On 20 Dec, 09:06, Railist wrote:

On 19 Dec, 15:16, Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Dec, 11:16, Railist wrote:

On 18 Dec, 21:15, wrote:

(snip)

Now that PAYG is valid on FGW does anybody know if you can buy season
tickets from them on oyster ? *It might be possible at Ealing Broadway
but that station is in zone 3 and I dont think they issue oyster cards
yet at Paddington.

South West Trains at Wimbledon issue Season Tickets on Oyster paper,
although it may look odd that you're being it from a Zone 3 station....
when *I bought my Zones 1-3 from there they studied my address in some
detail as they knew it wasn't Wimbledon!

Eh? ... "on Oyster paper" ... "may look odd that you're being it from
a Zone 3 station" ...

Might you be so kind as to clarify what you were trying to say?

I meant Oyster card.

Wimbledon staff were suspicious of my address when I first bought my
Oyster annual card. They knew my address wasn't Wimbledon. So I had to
explain why I was buying it there and not from my local station. So,
someone buying a Zone 1,2 Travelcard from a Zone 3 station may be met
with similar suspicion.


OK, well in that case you have apparently been successful in doing
exactly what the OP was asking about (and I was very curious about).

I presume you went to Wimbledon so as to buy it from South West Trains
so you could take advantage of their extra "Gold Service" benefits
[1]. So these were still available to you even though you were buying
your Gold Card on Oyster?

A few further things of note

(a) Apart from the six free tickets for weekend journeys anywhere on
the SWT network, are there any other SWT "Gold Service" benefits which
are above and beyond the standard Gold Card benefits [3]?

(b) The Gold Service T&Cs [2] explicitly exclude season Travelcards
(apart from 'all zones' aka zones 1-6) from receiving the six free
weekend tickets. (Maybe this rule is inconsistantly implemented.)

(c) The T&Cs do suggest that you need to/should actually "use our
[i.e.SWT's] services". I've no idea whether this is enforced in any
way - indeed when it comes to Travelcards it is arguably unenforceable
- but this is likely to be the cause of the suspicion on the part of
the staff at Wimbledon, what with you obviously giving an address that
wasn't local.

Incidentally how did you deal with the aforementioned suspicion - tell
them that you regularly travelled to Wimbledon or used SWT trains in
your daily commute or something? Perhaps I shouldn't ask the follow on
question of whether you actually do!


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[1] "Gold Service" being what SWT call the benefits they offer their
Gold Card holders above and beyond the standard Gold Card benefits
that all TOCs offer - more he
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...oldService.htm
[2] "Gold Service" T&Cs
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWT...m#gold_service
[3] The standard Gold Card benefits are listed he
https://www.trainsfares.co.uk/season...d_benefits.asp