Cheaper to buy a daily than a yearly season ticket. Harlow to Kings X

redux

wealdroam wrote: »

If you don't want the travelcard features in your annual season ticket, get a season ticket to Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale from Harlow and use pay as you go with Oyster or contactless for the remainder of your journey.

An annual season ticket from Harlow to Liverpool Street is £3496.00.
An annual season ticket from Harlow to Tottenham Hale is £2784.00.

I'll leave you to work out the payg fares, weekly caps, etc. to get to your ultimate destination.

And
zone 1-3 annual travelcard [STRIKE]£1080[/STRIKE] £1548
zone 1-1 annual travelcard [STRIKE]£920[/STRIKE] £1320

So possibly £4332 Harlow -Tottenham Hale - Kings Cross - (zone 1?)


Or
Harlow - Cheshunt annual £928
zone 1-8 annual travelcard [STRIKE]£2164[/STRIKE] £3092

I'm not expert enough to know - can the trip be split like this at Cheshunt (national rail to TfL) and is it necessary to get off the train to scan an Oyster/travelcard on a machine there?

Or am I getting something wrong?


Edit: I just realised I accidentally used Apprentice price travelcards. I'll look at editing or deleting this post. Now done.

ctbfc

cookie365 wrote: »

If the OP is comparing to the price of an annual season ticket, I guess they're going to be commuting. Which usually involves taking early trains. So it won't be long before an inspector does indeed start asking questions.

The time the ticket was printed shows very clearly - so are you suggesting that the OP gets up an hour and a half early, goes to the station, buys their ticket, goes home for a bit, then goes back to the station to get the train to work?

I've never been to Harlow, but last time I bought a Greater Anglia ticket on a machine you couldn't select a different departure station. So the OP will have to buy from the ticket office. How many times before the staff get suspicious? Twice? Three times? More than 229 times?

So maybe the OP could buy online and collect from a machine? Great, until somebody does start asking questions and has a look at their account, at which point they'll start asking other questions like 'Why do you always go from London to Harlow and back when you live in Harlow?' and 'When I download this handy complete list of previous fraudulent transactions for the prosecution team, would they prefer it in xlsx or csv format?'

So let's imagine the OP has a 99% success rate at fooling the ticket inspectors. They'll only get caught twice in one year! Fines and admin expense of getting caught twice should more or less eat up any saving.

You are of course right that it is fraudulent etc, however you are vastly overestimating the competence of revenue protection staff!

OP could buy a months worth of tickets online and collect at a machine, or pay in cash at any UK ticket office so the print time would have no relevance to the time of the journey...

I am just a weary commuter - not had my ticket looked at for years.

cookie365

ctbfc wrote: »

You are of course right that it is fraudulent etc, however you are vastly overestimating the competence of revenue protection staff!

OP could buy a months worth of tickets online and collect at a machine, or pay in cash at any UK ticket office so the print time would have no relevance to the time of the journey...

I am just a weary commuter - not had my ticket looked at for years.

So, you'll be happy to personally indemnify the OP for any penalty fares or court fines he incurs when he gets caught?