Oyster and National Rail

From next Saturday, 2nd January 2016, holders of 5-10 zip cards will no longer need to pay for any National Rail journeys within the zones.  This is good news, but what if you already have some credit on your card.  The helpdesk can arrange a refund, but a side-effect is that the card will be cancelled.  As you need the card to benefit from the free travel that is obviously no good.  There appear to be two options available at the moment: Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few days the details of the new fares have been gradually added to the fares section of the TfL website.  They seem to have taken my lead in some respects because there is now a page listing just caps and travelcards, although there is still too much duplication in my opinion.  The single fare tables have not yet been updated, and I wonder whether they actually will be.

The single fare finder tool now has buttons to display 2015 or 2016 fares for any journey.  It also includes the new fares for the Gatwick Airport extension, even though they won’t actually start until later in the new year.

I have published a new version of my caps and travelcards page with the details of the new prices.  Note that 5-10 zip card holders will no longer be charged fares and thus won’t need to buy travelcards either.  The effective off-peak caps for zones 4-6 for part-time workers and regular users have not yet been confirmed but I’ve included what I believe they will be.

As anyone who reads this site regularly already knows, the Oyster fares system is ridiculously complicated. There are odd scenarios, particularly in the afternoon peak, where it can be cheaper to finish a journey in zone 1 than at the zone 2 station beforehand. However, this evening I’ve found a case where the cheapest route varies depending on the time of day you travel. Read the rest of this entry »