Went from Canary Wharf to Westcliff today. Used my Oyster PAYG for
the bit up to Upminster however when changing at West Ham station they
refused point blank to sell me a ticket from Upminster to Westcliff.

Firstly I had to convince the manager at West Ham that PAYG is valid
on C2C (I can't believe the amount of times I've had to explain to
various LU staff how PAYG works and where it is valid....). Then I
tried to explain that if I had to get off at Upminster and buy a new
ticket then I'll have to wait over 15 minutes for the next C2C train.
However if I buy a ticket here I can jump on and off the train quickly
at Upminster and touch out.

However in the end I had to give up and get off at Upminster otherwise
I'd miss my train. So am I missing something here? Why wouldn't they
sell me a point-to-point ticket? It couldn't be because of me trying
to cheat the system otherwise I'd get the £4 fine for not touching
out. They said they could sell me an extension from zone 6 only if I
had a travelcard but they could not sell a point to point ticket.
Does anyone know if the ticket selling facilities physcially can't be
set to sell this ticket or whether staff were just refusing to sell me
this ticket?

Just wanted to check I'm not missing a reason for the ticket selling
refusal before complaining to LU.

Cheers!

On Jul 11, 1:07 pm, wrote:
However in the end I had to give up and get off at Upminster otherwise
I'd miss my train. So am I missing something here? Why wouldn't they
sell me a point-to-point ticket? It couldn't be because of me trying
to cheat the system otherwise I'd get the £4 fine for not touching
out. They said they could sell me an extension from zone 6 only if I
had a travelcard but they could not sell a point to point ticket.
Does anyone know if the ticket selling facilities physcially can't be
set to sell this ticket or whether staff were just refusing to sell me
this ticket?

I think it's just a fact of life that LUL ticket offices are unable to
sell the full range of National Rail tickets. You should be
complaining to National Rail/ATOC/c2c for offering inadequate
ticketing facilities at West Ham.

Sadly, I think the c2c penalty fares scheme disallows treating it as
an unstaffed halt - even buying the wrong ticket (West Ham to
Westcliff) and getting a refund doesn't seem to be covered if you do
so from LUL. If there's a c2c ticket machine at West Ham, you could
maybe get a refund for the unused portion at a c2c ticket office.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/

Yes, you are correct, Oyster PAYG is valid on C2C services between Fenchurch
Street / Liverpool Street via Barking and Upminster - interavability of
fares.

However, if you were using PAYG, you would have to touch out at Upminster to
prevent being charged the maximum fare and causing an incomplete journey,
perhaps this is why they refused to issue you with a ticket? This could have
been explained to you far better though! West Ham is a LU ticket office
which is able to offer a wider-range of NR tickets than most, due to an
agreement with the TOCs. Please bring this to the attention of LU's customer
services department as, from your description of events, there appears to be
several training issues identified.