londoncityslicker wrote:
snip
Don't forget that on the annual cards, your best bet would be to use a rail
company which gives 52 weeks for the price of 40 (like Thameslink)

You can still just buy a zone 1-2 or zone 1-4 travelcard like this. Not sure
if they can also give you an oyster for this if bought at a suitable
station.

As Barry Salter has already pointed out, you get 52 weeks for the price
of 40 whether you buy from TfL or National Rail (NR). You do, however,
get a reduction in line with the Passenger's Charter if your National
Rail route has performed badly.

I am unclear as to exactly how the Passengers Charter reductions
operate - I think it is specific as to a line (or group of lines), and
I think it only operates for those who are renewing a monthly or longer
ticket (i.e. it doesn't operate for weekly tickets, nor for first
purchases). I also don't know the extent of the savings on offer if one
was to shop around. Perhaps someone in the know can contribute to this.


With regards to Oyster cards, most NR stations don't issue them, though
a few do. There's a list in the TfL Fares leaflet (link below), but I
believe that there are more NR stations than on that list that now
dabble in Oyster. All the listed stations are either served by the
Underground/DLR or the North London Line (Silverlink Metro), which for
ticketing purposes increasingly masquerades as a tube line (IIRC it now
uses tube zonal ticket pricing throughout). Before I get carried away
with this, I'm actually going to start a new thread asking about which
NR stations sell Oyster.

Link to the TfL Fares leaflet list:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...05.pdf#page=13

Mizter T wrote:

With regards to Oyster cards, most NR stations don't issue them, though
a few do. There's a list in the TfL Fares leaflet (link below), but I
believe that there are more NR stations than on that list that now
dabble in Oyster.

Now here's the toughie - where can you get NR extension tickets on top of
travelcards on Oyster? I sometimes have to pop beyond Zone 6 in south
London.

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Now here's the toughie - where can you get NR extension tickets on top of
travelcards on Oyster? I sometimes have to pop beyond Zone 6 in south
London.

You'll need to do the same thing as when you had a paper Travelcard,
i.e. get an NR extension ticket to cover your journey. Such tickets are
available from any manned NR ticket office. As most of these offices
don't have Oyster readers, you'll need to show them your paper Record
Card (issued at the same time as your Oyster), which proves what zones
your Travelcard covers. They'll then issue with a ticket from 'Zone 5
boundary' (or the edge of whatever zone your Travelcard covers) to your
destination.

The same principle applies when you're travelling in London, but out of
your zone. NR doesn't do zonal ticket extensions (ala the Underground)
so you need a specific extension ticket, purchased before your journey
(unfortunately no NR ticket machine I've come across is able to do
this, so it must be from a manned ticket office).

The only difference is on a few NR routes where Oyster Pre-Pay is
accepted. These routes are listed on the lower right hand side of this
page:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...05.pdf#page=12

Eventually, TfL wants all London rail services to participate in
Pre-Pay, so travelling out of zone, within London at least, would be
much simpler.

Mizter T wrote:
snip
All the listed stations are either served by the
Underground/DLR or the North London Line (Silverlink Metro)...

Er, sorry, scrub that. Plenty of NLL stations arn't on the list (Acton
Central, Hampstead Heath etc etc), though all the Silverlink Metro
stations served by the Bakerloo Line up to Harrow & Wealdstone are,
sensibly enough, on the list and able to deal with Oyster.