll pop down the station later.

A ticket from wherever to U123 or U12 is intended for use as part
of a single overall journey rather than as a Travelcard type ticket
to just wander around the network in London, so when you ask
whether it would "do the job" I'd suggest that it doesn't really -
it's certainly not designed to do such a job.

That might explain why there is a via Tottenham Hale ticket but none on
FCC. There appear to be two versions of tickets from outside London to
London zones, expressed as e.g. "Zones 1-4" or "Zone U123". I wonder what
distinction it is trying to draw? The FCC and NXEA sites do offer Off Peak
Returns to "Zone 1" or "Zone 2". I have used the latter occasionally.

A ticket to U123 or whatever is only valid where the Underground /
TfL tariff applies, i.e. LU, DLR, LO and those select NR lines that
have interavailable ticketing with LU - it has no validity on other
NR lines (e.g. Waterloo to Putney). Also, as it's intended for
single trip use one has to stay within the system - exit and the
journey is over (whilst out-of-station interchanges should work,
I'd not be totally sure of them always working smoothly in
practice, in particular say a change from LU to NR where there is
interavailbility such as Liverpool St LU to Liv St NR for a journey
out to Stratford).

I was thinking of fitting more or less with that by just taking the long
way round, perhaps from Kings Cross to Putney via the ELL and NLL (and
maybe WLL). I could go via Tottenham Hale and Stratford too. That sort of
journey would probably time out on Oyster, wouldn't it? I could then
return to king's Cross on Wednesday via Clapham Junction, the South
London, ELL and NLL to Highbury. Or some permutations. I was thinking of
taking my bike so London Overground off-peak would be suitable.

The best ticket for 'gricing' is a Day Travelcard.

I asked because I thought that paper Day Travelcards were no longer
available. Hence the need to ask about alternatives.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote:

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

The best ticket for 'gricing' is a Day Travelcard.

I asked because I thought that paper Day Travelcards were no longer
available. Hence the need to ask about alternatives.

Eh?! Paper Day Travelcards are most certainly still available - however
since January they have not been available from newsagents (aka Ticket
Stops) - they are still very much available from all station ticket offices
and ticket machines. (For Off-peak Day Travelcards, Railcard brings down the
cost of a z1-6 version to GBP5.30.)

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

wrote:

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

The best ticket for 'gricing' is a Day Travelcard.

I asked because I thought that paper Day Travelcards were no longer
available. Hence the need to ask about alternatives.

Eh?! Paper Day Travelcards are most certainly still available -
however since January they have not been available from newsagents
(aka Ticket Stops) - they are still very much available from all
station ticket offices and ticket machines. (For Off-peak Day
Travelcards, Railcard brings down the cost of a z1-6 version to
GBP5.30.)

OK. My confusion then. Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to
buy from a ticket office?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In message , at 18:58:44
on Thu, 30 Jun 2011, remarked:

Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to buy from a ticket
office?

You can buy online (destination code 0035 for Z1-6) or from a machine,
but you have to carry a valid appropriate railcard with you on the day.
--
Roland Perry

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
18:58:44 on Thu, 30 Jun 2011, remarked:

Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to buy from a ticket
office?

You can buy online (destination code 0035 for Z1-6) or from a
machine, but you have to carry a valid appropriate railcard with
you on the day.

Presumably only online from TfL? Not that I can find any such facility of
the TfL web site. How would one pick it up anyway? I can't see how one
would buy it online from FCC or another TOC. As I'm not on a day trip I
can't buy a Cambridge-London travelcard.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote:

In article ,
(Mizter T) wrote:

The best ticket for 'gricing' is a Day Travelcard.

I asked because I thought that paper Day Travelcards were no longer
available. Hence the need to ask about alternatives.

Eh?! Paper Day Travelcards are most certainly still available -
however since January they have not been available from newsagents
(aka Ticket Stops) - they are still very much available from all
station ticket offices and ticket machines. (For Off-peak Day
Travelcards, Railcard brings down the cost of a z1-6 version to
GBP5.30.)

OK. My confusion then. Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to
buy from a ticket office?

No, you can get one with a Railcard discount from National Rail (& LO)
ticket machines - I think LU ticket machines now also offer them with
discounts too. (Don't expect any favours from a DLR ticket machine though -
nor, for that
matter, a Tramlink one!)

(Of course, the Network Railcard only provides the discount on inboundary
Day Travelcards at the weekend or on bank holidays, courtesy of said
Railcard's £13 weekday minimum fare.)

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote:

In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to buy from a ticket
office?

You can buy online (destination code 0035 for Z1-6) or from a
machine, but you have to carry a valid appropriate railcard with
you on the day.

Presumably only online from TfL? Not that I can find any such facility of
the TfL web site. How would one pick it up anyway? I can't see how one
would buy it online from FCC or another TOC. As I'm not on a day trip I
can't buy a Cambridge-London travelcard.

No, you presume wrong - Roland's referring to buying one from one of the
online rail booking systems (tickets for which can be collected from
National Rail ticket machines which are hooked into the system). Given that
you can buy one from an NR ticket machine anyway, there's no real need to
buy it online.

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (Mizter T)
wrote:

wrote:

In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

Presumably to get a railcard discount one needs to buy from a ticket
office?

You can buy online (destination code 0035 for Z1-6) or from a
machine, but you have to carry a valid appropriate railcard with
you on the day.

Presumably only online from TfL? Not that I can find any such facility
of the TfL web site. How would one pick it up anyway? I can't see how
one would buy it online from FCC or another TOC. As I'm not on a day
trip I can't buy a Cambridge-London travelcard.

No, you presume wrong - Roland's referring to buying one from one
of the online rail booking systems (tickets for which can be
collected from National Rail ticket machines which are hooked into
the system). Given that you can buy one from an NR ticket machine
anyway, there's no real need to buy it online.

An in-London travelcard? I can't get a Day Travelcard to and from London
because I'm not coming back the same day. I did look at a TOC site and
couldn't see how to buy an in-London day travelcard. They only offer
tickets between destinations.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote in message ...
No, you presume wrong - Roland's referring to buying one from one
of the online rail booking systems (tickets for which can be
collected from National Rail ticket machines which are hooked into
the system). Given that you can buy one from an NR ticket machine
anyway, there's no real need to buy it online.

An in-London travelcard? I can't get a Day Travelcard to and from London
because I'm not coming back the same day. I did look at a TOC site and
couldn't see how to buy an in-London day travelcard. They only offer
tickets between destinations.

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in London, it
should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare options.

Peter Smyth

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

"Peter Smyth" wrote:

No, you presume wrong - Roland's referring to buying one from one
of the online rail booking systems (tickets for which can be
collected from National Rail ticket machines which are hooked into
the system). Given that you can buy one from an NR ticket machine
anyway, there's no real need to buy it online.

An in-London travelcard? I can't get a Day Travelcard to and from London
because I'm not coming back the same day. I did look at a TOC site and
couldn't see how to buy an in-London day travelcard. They only offer
tickets between destinations.

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in London, it
should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare options.


Indeed. Potentially useful for buying Day Travelcards in advance, or as part
of some split-ticketing scheme.

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article ,
(Peter Smyth) wrote:

wrote in message
...
No, you presume wrong - Roland's referring to buying one from one
of the online rail booking systems (tickets for which can be
collected from National Rail ticket machines which are hooked into
the system). Given that you can buy one from an NR ticket machine
anyway, there's no real need to buy it online.

An in-London travelcard? I can't get a Day Travelcard to and from
London because I'm not coming back the same day. I did look at a TOC
site and couldn't see how to buy an in-London day travelcard. They only
offer tickets between destinations.

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in
London, it should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare
options.

OK, that sort of works as long as I make it a return journey. Not very
clear, especially as some options give two Anytime Travelcard options at
different prices without explanation.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Peter Smyth) wrote:


If you search for a journey between any two random stations in
London, it should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare
options.

OK, that sort of works as long as I make it a return journey. Not very
clear, especially as some options give two Anytime Travelcard options at
different prices without explanation.


It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do but if I was doing
something similar from Brighton and assuming all travel was off-peak it
would probably be two Brighton to Zones 1-6 travelcards for the days I was
travelling from and to Brighton, plus a travelcard or two (sold by Southern
as something like Battersea Park to Zones 1-3) for the day(s) I was staying
in London.

It might be possible to sacrifice some flexibility and save a quid or two by
purchasing AP booked-train-only tickets to get from Brighton to Victoria and
back (and then buying two more travelcards for travel within London) but I
very much doubt this would be worth doing.
--
DAS

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (D A
Stocks) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Peter Smyth) wrote:

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in
London, it should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare
options.

OK, that sort of works as long as I make it a return journey. Not very
clear, especially as some options give two Anytime Travelcard options
at different prices without explanation.

It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do but if I was doing
something similar from Brighton and assuming all travel was
off-peak it would probably be two Brighton to Zones 1-6
travelcards for the days I was travelling from and to Brighton,
plus a travelcard or two (sold by Southern as something like
Battersea Park to Zones 1-3) for the day(s) I was staying in London.

It might be possible to sacrifice some flexibility and save a quid
or two by purchasing AP booked-train-only tickets to get from
Brighton to Victoria and back (and then buying two more travelcards
for travel within London) but I very much doubt this would be worth
doing.

How does an off-peak return from Brighton compare with a Day Travelcard?
The extra is quite small from Cambridge, to the point that buying a
travelcard in London with an off-peak return would be cheaper. I would use
Oyster but for the fear of timing out. There's a limit to how much gricing
I can do because of the early evening appointments which I need to get to
on time.

I wonder how legitimate it would be use a Cambridge-Zone 3 ticket via
Highbury and Islington, the NLL, WLL and SWT to Putney, for example? What
about Whitechapel, ELL, NLL, WLL and SWT to Putney? I'll have a bike with
me so prefer to avoid the tube.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

wrote in message
...
In article , (D A
Stocks) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Peter Smyth) wrote:

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in
London, it should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the fare
options.

OK, that sort of works as long as I make it a return journey. Not very
clear, especially as some options give two Anytime Travelcard options
at different prices without explanation.

It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do but if I was doing
something similar from Brighton and assuming all travel was
off-peak it would probably be two Brighton to Zones 1-6
travelcards for the days I was travelling from and to Brighton,
plus a travelcard or two (sold by Southern as something like
Battersea Park to Zones 1-3) for the day(s) I was staying in London.

It might be possible to sacrifice some flexibility and save a quid
or two by purchasing AP booked-train-only tickets to get from
Brighton to Victoria and back (and then buying two more travelcards
for travel within London) but I very much doubt this would be worth
doing.

How does an off-peak return from Brighton compare with a Day Travelcard?
Under the circumstances I use them (super off-peak, buy online via Southern
with web discount) the web-site automatically offers the Travelcard even if
you ask for rail-only fares because it's the same price but better value.
There are other variables such as operator/route/destination, but Southern
usually give the best deal.

--
DAS

Best ticket for gricing next week?
 

In article , (D A
Stocks) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article , (D A
Stocks) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Peter Smyth) wrote:

If you search for a journey between any two random stations in
London, it should give an in-boundary travelcard as one of the
fare options.

OK, that sort of works as long as I make it a return journey. Not
very clear, especially as some options give two Anytime Travelcard
options at different prices without explanation.

It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do but if I was doing
something similar from Brighton and assuming all travel was
off-peak it would probably be two Brighton to Zones 1-6
travelcards for the days I was travelling from and to Brighton,
plus a travelcard or two (sold by Southern as something like
Battersea Park to Zones 1-3) for the day(s) I was staying in London.

It might be possible to sacrifice some flexibility and save a quid
or two by purchasing AP booked-train-only tickets to get from
Brighton to Victoria and back (and then buying two more travelcards
for travel within London) but I very much doubt this would be worth
doing.

How does an off-peak return from Brighton compare with a Day
Travelcard?
Under the circumstances I use them (super off-peak, buy online via
Southern with web discount) the web-site automatically offers the
Travelcard even if you ask for rail-only fares because it's the
same price but better value. There are other variables such as
operator/route/destination, but Southern usually give the best deal.

Aren't you the lucky one! FCC are amongst the greediest of TOCs in the
price to go from Day Return to Travelcard.

--
Colin Rosenstiel