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Why is being 1 stop out of zone 6 so difficult?
eskimo26
Posts: 897 Forumite
It's so convoluted.
Is it cheaper to journey into zone 6 and go from there?
Is it cheaper to get a return ticket or use oyster [does oyster upgrade the ticket into a return for you or charge you two singles?]
It's horrible with rip-off prices the second you step one stop out of zone 6 and an insanely over complicated number of options.
National rail indicates that oyster will do the equivalent of a return journey so i'll probably go with that but it is absurd.
Oh just to really rub !!!!! in our faces the town 10 minutes up the road has been designated zone 6 as a 'special exception' but we are not! It's not easy to get to it from here by public transport either.
Just had a look and zone 6 to kingston is £5 return with oyster but zone 7 [about 3 mins. between the train stops] is £12! How can this be justified? Why is it the london zones aren't even in london sometimes they just stick them where they feel like it and expect people not to feel hard done by.
Is it cheaper to journey into zone 6 and go from there?
Is it cheaper to get a return ticket or use oyster [does oyster upgrade the ticket into a return for you or charge you two singles?]
It's horrible with rip-off prices the second you step one stop out of zone 6 and an insanely over complicated number of options.
National rail indicates that oyster will do the equivalent of a return journey so i'll probably go with that but it is absurd.
Oh just to really rub !!!!! in our faces the town 10 minutes up the road has been designated zone 6 as a 'special exception' but we are not! It's not easy to get to it from here by public transport either.
Just had a look and zone 6 to kingston is £5 return with oyster but zone 7 [about 3 mins. between the train stops] is £12! How can this be justified? Why is it the london zones aren't even in london sometimes they just stick them where they feel like it and expect people not to feel hard done by.
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have the zone boundaries actually changed, or did you just not realise where they were before you moved to your location?The questions that get the best answers are the questions that give most detail....0
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have the zone boundaries actually changed, or did you just not realise where they were before you moved to your location?
We've lived here for decades and each and every price hike they absolutely hammer us. They know they can do what they like because so many people work in london.
Meanwhile it seems like london is on a two tier system with oyster giving substantial discount for no conceivable reason and the price creep has been no where close to what we've had. [i studied and lived in london about 7 years ago so can gauge it pretty well.]
It's down to a few things:
companies being very greedy and being allowed to get away with it
companies that are not able to agree on which stations should be in zone 6 [as is the case with epsom downs which is and epsom which isn't].
No real effort to smooth the transition into zone 6- it just jumps up exponentially for no functional reason just the fact that someone has put up a make believe boundary.
I wouldn't mind if their was some cohesion, it would be nice for example if i could touch out my oyster at my zone 7 stop even if the price is no different it mean i don't have to faff about splitting ticket prices a million different ways or thinking about which zone 6 station i have to get to before starting my actual journey.
It's a real mess. Right now I have to buy a return from zone 7 to 6 to cover that leg of the journey then i can oyster it and save a LOT of money. The thing is it didn't occur to me before, i've been buying tickets straight from zone 7 which is the normal thing to do and losing a LOT of money. The price bump from zone 6 to 7 and the whole effort of using your oyster when you can't touch it out is crazy.
I'll pay a couple of quid more but don't take the !!!! and absolutely rip me off. We are talking about a difference of £7 to kingston simply for being one station over.0 -
Purchase the tickets from the Train Line during works time, and collect on your way home if you can.
Its just a formality then. Don't forget Quidco.
I suspect there are others in your situation, where they don't realise and I would start to tell people what you have found and they may start to do the same.0 -
Whatever you do, there is no need to book anything from the Trainline who add extra fees that other companies do not. They have to pay for their ads somehow!Alias_Omega wrote: »Purchase the tickets from the Train Line during works time, and collect on your way home if you can.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/may/04/consumeraffairs.railtravel0 -
I get a similar issue when I travel home (into zone 3) from Gatwick.
It is much cheaper to get a ticket to the rail station I have to change at, exit, and re-enter using Oyster for the last part of the journey, than it is to buy a ticket for the full journey.
The price difference between Oyster areas and wider rail leads to other journey changes too, for example, the cheapest way for me to get to Stansted is to use a combination of rail and Underground to get across London (cheap as all within Oyster zones), then get Easybus to complete the last part of the journey, which would cost far more using rail.
It is just companies maximising profit, variations on that theme are present within most industries. The rewards are there for customers who research and understand the structure, but the amount lost to those consumers is outweighed by those who pay more than necessary for convenience.0 -
hugheskevi wrote: »It is just companies maximising profit, variations on that theme are present within most industries. The rewards are there for customers who research and understand the structure, but the amount lost to those consumers is outweighed by those who pay more than necessary for convenience.
you make it sound as if the system is designed to make trawling through multiple different routes cost effective. No it's just down to incompetence, on their part, lucky for us.0 -
I'd have thought the boundary of the zonal areas correspond to the Greater London boundary.
Where are you exactly? Sunbury/Kempton Park (I assume) are in the Borough of Spelthorne, whilst Kingston is a London Borough Council.
The boundary has to be somewhere :undecided0 -
Sorry to hear that, but what is? Maybe we can help.It's so convoluted.
It might be. Where is your origin and destination?Is it cheaper to journey into zone 6 and go from there?
It depends, but if you can post your travel requirements we can help.Is it cheaper to get a return ticket or use oyster [does oyster upgrade the ticket into a return for you or charge you two singles?]
Oyster PAYG fares are charged for single journeys, with capping when you reach certain limits. However the details for capping are changing in a couple of weeks.
It depends on where you are. For example Epsom is outside Zone 6, and yet a Travelcard from Epsom to Zones 1-6travelling on Southern is cheaper than a Travelcard for just Zones 1-6.It's horrible with rip-off prices the second you step one stop out of zone 6 and an insanely over complicated number of options.
So I am guessing you're not from Epsom, but I won't do any more guessing as it could take a while...!
I don't quite follow.I
National rail indicates that oyster will do the equivalent of a return journey so i'll probably go with that but it is absurd.
Can you get a lift? or cycle?I
Oh just to really rub !!!!! in our faces the town 10 minutes up the road has been designated zone 6 as a 'special exception' but we are not! It's not easy to get to it from here by public transport either.
Zone 7 stations are:I
Just had a look and zone 6 to kingston is £5 return with oyster but zone 7 [about 3 mins. between the train stops] is £12! How can this be justified? Why is it the london zones aren't even in london sometimes they just stick them where they feel like it and expect people not to feel hard done by.- Chorleywood
- Rickmansworth
- Watford
- Croxley
- Carpenders Park
- Theobalds Grove
- Waltham Cross
The number of minutes it takes to travel between station stops isn't a factor that has any bearing on fares, though.0 -
[QUOTE=eskimo26;67288721
companies that are not able to agree on which stations should be in zone 6 [as is the case with epsom downs which is and epsom which isn't].[/QUOTE]
Epsom Downs is a relatively quiet branch line station at the end of a quiet residential street, so it makes sense to have artificially lower fares compared to Epsom.
However from next month some passengers will benefit from buying a paper Travelcard from Epsom (for use on Southern only) as that is cheaper than a Travelcard that only covers Zones 1-6!
There's a discussion about this on another forum but some members will get flustered if I link to it, so maybe I'd best not!;)0
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