Mind the Gap's mind your wallet travel tips!
Post categories: Oyster card, Transport for London
| 11:54 UK time, Wednesday, 26 January 2011
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Getting around the capital on public transport is becoming more and more expensive and there's little end in sight to the rises.
So I've decided to try and save us all a few quid and help compile a list of money saving tricks - all legit and above board.
There are actually quite a few ways you can save cash getting around the capital on the Tube and trains.
Here are a selection to hopefully get the list started:
Season ticket Gold card
A BBC cameraman colleague of mine Peter Kendall (and all round good egg) is an absolute master at saving money on fares. (Cameramen always like a bargain especially if it's good grub).
Peter also writes to the The Times now and again complaining about rail fare increases. Anyway I digress. Peter travels off-peak (after 10am) using First Capital Connect.
His tip is get a Gold Card - it's normally given to anyone who buys a season ticket. The bonus is you can get a third off the off-peak ticket price.
Now the trick is getting the cheapest Gold Card. And the cheapest season ticket is on the Isle of Wight. He bought one for £132 and he reckons it saves him £450 over the year.
And when it comes to the Gold Card there are other bonuses.
Railcard benefits
One of the new benefits was only introduced at the beginning of the year.
It has not been publicised at all well and I only found out about it by trawling on TfL's website. In fact, many staff members themselves don't know about it even though it is on the back of one of the booklets. And it will probably take some persuasion to convince the ticket clerk that it actually exists.
However, if you have a Gold Card you can get a THIRD off off-peak Oyster Pay As You Go on Tube fares.
So, for example, you get an off-peak single fare for £1.25 instead of £1.90. And it gives you a third off the off-peak cap.
In effect you get an off-peak travelcard for a two thirds of the cost. Peak hours are 0630-0930 and 1600-1900.
You have to take your Gold Card and Oyster card to a ticket office so they can add the discount to your Oyster profile.
The discount was made available to TfL services to bring in consistency across transport services in Greater London. This is what the TfL site has to say.
If you have either a:
- Senior Railcard
- 16-25 Railcard
- Disabled Persons Railcard
- Gold Card
- HM Forces Railcard
You can get:
34 per cent off a off-peak Pay As You Go single fares on Tube, DLR, London Overground and National Rail (previously was just National Rail and London Overground).
34 per cent off off-peak daily price caps on the Tube, DLR, London Overground and National Rail.
To get the discounted Oyster fares you need to add your Railcard details to your Oyster card. You can do this at all Tube, London Overground and some National Rail ticket offices.
Incidentally, London TravelWatch say:
"The ticketing system can be incredibly difficult for passengers to understand, and the discounts incredibly hard to find. We'd like to see companies work harder to ensure that passengers are properly informed about the best and cheapest tickets, and we always advise passengers to do plenty of research."
New off-peak Zone 1 fare
This is another little addition to the ticketing system.
Clearly it only applies to those who can move their day around a bit.
The TfL site says:
"If you're travelling into Zone 1 on Tube, DLR, London Overground or some National Rail services between 16:00 and 19:00 on Mondays to Fridays, you will be charged an off peak fare when using Oyster pay as you go.
This could save you up to £2.50 per trip. Remember, you're charged according to when you touch your Oyster card on the yellow card reader at the start of your journey. So if you touch in at the start of your journey between 16:00 and 19:00 and touch out in Zone 1 at the end of your journey, you will be charged an off-peak fare."
If there are any others as I'm sure there are then please add them below and if I've saved you a few quid please also let me know!
Follow me on Twitter: @TomSEdwards
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~52~RS~)
© 2012
Comments
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Doesn't the Network Goldcard have the same minimum fare on a weekday as the standard Network Southeast card? This means no discount below a £13 spend.
This was an un-noticed increase a couple of years ago from a £10 minimum. It saw a regular journey I did at the time go up by almost 30%!
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the Money Savins Experts website (i don't work for them...) has got a whole bunch of tips on cheaper train fares - mainly applies to NR though, and not TFL. it's here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-train-tickets
Now Tom, if you could now just simply explain how the OEP (Oyster Extension Permit) works, and WHEN it should be used, that'd be excellent... thanks...
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Kit - Reliably informed there is no minimum fare on Gold card. Obviously you'd have to run the numbers to see if it's worth getting one. And yes like you say there is a minimum on Network cards.
Geoff - OEP - you are meant to load one onto your oyster if you go outside your travelcard boundary. IE go to a national rail station in zone 5 and you have a zone 1-4 travelcard. Tfl and the Mayor openly say they are a complete waste of time and effort but the rail companies want them I think to stop fare dodging. Personally I think their days are numbered .....
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I don't understand what the Season Ticket Gold Card gets you above what the £25 network railcard gets you? (Other than free travel on the Isle of Wight.) They're both a one-third discount on off-peak services; same geographical area, same oyster benefits...
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Yes, the big advantage of the Gold Card over the Network card is that there is no minimum fare so for fares up to £13 it beats the Network card every time on weekdays. Beyond that you need to do your sums to see if the Network card is the better option. Both cards can only be used after 10am on weekdays.
By the way, the cheapest way to get a Gold Card is still to buy a season from Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St Johns Road, now £140 after the latest fare increse. Newhaven Town to Newhaven Harbour is the same price.
A Gold Card also lets you buy a Network Card for a friend or relative for £1 instead of the normal £25.
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There is lots of useful information about Oyster and National Rail in London on this independant website: www.oyster-rail.org.uk
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Another wonderful thing about Gold Cards (and Network Railcards) is that the benefit doesn't just apply to you. In fact you can take up three other people with you and get the discount for them. You can also take kids with you (up to four) and get 60% off.
There are other advantages to Gold Cards like being able to upgrade to first class for a fiver on off peak trains, even during the week (as long as it's not for the journey you buy your ticket for). You can also use one to buy someone a Network Railcard for a pound.
Finally this is a useful one that people don't always realise. With an Oyster you can get extensions outside your zone in London. I'm sure most people know that. However you can also get extensions out of London too. So I have a zone 1-3 travelcard and last weekend I went to Eastbourne. I I got a cheaper ticket from Boundary Zone 3 to Eastbourne. Add that to my Gold Card discount and the normal £26.30 fare went down to £14.65.
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This from @swlines: "Worth noting that the off-peak travelcard cap on Oyster doesn't have an evening peak"
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TfL has had information about the railcard for a while now on its website, under the fares section. However, you're absolutely right about staff being unaware of it or suggesting that the discount cannot be used with other photocards
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Sorry, correction. I was incorrectly informed by rail staff that I could not add a railcard to a photocard, which I had already done at another station on a previous photocard
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@Joe Dunckley: You cannot load a Network card discount onto an Oystercard because the minimum fare on Mon-Fri means that it is never cheaper to use that card within the travelcard zones.
@Peter K: The 'ticket to Ryde' is slightly better value because you also get other concessions like free tickets offered by SWT (the owner of Island Line). Also, when attached to an Oystercard, the discount starts at 0930 rather than 1000, although for single tickets (as opposed to the off-peak cap) you won't get it between 1600 and 1900.
Finally some trivia, There are over 100 Ryde annual season tickets sold every year, but very few, if any, are ever seen on the Island.
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To Joe Dunckley - the benefit of a Gold Card over a Network railcard is that the latter *can't* be loaded onto Oyster, and is far more limited in its powers. With a Network railcard there is a £13 minimum fare Monday-Friday, for instance, whereas there's never any minimum for Gold Card-discounted travel.
Gold Cards were initially overlooked when Oyster PAYG started being accepted on all National Rail services in London last year. I lobbied for them to be permitted to be added to Oyster and eventually this happened after 5-6 months (although I don't think it was entirely my doing!). I'm delighted TfL have extended this to their services this year - not least because now I don't have to suffer Southeastern's abysmal service to get cheaper travel into London!
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We clearly have some experts posting here! So thank you. Please post any links that you think may be of use RE Oyster etc.
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I've just worked out how to do links, so here is the independent Oyster and National Rail Guide.
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yeah, the trouble with OEP's (apart from the fact that no one knows what they are!), is that they only apply to Travelcard Oystercard holders. I've had PAYG friends be confused as to whether they need one of course.
(But that just stems from Oyster itself being slightly confusing in being able to be two types of ticket)
Even if (like me) you're an Oyster Travelcard user, you have to remember that...
- You'll only be able to use an OEP if there's a certain minimum PAYG balance on your card (which is ridiculous, it's because they don't trust you)
- And it's because of that non-trust that if you make a journey within your zones, normally you don't have to touch in and touch out. (I have a Zone 1-3 travelcard, and never touch in or out if the barrier is open), but if there's a surplus OEP on your card and you touch in, then it's essential that you touch out. If you don't touch out, it's assumed that you'd gone off to a far flung zone and you'll get charged the maximum cash fare.
- And it's possible for to happen (have a surplus OEP), because if you buy an OEP on your card and the not use it (because you cut your journey short) it will be stored away until the next time it's needed, even a year into the future.
it's very complicated...
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Wow, it is all rather confusing isn't it! The Isle of Wight tip is pretty good though for those of us that have to travel out of London quite regularly, I could save quite a lot of money, which is always a bonus! Though I am sure there will soon be some sort of restrictions appearing with the gold card if everyone rushes to buy an Isle of Wight season ticket. I didn't even realise they had any trains on the Isle of Wight!
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Gold Cards: Other benefits of having a Gold Card compared to a normal Network Railcard include a flat fare of £1.00 for up to four Children accompanying the cardholder (against a discount of around 60% with the normal Network Railcard) and the ability to purchase a First Class upgrade for £5.00 Adult/£2.50 Child. A Gold Card holder can also purchase a Network Railcard for another person for £1.00, though those take the standard Netwok Railcard rules.
Oyster Extension Permits: An even bigger kludge to Oyster than the pink routeing validators found at various stations. The rules surrounding them are complex and manage to confuse staff, let alone passengers!
Basically: If you're starting from a station inside the zones covered by your Travelcard and travelling to one outside, you need an OEP...unless you're travelling by Underground, the DLR or the Overground.
If you're starting from a station outside the zones covered by your Travelcard, you don't, as the system will already know that when you touch in.
This leads to the silly situation where someone holding, say, a Zone 2 to 6 Travelcard and wishing to travel from Finsbury Park to Kings Cross needs an OEP if they use First Capital Connect, but not if they use the Piccadilly or Victoria Line.
Incidentally, TfL changed their Conditions of Carriage in January 2010, and *all* Oyster holders are required to touch in and out now, whether using Pay As You Go or a Season Ticket.
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Network Card railcard holders can buy a paper Zone 1-6 Travelcard on Saturdays and Sundays for £5.30.
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The Gold Card discount on Oyster is not that new - it's been available since Spring last year although as you say it's very well hidden on the TfL website.
In my experience, South West Trains and to some extent TfL ticket office staff have not been very impressive at actually applying the discount. SWT (they have 2 ticket offices that sell Oyster - Richmond and Wimbledon) told me several times that it's not possible and asked why would I want it anyway, as I can just buy a paper ticket instead (hmmm..) and had no interest whatsoever in checking any further, even when presented with a copy of the TfL website. TfL were much better but it still took a few attempts at different stations.
The moral of the story is that for a better chance of success go to a major TfL ticket office (Liverpool St were very helpful last year, and Waterloo this year) where you're more likely to find ticket office staff who are aware of this discount.
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Rob Watkins' comment is spot on except that he misses what *is* new about Gold Card discount on Oyster: until this month, it only applied to journeys including National Rail in them. Now it applies to all off-peak Oyster PAYG rail journeys, regardless of whether 'rail' means National Rail, Underground, DLR or Overground.
There's a timeline of the developments which have sometimes improved but usually complicated the Oyster PAYG fares situation on my new blog.
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Bitoclass - very interesting and informative blog post and I stand corrected! My Oyster travelcard season ticket covers all the zones I'd use the tube/DLR in (1-3) so hadn't realised it was NR only until just now.
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Question - if you have purchased a TfL season ticket - e.g. Annual 1-2 travelcard, you automatically get a gold card with it. Does the gold card discount get applied to my Oystercard automatically, or do I have to request it?
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Just got this email:
"Following your story the other day that London transport wasn't telling people about the discounts you get on a pay as you go oystercard, with a network rail card I thought you might make a hilarious piece about the runaround you get when you try your discount. You could film your reporter as he phones the oyster helpline and they tell him (sometimes) the discount does exist over and over again, while London transport customer services and every tube station say it doesn't exist. The oyster helpline people won't speak to London transport - they just say 'we're separate organisations and we can't make them actually tell their staff about the discount. The trouble is you can only implement it, they say, at tube stations but it seems that bosses at London transport don't even believe it exists so haven't told any staff! It will take a while even to realise this is the case as you get the runsround!"
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@Kathryn: You have to request it, although it's possible that some clued up staff will add it automatically.
@Tom: There are detailed instructions that you can give to an underground ticket office on this helpful page.
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Tom. Your correspondent suggests you highlight the difficulty of getting a discount added to the Oystercard with a Network Railcard. This wouldn't make much of a story as the Network Railcard doesn't actually entitle you to the Oyster discount!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
If your tube is more than 15 mins late then you can reclaim the fare
on
www.mytubewaslate.com
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