Student Oyster 18+ or NR daily fare with 16-25 Railcard?

[EssexGonzo]

As per the title, I'm having trouble working what would be the most cost effective way of buying tickets for my son who has an 8-week work placement in London.

The 5-day per week journey will be from Shenfield (we have Oyster) to Tottenham Court Road via Liverpool Street.

As I understand it, a weekly/monthly season is out of the question if he wants to use the Railcard. Fair enough.

A daily NR return works comes out as £14 using his Railcard.

I started to order him a Student Oyster Photocard, but they want an admin fee of £20, so I paused and tried to find out whether it would be worth it. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm assuming he won't be travelling elsewhere within London.

The Oyster website says this:
How much do I save?
If you have an 18+ Student Oyster photocard, you can get 30% off the price of adult-rate Travelcards and Bus & Tram Pass season tickets.

If you live near your school, college or university, or only make a few journeys, you may not need a Travelcard or Bus & Tram Pass season ticket. You may be better off using pay as you go at the adult rate.

If you have a 16-25 Railcard, you can add the discount to your 18+ Student Oyster photocard to get a 34% discount on off-peak pay as you go fares and off-peak daily caps on Tube, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail and most National Rail services in London.

So, he won't be using Travelcards. He won't be travelling off-peak. But he does have a 16-25 Railcard. However, a) I don't know how to add that discount to Oyster PAYG and b) I don't know if it will make any difference to a peak PAYG journey from Shenfield to Tottenham Court Road? Especially as you have to click out of NR and into the Tube at LST, rather than a continuous journey as it is at Stratford.

And if he were to change to Central Line at Stratford instead of LST, and use PAYG, would it be cheaper? It's not using NR ticketing.

So......Student Oyster Photocard with 16-25 discount entitlement added (however that works) using PAYG or Daily NR tickets using 16-25 railcard?

This is REALLY confusing. I thought I had a handle on this sort of thing!

 

[cool110]

There's 3 important points here.

1. Journeys involving NR and LU are normally linked into a single journey with OSIs.

2. NR railcard discounts (except disabled) on Oyster PAYG only apply to off-peak fares and caps (applying to NR, LU and mixed mode).

3. To set a Railcard discount on an Oyster card you need to take them to an LU station and get an assistant to apply it on the ticket machine.

 

[Romilly]

According to the National Rail Enquiries season ticket calculator, a travelcard from Shenfield to Zones 1-6 (also available for use in Zones 7-9) for eight working weeks (e.g. Monday 7th March to Friday 29th April) would cost £681.10 for an adult, which is £17.03 per day for 40 days.

If you had to pay a £20 registration fee but then got a 30% discount when loading the travelcard onto a student 18+ oyster card, the cost would be
20 + (681.10 x 70%) = 496.77
which works out at £12.42 per day for 40 days, which would be less than buying a daily ticket with a 16-25 railcard discount.

Edit: and the travelcard may be useful for travel around London during the day while on work placement, or after work or at weekends.

 

[MikeWh]

First the very bad news. If you live in Shenfield then you aren't eligible for an 18+ Student Oyster Photocard. You have to be living in London, at least during term time, to be eligible.

Now other questions/options. What time will he need to leave Shenfield? If he can touch in before 0630 then he'll be charged off-peak which can be discounted by the railcard. Likewise if he can return home outside of 1600-1900. If he were to make any other journeys after 0930 in London before returning home between 1600-1900 then the discounted off-peak cap would limit charges to just over the peak single to Shenfield.

Finally, if all he will do is make two peak journeys Shenfield to London and back then he should use a contactless payment card instead of an Oyster. Instead of 2x£11 single fares he'll be charged a £6.50 zone 1-2 daily cap plus 2x£6.60 zone 3 to Shenfield extension fares. Total £19.70.

 

[EssexGonzo]

Thanks for the replies.

I think that because his mandatory placement is in London, he's eligible but I'll check that out. Earlier today, I went through the set up process and his Kent Uni was listed.

If that is the case, it sounds as if Ouster might be the way to go and will save him about £2 per day over the paper ticket bought from the AGA office today.

If not, we'll need to decide if he'll be using the use outside of his direct commute and go the contactless route.