Cholmondley_Warner

I know the mere mention of Oyster Cards makes people want to stab cats but this is important.

From January you will be able to use your Oyster pay as you go on the overground train network out as far as zone six. This will also make journeys much cheaper.

The two obvious tourist destinations this will affect are Hampton Court and Greenwich.

PatrickLondon

And here's the geek's-eye view:

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/20...75509928099992

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/20...34876884774099

janisj

Well - its about damn time!

(Gives us another wrinkle in all the "2 for 1 - paper travel card" threads. As though they weren't complicated enough already . . . )

avalon

I have to get to Gillingham. Is that outside the Payg area?

flanneruk

"Gives us another wrinkle in all the "2 for 1 - paper travel card" threads."

But not for long.

Extending Oyster to NationalRail takes away just about the last remaining reason for railway season tickets inside the TfL area to be issued on paper.

I'd give the quirk that offers tourists half-price admission to attractions (never the intention of the 2 for 1 promotion) at most another 12 months.

janisj

avalon: if you mean Gillingham in Kent - no it is not in London. It is out near Rochester/Chatham and not w/i tfl territory.

chartley

Although we all enjoy American attempts at the pronounciation of British place names, now is perhaps the time to point out that Gillingham in Kent has a soft G at the beginning, while Gillingham in Dorset starts with a hard G.

Both are outside the Oyster card zone.

Strangely, Whitstable is also outside the Oyster zone. Shome mistake?

MissPrism

I hope that Barnes will be included.
It's a pain having to get a paper ticket from Waterloo.

Cholmondley_Warner

Barnes is included.

PatrickLondon

>>Strangely, Whitstable is also outside the Oyster zone. Shome mistake?<<

London is biding its time. Today Whitstable - tomorrow the world!

yk

Thanks for the update. Perhaps it's time to plan another trip to London...

nyse

Flanner, you said:
<i>I'd give the quirk that offers tourists half-price admission to attractions (never the intention of the 2 for 1 promotion) at most another 12 months.</i>

So what was the original intent - was it designed for Brits only?
Thanks as always--

PatrickLondon

>>So what was the original intent - was it designed for Brits only?<<

It's intended to get the regular commuters and occasional shoppers from outer London and beyond to bring someone else along to fill up the trains at other times.

janisj

we've had this discussion before. As Patrick explains, daysout 2 for 1's were intended to promote out-of-commute train travel. It is only a fluke that paper "rail" tickets are issued at London train station for travel around on tfl tubes/buses. This allows us furiners to 'get around' it - never stepping foot on a train but still benefiting from the train sightseeing discounts.

We weren't actually <i>cheating</i> - simply taking advantage of poor marketing decisions. I think overseas visitors to London probably use these 2 for 1's as much or more than those living in the UK. Which doesn't profit the train companies very much at all . . . .

flanneruk

2 for 1's aren't a poor marketing decision. They're a technique which, to judge by the crowds on midmorning trains into London from places 50-100 miles outside, is jolly successful at increasing offpeak medium-distance traffic.

What they were never intended to do was subsidise foreign tourists - or provide a backdoor way for Londoners to get half-price admission to things like the Tower.

But, with railway London-area travel now available on Oyster, the days of paper vouchers for railway season tickets within zones 1-9 have to be numbered. Once they're abolished (and that'll take some time, because there a still a lot of wrinkles for regular commuters in how Oysters work on trains and there's a lot of public squabbling as a result: the paper vouchers won't disappear till the ructions have died down), 2 for 1's are bound to be limited to holders of "real" train tickets.

NOT because there's any lobby to stop the tourist loophole - but because there's a strong argument to discourage paper tickets.

Mind you, holders of tickets from the four rail-linked London airports will probably still qualify for 2 for 1, so there'll be a whole raft of new small print that forums like this will be gleefully explaining. Suddenly, the Heathrow Connect will become the smart way to get into town from LHR: though LHR tube station and Feltham railway station are in TFL Zone 6, LHR railway station isn't.

janisj

flanner: I didn't mean it was a poor marketing decision in general. I meant the loopholes that allowed folks who never set foot on a train to get the discounts too. They could have put some sort of limitations in place -- maybe only tix from stations outside tfl zones (or at least the central ones) or some other way to prevent the 'get around'

flanneruk

"They could have put some sort of limitations in place"

Politically impossible. Believe me, I've been there, got the T shirt and practically been sent to the Tower over just such a problem. I could write the questions in the House now and what every tabloid and government-thumping aspirant MP would say and do.

Irrelevant that trains are run by commercial companies. You mess with the universal service obligation of any formerly nationalised company at your peril. And, if you're a Labour minster representing a marginal SE constituency, certain jobloss.