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Oyster to Gatwick

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blakey1152

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Oyster is generally cheaper but be wary of the Travelcard / mix mode premium that used to occur. Not sure if it still does.

Briefly, I regularly have a zone 4-6 Travelcard and I made a journey from Stratford International to Slade Green using the DLR and changing at Woolwich Arsenal. I stupidly thought I would get charged the DLR fare from Stratford to Woolwich but because I continued to Slade Green on National Rail it cost me 10 pence more! - TfL initially said no to a refund as its a mix mode journey but I kicked up a bit of a stink as in my eyes I felt I was being charged 10p to use my Travelcard in the zones where it was valid!!!! (I got that 10p back!)

But it wouldn't surprise me if someone with a 1-6 Travelcard starting from a central London tube station got charged more than if they had started the journey to Gatwick from Victoria....with the mix mode fare! :)

Blakey
 

talldave

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Oyster is generally cheaper but be wary of the Travelcard / mix mode premium that used to occur. Not sure if it still does.

Briefly, I regularly have a zone 4-6 Travelcard and I made a journey from Stratford International to Slade Green using the DLR and changing at Woolwich Arsenal. I stupidly thought I would get charged the DLR fare from Stratford to Woolwich but because I continued to Slade Green on National Rail it cost me 10 pence more! - TfL initially said no to a refund as its a mix mode journey but I kicked up a bit of a stink as in my eyes I felt I was being charged 10p to use my Travelcard in the zones where it was valid!!!! (I got that 10p back!)

But it wouldn't surprise me if someone with a 1-6 Travelcard starting from a central London tube station got charged more than if they had started the journey to Gatwick from Victoria....with the mix mode fare! :)

Blakey

Another advantage of a paper ticket - you know what you're paying in advance without any surprises.
 

MikeWh

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But it wouldn't surprise me if someone with a 1-6 Travelcard starting from a central London tube station got charged more than if they had started the journey to Gatwick from Victoria....with the mix mode fare! :)

Blakey

In that scenario they will be charged the fare from BZ6 to Gatwick wherever they start. The mix mode would only make a difference if the travelcard didn't involve zones 1-2.
 

mattdickinson

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Oyster fares for stations to Gatwick Airport and the Gatwick Express are now shown on the 2016 fares tab of the TfL single fare finder.
 

JonathanH

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Oyster fares for stations to Gatwick Airport and the Gatwick Express are now shown on the 2016 fares tab of the TfL single fare finder.

A few things - seems to be loads of inconsistencies or mistakes

1) the fares are for information only so don't apply immediately from 2 January
2) travelling anywhere off the Victoria / London Bridge / Waterloo to Gatwick route appears to carry a premium - compare fares from Wandsworth Town to Gatwick against those from Clapham Junction to Gatwick - strangely the fare is cheaper if you go via Waterloo
3) Differential pricing applies with no off-peak fare for Gatwick Express from Victoria but no differential pricing is shown for journeys from elsewhere in London to Gatwick - perhaps the Victoria to Gatwick bit is treated as a new journey with no OSI on the platform 13/14 barriers?
4) Upminster to Redhill is more expensive off-peak if you avoid Zone 1 by Canada Water and touch the pink reader than if you go via London

I'm sure there are more.
 

bnm

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Is there a go live date announced yet? All I can find online is "later in January".
 

sammyg901

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definitely something odd about the fares or their descriptions at least - for example Surbiton to Horley you'd do via Clapham Junction - yet it has the off peak fare at £8.60 or £6.50 "Using National Rail services only via Waterloo/Waterloo East" - which is an unlikely route!
 

Stats

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Is there a go live date announced yet? All I can find online is "later in January".

I don't think they'll make the go live date public until it's gone live. If there's a problem on launch day and have to postpone it, they won't want people turning up having previously told they can use Oyster going through the barriers with Oyster at Victoria and finding it isn't valid when they get to Gatwick!

definitely something odd about the fares or their descriptions at least - for example Surbiton to Horley you'd do via Clapham Junction - yet it has the off peak fare at £8.60 or £6.50 "Using National Rail services only via Waterloo/Waterloo East" - which is an unlikely route!

Having looked at a few fares to Horley, it looks to me like the fares aren't route specific. It looks like there is a single set of fares that are being charged for off direct line of route journeys regardless of where your journey starts.

The avoiding Z1 National Rail only fare 11.40/8.60
The any zone LU/NR fare 12.70/8.70
Z1 National Rail only fare 10.50/6.50
 

infobleep

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I don't think they'll make the go live date public until it's gone live. If there's a problem on launch day and have to postpone it, they won't want people turning up having previously told they can use Oyster going through the barriers with Oyster at Victoria and finding it isn't valid when they get to Gatwick!



Having looked at a few fares to Horley, it looks to me like the fares aren't route specific. It looks like there is a single set of fares that are being charged for off direct line of route journeys regardless of where your journey starts.

The avoiding Z1 National Rail only fare 11.40/8.60
The any zone LU/NR fare 12.70/8.70
Z1 National Rail only fare 10.50/6.50
If I've understood correctly, most people would change at Clapham Junction for Surbiton to Horley but those who want to save money will help clog up Waterloo and London Bridge a bit more. It's not like they have lots of passengers already!
 

Stats

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Yes, it's very odd pricing. Is it the only Oyster fare where it's cheaper to go via zone 1 than avoid zone 1?

I've been looking at the Gatwick fares, and they seem to me to be

National Rail* only from/thru Z1 14.00/8.00
National Rail* only avoiding Z1 11.40/8.60
LU/National Rail any zone 16.20/10.20
Gatwick Express 19.80

* excluding LO West Anglia stations which are charged the LU/NR any zone fare.

More odd pricing in that its cheaper to avoid Z1 in the peak, but more expensive off peak.
 
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DynamicSpirit

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Yes, it's very odd pricing. Is it the only Oyster fare where it's cheaper to go via zone 1 than avoid zone 1?

I imagine it's very rare but there may be a few other such quirks. One that I was aware of 3-4 years ago (dunno if it's still the case) was travelling from Woolwich to Wimbledon, which used to be a regular commute for me. For some reason that I never understood, if you went the normal route via Waterloo East/Waterloo and touched out/in there, the fare charged was always 10p cheaper than if you went on a route that didn't require touching in/out en route. That would imply that if you tried to avoid zone 1 by travelling Woolwich-Lewisham-Peckham Rye-Wimbledon, you'd pay more than going via zone 1.
 

JonathanH

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Yes, it's very odd pricing. Is it the only Oyster fare where it's cheaper to go via zone 1 than avoid zone 1?

I've been looking at the Gatwick fares, and they seem to me to be

National Rail* only from/thru Z1 14.00/8.00
National Rail* only avoiding Z1 11.40/8.60
LU/National Rail any zone 16.20/10.20
Gatwick Express 19.80

* excluding LO West Anglia stations which are charged the LU/NR any zone fare.

More odd pricing in that its cheaper to avoid Z1 in the peak, but more expensive off peak.

There are also some anomolies created where it is more expensive to touch on a pink reader - e.g. Gatwick Airport to Greenwich is cheaper off-peak if you don't touch the pink reader at Surrey Quays.

There are some cheaper fares where the change from Southern trains is before London eg Gatwick to Waddon or Kent House £8.20/£6.60 but only when changing to Southern or Southeastern, not South West Trains. The off-peak fare to Waddon is more expensive than a paper ticket. Indeed, an off-peak return from Gatwick to Waddon is less than £6.60. This £8.20/£6.60 fare applies from all of the stations to which Oyster is being extended to anywhere served by Southern or Southeastern outside a triangle bounded by the lines from Victoria and London Bridge to East Croydon.

Stations between Herne Hill and Sydenham Hill have their own set of fares to Merstham to Gatwick also.

The NR avoiding zone 1 fare £11.40 / £8.60 seems to be the same from Merstham to Horley as it is from Gatwick. The fares from Redhill to Richmond can't be right?

Someone doesn't appear to have thought this all through, particularly when the fare to neighbouring stations is so disparate. Is it a consequence of the limitations of Oyster?
 

Starmill

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Has there ever been a journey for which you could use Oyster before that you can also get an Advance ticket for? Given there are loads from Gatwick Airport, can they still continue to claim that "The cheapest single fares are with Oyster" ?
 

MikeWh

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Has there ever been a journey for which you could use Oyster before that you can also get an Advance ticket for? Given there are loads from Gatwick Airport, can they still continue to claim that "The cheapest single fares are with Oyster" ?

I don't think an Oyster fare has had an advance fare as competition before*, but the "Oyster is always cheaper" mantra went out the window a long time ago when refering to fares outside the zones. Indeed there has always been an issue with the caps from the Grays area going back to 2010.

*Even now, Oyster is by definition a walk-up fare. You can't buy an Oyster fare before travel, so comparisons with Advance fares are not relevant.
 

mattdickinson

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GWR services between Redhill and Gatwick Airport don't appear in the 2016 tube and rail map.

It's unclear whether they'll actually accept Oyster and Contactless from 11th January.
 

MikeWh

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GWR services between Redhill and Gatwick Airport don't appear in the 2016 tube and rail map.

It's unclear whether they'll actually accept Oyster and Contactless from 11th January.

Interesting. Oyster is valid to travel between those two stations, so if the GWR staff haven't got readers they'll just have to assume that you're valid.
 

tsr

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GWR services between Redhill and Gatwick Airport don't appear in the 2016 tube and rail map.

It's unclear whether they'll actually accept Oyster and Contactless from 11th January.

Don't necessarily take my word for it, but I have seen GWR included in the list of TOCs accepting Oyster between Redhill and Gatwick on some documentation - I just can't remember where. It may have been something sent to staff at another TOC, in which case I wouldn't be posting it here. I'm pretty sure they'll be OK with it, but I'm not sure GWR staff based at Redhill carry RIDs to check such things (I should imagine others do).
 

yorkie

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GWR services between Redhill and Gatwick Airport don't appear in the 2016 tube and rail map.

It's unclear whether they'll actually accept Oyster and Contactless from 11th January.
They are obliged to accept it.

Things may get interesting when PAYG is extended to Reading though...!
 

JaJaWa

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island

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I wonder what happens if a customer with auto top-up and £11 credit touches in at Gatwick.
 

trivran

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In that scenario they will be charged the fare from BZ6 to Gatwick wherever they start. The mix mode would only make a difference if the travelcard didn't involve zones 1-2.
That seems to directly contradict the following:
GTR Fares Brief 2016/04 attached
This is saying quite emphatically that "travelcards are not valid on Gatwick Express".. which I'm sure isn't true.

Indeed this thread from yesterday contains advice that such combinations are valid.
 
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andrewkeith5

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I'm pretty sure you're correct - condition 19 has a clause to say that with zonal ticket splits the train need not stop at the station, at least it did the last time I read it!

The whole thing reads as expected really - "we really, really don't want people using oyster but we don't have a choice, so we're going to make it very complicated and expensive"

I do wonder if oyster will automatically discount for railcards though....
 

MikeWh

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That seems to directly contradict the following:

This is saying quite emphatically that "travelcards are not valid on Gatwick Express".. which I'm sure isn't true.
My comment didn't explicitly refer to Gatwick Express. It does seem as though you are going to be screwed if you have a travelcard and use Gatwick Express. Better to use the almost identical Southern trains.

The whole thing reads as expected really - "we really, really don't want people using oyster but we don't have a choice, so we're going to make it very complicated and expensive"
Quite. I do think that they are treading a very thin line by denying travelcards on Oyster being taken into consideration when travelcards on paper are allowed with BZ tickets. I'd be interested in a legal viewpoint on this point.

I do wonder if oyster will automatically discount for railcards though....
If the railcard discount is enabled on the Oyster card then it will be applied.

There's a nice error in that retail brief. It says that if customers inadvertantly touch in on platforms 13/14 when using a non-GatEx service they will be charged correctly for the journey they actually make on touch out. This will be true for places like East Croydon, Purley and Redhill, but emphatically is not true if their journey is a 'slow' one to Gatwick.
 
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swt_passenger

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That seems to directly contradict the following:

This is saying quite emphatically that "travelcards are not valid on Gatwick Express".. which I'm sure isn't true.

But travel cards 'on their own' still won't be valid. Should they put that in their statement, or leave it valid for most purposes?
 

MikeWh

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I wonder what happens if a customer with auto top-up and £11 credit touches in at Gatwick.

Or platform 13/14 at Victoria. I wonder if that scenario has been overlooked.
 

trivran

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My comment didn't explicitly refer to Gatwick Express. It does seem as though you are going to be screwed if you have a travelcard and use Gatwick Express. Better to use the almost identical Southern trains.


Quite. I do think that they are treading a very thin line by denying travelcards on Oyster being taken into consideration when travelcards on paper are allowed with BZ tickets. I'd be interested in a legal viewpoint on this point.
That is quite true. I needed something to be righteous about and apparently quoting you was the way to go about that..

I read the stipulation differently, as denying that all travelcards, paper or Oyster were invalid.
But travel cards 'on their own' still won't be valid. Should they put that in their statement, or leave it valid for most purposes?
Yes they should put that in their statement. I don't fully understand what you mean by 'leave it valid for most purposes' but again as to interpretation I read it as denial that a combination of travelcard + BZ ticket could be used.
 
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