MSE News: Save on London train travel with Oyster

[Deleted User]

My oyster isn't registered, but I haven't seen much advertising about this either!

That said, I'm very confused - I've just checked out the TFL website.

From Orpington (zone 6) to Oxford Circus (zone 1) I paid (in 2009) £7.50 return (off-peak) and £14.60 return (peak).

According to the TFL website, I will now be paying £6 single (peak) and £4.30 single (off-peak).

Most of my travel is off-peak, so I'll now be paying £8.60 return which is a 15% increase...or have I got my sums wrong? It does work out cheaper travelling at peak times though.

becky_rtw

Looks like you've been a victim of the removal of off peak day returns as well then - can you still buy a paper ticket for £7.50 or will it be more??

[Deleted User]

And - to use a bit of an extreme example - if I travel out at 11am and back at 5pm - which I regularly do - then I actually pay £4.30 + £6.00 = £10.30, when I used to pay £5.00 (16 - 25 railcard), so that's over 50% increase...

I'm assuming I can still buy paper tickets...but then doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of them introducing Oyster onto National Rail....?

casper_g

Deleted_User wrote: »

And - to use a bit of an extreme example - if I travel out at 11am and back at 5pm - which I regularly do - then I actually pay £4.30 + £6.00 = £10.30, when I used to pay £5.00 (16 - 25 railcard), so that's over 50% increase...

I'm assuming I can still buy paper tickets...but then doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of them introducing Oyster onto National Rail....?

Actually, it's an increase of (£10.30 - £5.00)/(£5.00) = 106% !

KeithP

Deleted_User wrote: »

And - to use a bit of an extreme example - if I travel out at 11am and back at 5pm - which I regularly do - then I actually pay £4.30 + £6.00 = £10.30, when I used to pay £5.00 (16 - 25 railcard), so that's over 50% increase...

I'm assuming I can still buy paper tickets...but then doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of them introducing Oyster onto National Rail....?

Can you not still use a railcard?

[Deleted User]

I don't think so...your Oyster doesn't know if you have a railcard or not (does it?) - but I can still buy a paper ticket so I'm just being facetious.

My point was really that this appears good news, but actually it's pretty pointless unless you're travelling peak. While I accept that this probably covers the majority, what's the point of introducing this if it's going to disadvantage a lot of people and force them to use paper ticets anyway?

It's totally counter-productive, really, but just what I'd expect from TFL.

[Deleted User]

Ah hold on...it says it caps the fare at the equivalent 1-day travelcard cost, so actually the price won't be higher, or will it? Will it cap it at the off-peak cost or the peak cost?

sjb92

Deleted_User wrote: »

And - to use a bit of an extreme example - if I travel out at 11am and back at 5pm - which I regularly do - then I actually pay £4.30 + £6.00 = £10.30, when I used to pay £5.00 (16 - 25 railcard), so that's over 50% increase...

I'm assuming I can still buy paper tickets...but then doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of them introducing Oyster onto National Rail....?

You can get your Young Persons Card registered on to your Oyster card. They should be able to do this at your local rail station, but if not go to a tube station or a major rail terminus. Then you will still be charged £5 for your return journey as long as it starts after 9:30am, as the fare will be capped. If you don't have the YP card put on the Oyster then it will cap your fare at £7.50.

More generally, this year's changes are quite complicated bcause
a) peak fares have hardly changed because they're regulated
b) the introduction of Oyster means the train companies have decided to move to the tube-style system of pricing everything as singles, without the heavily discounted offpeak returns, so a return journey at an offpeak time has got a lot more expensive
c) the introduction of an evening peak period, which has been gradually going on for years (ask people trying to use an offpeak ticket to somewhere like Bedford, or tube users) has now been expanded to rail in London, so those journeys have also got more expensive
d) they've introduced through tickets for rail onto the tube on oyster - this will make trips involving tube and rail cheaper.

So it's a big old mess. Some trips cost more, as this thread shows, but some (e.g. my trip to work) are the same (or cheaper when I don't get out of the office til 7)...

AirlieBird

Deleted_User wrote: »

I don't think so...your Oyster doesn't know if you have a railcard or not (does it?) - but I can still buy a paper ticket so I'm just being facetious.

My point was really that this appears good news, but actually it's pretty pointless unless you're travelling peak. While I accept that this probably covers the majority, what's the point of introducing this if it's going to disadvantage a lot of people and force them to use paper ticets anyway?

It's totally counter-productive, really, but just what I'd expect from TFL.

You can go to a TfL ticket office and get railcards loaded onto your Oyster card and still get your discounts and benefit from discounted daily capping. The only railcard that you can't load onto an Oyster is the Network Railcard, so anyone that would have benefited from a Network Railcard discounted off-peak day return are the real losers and will experience fare increases of around 50%. They also need to purchase a paper off-peak day travelcard to benefit from the discounted all zones travelcard at weekends.

Ah hold on...it says it caps the fare at the equivalent 1-day travelcard cost, so actually the price won't be higher, or will it? Will it cap it at the off-peak cost or the peak cost?

You will be capped at off-peak costs for journeys after the morning peak. Journeys made during the morning peak will be added to the off-peak cap and capped at the peak travelcard rate. The evening peak only applies to single fares, and journeys made during this time will count towards the off-peak cap .

olly300

Deleted_User wrote: »

My oyster isn't registered, but I haven't seen much advertising about this either!

Register your oyster card in case it gets lost or swapped.

The newsagent swapped my card over when I was topping it up. I therefore rang up oyster and retrieved both my own money and the person who had topped-up my original card money back.