The London 2 for 1 with rail ticket purchase is scheduled to end 4/30/2011. Any guess as to whether this will be extended? Has it been extended in the past?

Commercial decisions predictable? Who knows?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZbEC5th9ao

Wasn't looking for certainty, lol. Just more input as to whether this is an offer that seems to keep being extended. Guess I'll find out on May 1st...

Given that this promotion has been running a VERY long time it's virtually certain it will continue - what will change is the list of offers

It has been running since my honeymoon to London in 2003...I think they change what is 2for1 periodically, so businesses only have to commit for a certain time so thats likely what it is and then company's sign on for another period. The biggies have always been included, I suppose that could change, but its unlikely.

The question that affects most people visiting this form isn't <b>whether</b> the 2 for 1 offer will be extended (it has been for years) but <b> when </b> they will abolish the increasingly irrelevant railway-issued London public transport pass that gives tourists access to the offer.

The offer was invented to encourage people to travel for pleasure round Britain by train. Millions of Britons live in the Transport for London area, and many of them use above-ground trains to get about - so the offer really had to include train travel into London for people in the suburbs. In turn, that led to the ridiculous anomaly of its being available to foreign tourists already in London if they bought their London transport pass from a railway station rather than from a TfL office.

Since Oystercards now work on London suburban trains, demand for the railway-issued paper Travelcard is rapidly falling: it's now almost only sold to tourists as a backdoor way of accessing the 2 for 1 offer that was never intended for them in the first place. The whole point of Oystercards is to wean people off the archaiac and expensive use of paper tickets.

At some point, the paper railway-issued Travelcards will just disappear. My guess is they'll be killed in spring 2012, as part of a package of Olympics-linked Oystercard initiatives.

But who can say?

You are absolutely correct in that the only reason I would buy the paper issued Travelcard is for the 2 for 1 offer. So, backdoor or not, I will take advantage of the offer if it exists in September.

"I will take advantage of the offer if it exists in September."

And you'd be a fool not to. Just as TfL will eventually realise it's a fool wasting taxpayers' money paying commercial train operators to sell tickets it's spent tens of millions making obsolete.

Grab it while you can.