Buying Boundary Zone tickets in advance

[RochdalePioneers]

I'm planning what feels like an intergalactic cruise for the week after next, which as usual will involve me buying a deck of tickets for my planned travel via East Coast for rewards points.

On the Tuesday my itinerary gives me 40 minutes to transfer from Paddington to Marylebone - not a problem - but I'll also need to buy a BZ6 - Gerrards Cross return. Can I buy both the travelcard and the BZ extension for the Tuesday on the Monday afternoon when I've got more time?

Related question. On tickets with a cross London transfer built in (say Kings Cross - Marylebone) as a Maltese cross, can I leave at any zone 1 tube station and complete the journey by other means?

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[PermitToTravel]

On the Tuesday my itinerary gives me 40 minutes to transfer from Paddington to Marylebone - not a problem - but I'll also need to buy a BZ6 - Gerrards Cross return. Can I buy both the travelcard and the BZ extension for the Tuesday on the Monday afternoon when I've got more time?

Yup, although be prepared to shop around to find a booking office clerk willing to issue them. It might help you to ask for a ticket from 0072 to Gerrard's Cross (and, if you are completing this transaction sufficiently far from London that the clerk does not know how to issue an inboundary travelcard, from 1072 to 0035)
In general you can always buy tickets before the date of travel

Related question. On tickets with a cross London transfer built in (say Kings Cross - Marylebone) as a Maltese cross, can I leave at any zone 1 tube station and complete the journey by other means?

Yes, this will be fine.
The RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide has more information on cross-London transfers.

 

[bb21]

Yes, this will be fine.
The RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide has more information on cross-London transfers.

No. You missed out something very important.

It is permitted to finish your transfer short at any Underground station in zone 1 or at any intermediate Underground/DLR station on a reasonable route.

You cannot finish at any arbitrary Zone 1 station.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Thanks for the replies. I got the Chester-le-Track ticket office at Eaglescliffe to issue a BZ6 ticket earlier this year - as suggested give them the codes!

And I had a feeling that I could leave the tube early but not just anywhere, so thanks for that. I have ended up the ticketing guru for my office and usually end up advising on various cross London tickets to get cheap Z1 transfers (we can't claim expenses on Oyster!) but sometimes I need to check with you good people

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[PermitToTravel]

No. You missed out something very important.



You cannot finish at any arbitrary Zone 1 station.

Ah, I see

I was interpreting that bit as:

It is permitted to finish your transfer short at any Underground station in zone 1 or at any intermediate Underground/DLR station on a reasonable route.

rather than:

It is permitted to finish your transfer short at any Underground station in zone 1 or at any intermediate Underground/DLR station on a reasonable route.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Right, quick question again. You've answered my questions earlier for my tickets. My colleague is coming down from Darlington to Gerrards Cross, then onto Brighton later in the day returning to Darlington the following day.

Soooo, can we combine a Super Off Peak Rtn DAR - GER with a Saver return Finsbury Park - Brighton Saver Return? On return from GER she enters the tube on the return portion of the SSR to Darlo, and exits at Victoria on the out portion of the SVR from Finsbury Park? On the way back the following day the return portion of this ticket gets her to Kings Cross, then switch onto the return portion of the Darlington ticket having broken overnight.

Any probs?

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[maniacmartin]

So, you want to split ticket with 2 maltese crossed tickets, stopping short on one and starting short on the other midway through the reasonable routes of the cross-London transfer?

Its a novel idea that I haven't heard of before, and given that neither ticket forbids break of journey, I would say that it is valid.

 

[tsr]

So, you want to split ticket with 2 maltese crossed tickets, stopping short on one and starting short on the other midway through the reasonable routes of the cross-London interchange?

Its a novel idea that I haven't heard of before, and given that neither ticket forbids break of journey, I would say that it is valid.

In practice and in general, according to my experience, the ticket with an unused transfer permitted by the "Maltese Cross" should work the barriers at an NR/LU interchange station, and I can't see why it shouldn't be valid to start short on a reasonable line of route (even if the ticket doesn't need to pass through a barrier, but becomes valid en-route), but then again there's nothing to say you can start short on the cross-London transfer, as far as I can see.

I have had several issues with "stopping short" on reasonable lines of route on cross-London transfers in Zone 1 - exclusively and unsurprisingly involving gateline staff at Tube stations. I will be posting more on this subject as soon as I can.

 

[Romilly]

The National Rail Enquiries website says on its Crossing London page:

Crossing London with tickets marked Ԡ'
If your journey involves travelling via, or across London to connect with another National Rail service, your ticket should include the cost of transfer on Tube, Docklands Light Railway or First Capital Connect (Thameslink Route) services between the relevant main London stations.

You can ‘break your transfer journey' and leave the Underground at any intermediate station, e.g. if you are travelling between Victoria and Euston you can exit at Oxford Circus. However, if you subsequently wish to continue your journey by Underground you will have to purchase another ticket.

The Darlington to Gerrards Cross ticket is valid, on its return leg, for a journey from Marylebone to Kings X. Given that entering the tube at Marylebone means going on the Bakerloo line, it is not obvious how that ticket is valid for a journey via Victoria. However, I can see that it would be reasonable to go from Marylebone to Kings X via Oxford Circus, and that you could therefore break your Marylebone to Kings X journey at Oxford Circus, but you could not then use the ticket to resume your underground journey.

The question then is whether the Finsbury Park to Brighton ticket is valid for a tube journey starting at Oxford Circus and ending at Victoria. My view, for what it's worth, is that it isn't valid. In particular, if the ticket had been used for a journey from Kings X to Oxford Circus then, after leaving the underground at Oxford Circus, it wouldn't be valid for Oxford Circus to Victoria. Nor would it be valid to start short at Oxford Circus if the ticket-holder was not already in the underground. In principle, I can't see that the position is altered by the fact that the ticket-holder is already in the underground. Others will have a better idea whether the switch of tickets would be a problem in practice, but I think that I would buy a Marylebone-Victoria single as that's the same price as the Oxford Circus-Victoria single I would need.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Okay what if we flipped it around. Buy two tickets - Darlington to Brighton, and Finsbury Park - Gerrards Cross. Use out portion Darlington to Kings Cross, then switch tickets to start short at Kings Cross on the FPK - GER ticket. No problem doing that, it's my regular trick fir cheaper cross London transfers.

To Gerrards Cross then back to Marylebone, at which point we need to continue to Brighton. We have three tickets with a valid underground journey on them - Return on the FPK - GER, and both portions of DAR - BTN. A perfectly valid journey would be travel Marylebone - Kings Cross and finish early on the return to Finsbury Park - again I do this all the time. Another perfectly valid journey is Kings Cross - Victoria on the Out portion of the DAR - BTN ticket which we haven't used yet having broken that journey at Kings Cross.

So on paper is there any reason to travel Marylebone - Kings Cross - Victoria or could be just go direct Marylebone to Victoria? Would anyone know you hadn't made two separate journeys Marylebone - Kings Cross (change ticket) and Kings Cross - Victoria?

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