London Travelcard rules

yorkie2

KevinG wrote: »

Thank you, that is reassuring but does beg the question as to why I am not offered that option when booking online. Out of interest I tried thetrainline.com and that was even worse (£96.85), because I think they add a percentage on top.

Apologies if it's already posted but can you confirm the exact search you require, ie:

From: Crawley
To: St Pancras
Date/time of outward journey:
Date/time of return journey:
Number of passengers:
Railcards held (if any)


I'll be happy to take a look

Cornucopia

I checked the OP's journeys (without knowing the dates) and can confirm that Travelcard is not offered in the reverse direction on this journey.

It may be a mistake, or it may be that it is deemed a "ticket hack" outside of the main rules of the ticketing algorithm.

You can easily see this:-

CRW - STP tomorrow at 10:45am = £17.20 Off-peak Travelcard

STP - CRW tomorrow at 10:45am = £24.40 Off-peak single (and the Travelcard button isn't even shown as an option)

KevinG

yorkie2 wrote: »

Apologies if it's already posted but can you confirm the exact search you require, ie:

From: Crawley
To: St Pancras
Date/time of outward journey:
Date/time of return journey:
Number of passengers:
Railcards held (if any)


I'll be happy to take a look

OK, I will trust that nobody traces this back to me and my house isn't broken into:

2 adults, 1 with Senior railcard, 2 children aged 5-15.
Out 22 Aug to arrive St P at about 1300.
Return 28 Aug to depart St P at about 1400.

Cornucopia has also confirmed the sort of fares I was seeing but my case is made a lot worse by not having the child flat fares on the return journey.

martindow

Are there CIV fares to London International from Crawley? These are not shown on rail company or third party (Traveline, etc.) sites. The OP could find out about these from a ticket office or from Eurostar.

KevinG

martindow wrote: »

Are there CIV fares to London International from Crawley? These are not shown on rail company or third party (Traveline, etc.) sites. The OP could find out about these from a ticket office or from Eurostar.

I've already looked into this following an earlier suggestion in the thread and it doesn't help.

yorkie2

Cornucopia wrote: »

I checked the OP's journeys (without knowing the dates) and can confirm that Travelcard is not offered in the reverse direction on this journey.

It may be a mistake, or it may be that it is deemed a "ticket hack" outside of the main rules of the ticketing algorithm.

You can easily see this:-

CRW - STP tomorrow at 10:45am = £17.20 Off-peak Travelcard

STP - CRW tomorrow at 10:45am = £24.40 Off-peak single (and the Travelcard button isn't even shown as an option)

The price of a single ticket from St Pancras to Crawley is higher than the price of a Travelcard from Crawley to London Zones 1-6.

However there is absolutely nothing to stop you buying the latter and only using the return portion!

Alternatively, Trainsplit will sell you a combination of tickets for a total of £28.75.


(Other "splitting" providers include the TrainAI and TrainPal apps, though I've not checked the results of these)

KevinG

yorkie2 wrote: »

However there is absolutely nothing to stop you buying the latter and only using the return portion!

That's pretty much what I've been trying to establish. As I indicated much earlier, I doubt it would operate the automatic gates but that shouldn't be a problem.

martindow

yorkie2 wrote: »

The price of a single ticket from St Pancras to Crawley is higher than the price of a Travelcard from Crawley to London Zones 1-6.

However there is absolutely nothing to stop you buying the latter and only using the return portion!

Travelcard tickets from my local station are a single piece of card - there is no return portion. I don't imagine that the ticket machines record the journey details or show that the first use is not at Crawley, or if this would be an issue in any case.

KevinG

martindow wrote: »

Travelcard tickets from my local station are a single piece of card - there is no return portion. I don't imagine that the ticket machines record the journey details or show that the first use is not at Crawley, or if this would be an issue in any case.

That's how they are everywhere. In my experience the ticket gates are fussy about such things but, as you say, I doubt it will matter.

martindow

KevinG wrote: »

That's how they are everywhere. In my experience the ticket gates are fussy about such things but, as you say, I doubt it will matter.

It's not uncommon to have travelcards that don't work at all with tube station gates. When I've had this staff just wave you through with a cursory glance at the ticket.