Recliner wrote:
"redcat" wrote in message
m
Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 12:29 am, redcat wrote:

On the Tube, zone 1 journeys are UKP1.80 at any time, zone 1&2
journeys are UKP2.30 peak and UKP1.80 off-peak - note that the peak
times for PAYG fares include an evening peak on weekdays, though for
capping purposes only the morning peak counts. Confused?
No, I got it. I think what was making me resist was seeing just how
high these fares are! But nearly everything's expensive in London.

Just wait till the £ has fallen further, and London may start to look
better value...


Can you hold off for a year? :-)

On May 21, 12:39 pm, "Recliner" wrote:

"redcat" wrote:

Recliner wrote:

"redcat" wrote:

Trains ran very smoothly, btw, and I lucked out with timing, hardly
having to wait for them at all. Was I just fortunate? Or have things
improved? I notice the Oyster no longer works to save you money.
It's now L1.80 per journey (in zone 1&2 for me)each and every time.
Last year I seem to recall you wouldn't go over a certain amount of
money on a given day within your zones.

Yes, there's usually a pretty frequent service on all the central
London lines. It's sparser on the more distant branches (eg, every
ten minutes or so).

Oyster definitely saves you money. Not only are Oyster fares much
lower than cash fares, but there is still day capping. However, the
rules are complex and the cap is now higher than before, as Oyster
is now valid on more NR routes. This means you're less likely to
benefit from it than in the past.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess the peak fare capping was triggered
each day by us travelling after 4 pm. Well, who doesn't? :-) That
daily cap for us was £7.20.

No, the peak fare capping is triggered if you travel before 9:30 (or
such trips are left out of the off-peak cap).

Correct - however doing just a single z1 Tube journey before 09:30
will mean that one is capped at the peak UKP7.20 rate for z1&2 travel
- that is if one stays within z1&2 for the rest of the day of course
(or if one only ventures beyind on buses, which aren't zonal).

On 21 May, 13:04, redcat wrote:
Recliner wrote:
"redcat" wrote in message
om
Recliner wrote:
"redcat" wrote in message
news:jd6dncx9svR0WGjWnZ2dnUVZ_sOdnZ2d@earthlink .com

Trains ran very smoothly, btw, and I lucked out with timing, hardly
having to wait for them at all. Was I just fortunate? Or have things
improved? I notice the Oyster no longer works to save you money.
It's now L1.80 per journey (in zone 1&2 for me)each and every time.
Last year I seem to recall you wouldn't go over a certain amount of
money on a given day within your zones.
Yes, there's usually a pretty frequent service on all the central
London lines. It's sparser on the more distant branches (eg, every
ten minutes or so).

Oyster definitely saves you money. Not only are Oyster fares much
lower than cash fares, but there is still day capping. However, the
rules are complex and the cap is now higher than before, as Oyster
is now valid on more NR routes. This means you're less likely to
benefit from it than in the past.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess the peak fare capping was triggered
each day by us travelling after 4 pm. Well, who doesn't? :-) That
daily cap for us was £7.20.

No, the peak fare capping is triggered if you travel before 9:30 (or
such trips are left out of the off-peak cap).

Hmmmmmm. OK, I see. Travelling at rush hour in the evening I would pay
the peak oyster fare for that time.

Yes - but you are only subject to the off-peak daily caps during the
evening peak.

Still, take a couple of trips at
that time and you're up to the £7.20, anyway, even if you started your
Underground day after 9:29 am. Correct?

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If you only travel after 09:30
on weekdays then you can only ever be subject to the off-peak cap
(which applies up to 04:29 the next day).

The important thing to note is that the peak periods for single PAYG
fares and for capping purposes is different - for single fares the
peak period is 06:30-09:30 and 16:00-19:00 weekdays, whilst for
capping purposes the peak period is 04:30-09:30 (with no evening
period).

On 21 May, 13:26, "Recliner" wrote:

"redcat" wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 12:29 am, redcat wrote:

On the Tube, zone 1 journeys are UKP1.80 at any time, zone 1&2
journeys are UKP2.30 peak and UKP1.80 off-peak - note that the peak
times for PAYG fares include an evening peak on weekdays, though for
capping purposes only the morning peak counts. Confused?

No, I got it. I think what was making me resist was seeing just how
high these fares are! But nearly everything's expensive in London.

Just wait till the £ has fallen further, and London may start to look
better value...

All those Noo Yorkers who were complaining about the invasion of flush
Brits invading their city a few years ago can now have their revenge!

(In retrospect I really didn't take advantage of the strong pound as
much as I should have, in particular w.r.t. visiting North America. Oh
well, give it thirty years or so...!)

On 21 May, 13:53, Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 12:39 pm, "Recliner" wrote:





"redcat" wrote:

Recliner wrote:

"redcat" wrote:

Trains ran very smoothly, btw, and I lucked out with timing, hardly
having to wait for them at all. Was I just fortunate? Or have things
improved? I notice the Oyster no longer works to save you money.
It's now L1.80 per journey (in zone 1&2 for me)each and every time.
Last year I seem to recall you wouldn't go over a certain amount of
money on a given day within your zones.

Yes, there's usually a pretty frequent service on all the central
London lines. It's sparser on the more distant branches (eg, every
ten minutes or so).

Oyster definitely saves you money. Not only are Oyster fares much
lower than cash fares, but there is still day capping. However, the
rules are complex and the cap is now higher than before, as Oyster
is now valid on more NR routes. This means you're less likely to
benefit from it than in the past.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess the peak fare capping was triggered
each day by us travelling after 4 pm. Well, who doesn't? :-) That
daily cap for us was £7.20.

No, the peak fare capping is triggered if you travel before 9:30 (or
such trips are left out of the off-peak cap).

Correct - however doing just a single z1 Tube journey before 09:30
will mean that one is capped at the peak UKP7.20 rate for z1&2 travel
- that is if one stays within z1&2 for the rest of the day of course
(or if one only ventures beyind on buses, which aren't zonal).

.... because £5.60 plus £1.80 is more than £7.20 anyway, but a zone 2
peak journey wouldn't stop your off-peak travel being capped at £5.60,
resulting in a total of £6.90 no matter how much off-peak zone 1 - 2
travel you did.

One thing I am not clear on: now that there is no different peak fare
for buses, does a bus journey before 0930 get included in the off-peak
cap, or result in, say, £6.80?

Mizter T wrote:
On 21 May, 13:26, "Recliner" wrote:

"redcat" wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 12:29 am, redcat wrote:
On the Tube, zone 1 journeys are UKP1.80 at any time, zone 1&2
journeys are UKP2.30 peak and UKP1.80 off-peak - note that the peak
times for PAYG fares include an evening peak on weekdays, though for
capping purposes only the morning peak counts. Confused?
No, I got it. I think what was making me resist was seeing just how
high these fares are! But nearly everything's expensive in London.
Just wait till the £ has fallen further, and London may start to look
better value...

All those Noo Yorkers who were complaining about the invasion of flush
Brits invading their city a few years ago can now have their revenge!

(In retrospect I really didn't take advantage of the strong pound as
much as I should have, in particular w.r.t. visiting North America. Oh
well, give it thirty years or so...!)

I remember when the GBP was at $2.50. Holy Moley. (then again, you could
go one stop on the UG for 5p!!!) Thanks for all the Oyster explanations.

The other thing about NY vs London, though, is that you can always find
a bargain here. Sales on all kinds of merchandise are always on.

rc

On May 21, 2:36*pm, MIG wrote:

On 21 May, 13:53, Mizter T wrote:

On May 21, 12:39 pm, "Recliner" wrote:

[snip]

Oyster definitely saves you money. Not only are Oyster fares much
lower than cash fares, but there is still day capping. However, the
rules are complex and the cap is now higher than before, as Oyster
is now valid on more NR routes. This means you're less likely to
benefit from it than in the past.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess the peak fare capping was triggered
each day by us travelling after 4 pm. Well, who doesn't? :-) That
daily cap for us was £7.20.

No, the peak fare capping is triggered if you travel before 9:30 (or
such trips are left out of the off-peak cap).

Correct - however doing just a single z1 Tube journey before 09:30
will mean that one is capped at the peak UKP7.20 rate for z1&2 travel
- that is if one stays within z1&2 for the rest of the day of course
(or if one only ventures beyind on buses, which aren't zonal).

... because £5.60 plus £1.80 is more than £7.20 anyway, but a zone 2
peak journey wouldn't stop your off-peak travel being capped at £5.60,
resulting in a total of £6.90 no matter how much off-peak zone 1 - 2
travel you did.

Indeed.


One thing I am not clear on: now that there is no different peak fare
for buses, does a bus journey before 0930 get included in the off-peak
cap, or result in, say, £6.80?

A bus journey between 04:30 and 09:30 does *not* get included in any
off-peak cap, despite the fact the bus fare is the same price both
before and after 09:30. (Not just theorising, BTW - my personal
experience confirms this.)

AFAICS it's possible to have two caps in effect at the same time -
e.g. if you make four peak (pre-0930) bus journeys, leading to the bus
cap of £3.90, plus then make enough Tube and/or rail journeys to hit
the off-peak zones 1-6 cap of £7.50 - the total being £11.40, which is
less than the peak z1-6 cap of £14.80.
(Not confirmed by personal experience but I've long intended to try
this out - might be able to jimmy this experiment into a day's
travelling soon actually, if I can face the otherwise totally
pointless peak-time bus hopping that it would necessitate!)

On 21 May, 15:54, Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 2:36*pm, MIG wrote:





On 21 May, 13:53, Mizter T wrote:

On May 21, 12:39 pm, "Recliner" wrote:

[snip]

Oyster definitely saves you money. Not only are Oyster fares much
lower than cash fares, but there is still day capping. However, the
rules are complex and the cap is now higher than before, as Oyster
is now valid on more NR routes. This means you're less likely to
benefit from it than in the past.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess the peak fare capping was triggered
each day by us travelling after 4 pm. Well, who doesn't? :-) That
daily cap for us was £7.20.

No, the peak fare capping is triggered if you travel before 9:30 (or
such trips are left out of the off-peak cap).

Correct - however doing just a single z1 Tube journey before 09:30
will mean that one is capped at the peak UKP7.20 rate for z1&2 travel
- that is if one stays within z1&2 for the rest of the day of course
(or if one only ventures beyind on buses, which aren't zonal).

... because £5.60 plus £1.80 is more than £7.20 anyway, but a zone 2
peak journey wouldn't stop your off-peak travel being capped at £5.60,
resulting in a total of £6.90 no matter how much off-peak zone 1 - 2
travel you did.

Indeed.



One thing I am not clear on: now that there is no different peak fare
for buses, does a bus journey before 0930 get included in the off-peak
cap, or result in, say, £6.80?

A bus journey between 04:30 and 09:30 does *not* get included in any
off-peak cap, despite the fact the bus fare is the same price both
before and after 09:30. (Not just theorising, BTW - my personal
experience confirms this.)

AFAICS it's possible to have two caps in effect at the same time -
e.g. if you make four peak (pre-0930) bus journeys, leading to the bus
cap of £3.90, plus then make enough Tube and/or rail journeys to hit
the off-peak zones 1-6 cap of £7.50 - the total being £11.40, which is
less than the peak z1-6 cap of £14.80.
(Not confirmed by personal experience but I've long intended to try
this out - might be able to jimmy this experiment into a day's
travelling soon actually, if I can face the otherwise totally
pointless peak-time bus hopping that it would necessitate!)

Next question: but presumably if you did four bus journeys before 0930
and four more off peak, there's no peak bus cap, ie you don't pay two
lots of £3.90, because on the bus fare page, there is no mention of
peak at all and £3.90 is a "daily" cap.

The only indication of buses triggering a peak cap is when you hover
over the little question mark in the LU fares page. There is no
little question mark to hover over in the buses page.

So if I do four peak bus journeys, then after 0930 I do one LU journey
and four more bus journeys, I ought to be charged only the one LU fare
plus £3.90, and no subsequent bus journeys would contribute to my off-
peak cap as such (I think that's kind of what you implied by
mentioning LU/rail journeys specifically).

On May 21, 4:27*pm, MIG wrote:

On 21 May, 15:54, Mizter T wrote:

On May 21, 2:36*pm, MIG wrote:
[snip]
One thing I am not clear on: now that there is no different peak fare
for buses, does a bus journey before 0930 get included in the off-peak
cap, or result in, say, £6.80?

A bus journey between 04:30 and 09:30 does *not* get included in any
off-peak cap, despite the fact the bus fare is the same price both
before and after 09:30. (Not just theorising, BTW - my personal
experience confirms this.)

AFAICS it's possible to have two caps in effect at the same time -
e.g. if you make four peak (pre-0930) bus journeys, leading to the bus
cap of £3.90, plus then make enough Tube and/or rail journeys to hit
the off-peak zones 1-6 cap of £7.50 - the total being £11.40, which is
less than the peak z1-6 cap of £14.80.
(Not confirmed by personal experience but I've long intended to try
this out - might be able to jimmy this experiment into a day's
travelling soon actually, if I can face the otherwise totally
pointless peak-time bus hopping that it would necessitate!)

Next question: but presumably if you did four bus journeys before 0930
and four more off peak, there's no peak bus cap, ie you don't pay two
lots of £3.90, because on the bus fare page, there is no mention of
peak at all and £3.90 is a "daily" cap.

Correct - four bus journeys at any time of the day is enough to
trigger the daily bus cap - however if all or some of those bus
journeys would contribute to another cap, then that's what they'd
contribute towards - e.g. one, two or three peak-time bus journeys
would be charged separately from an off-peak cap, if one had made
enough Tube/rail journeys to justify that off-peak cap.

My understanding is that as well as the possibility of two caps being
imposed, during a day relevant journeys might shift from one cap to
another - e.g. say you make three peak time bus journeys, then an off-
peak (post-09:30) bus journey - you'd hit the £3.90 bus cap. If you
then went on to make a number of Tube and/or rail journeys, that off-
peak bus journey would instead contribute towards the off-peak cap and
the peak-time bus journeys would be charged separately. (Again this
isn't something I've actually done, but it's something I keep
intending to do whenever we have a discussion like this!)


The only indication of buses triggering a peak cap is when you hover
over the little question mark in the LU fares page. *There is no
little question mark to hover over in the buses page.

Of course they'd only ever trigger a peak cap if enough Tube or rail
journeys were also made that day - which is I think where you're
coming from on the next point...


So if I do four peak bus journeys, then after 0930 I do one LU journey
and four more bus journeys, I ought to be charged only the one LU fare
plus £3.90, and no subsequent bus journeys would contribute to my off-
peak cap as such (I think that's kind of what you implied by
mentioning LU/rail journeys specifically).

Yes. But do the requisite number of off-peak Tube or rail journeys and
you'd be subject to the relevant off-peak cap, plus the bus cap for
the peak-time bus usage (in practice, in most scenarios this would
simply mean that you were subject to the peak cap, as that'd be less
than off-peak cap + bus cap).

I'm gonna have to put my money where my mouth is and actually confirm
my hypotheses me thinks!

On 21 May, 16:48, Mizter T wrote:
On May 21, 4:27*pm, MIG wrote:





On 21 May, 15:54, Mizter T wrote:

On May 21, 2:36*pm, MIG wrote:
[snip]
One thing I am not clear on: now that there is no different peak fare
for buses, does a bus journey before 0930 get included in the off-peak
cap, or result in, say, £6.80?

A bus journey between 04:30 and 09:30 does *not* get included in any
off-peak cap, despite the fact the bus fare is the same price both
before and after 09:30. (Not just theorising, BTW - my personal
experience confirms this.)

AFAICS it's possible to have two caps in effect at the same time -
e.g. if you make four peak (pre-0930) bus journeys, leading to the bus
cap of £3.90, plus then make enough Tube and/or rail journeys to hit
the off-peak zones 1-6 cap of £7.50 - the total being £11.40, which is
less than the peak z1-6 cap of £14.80.
(Not confirmed by personal experience but I've long intended to try
this out - might be able to jimmy this experiment into a day's
travelling soon actually, if I can face the otherwise totally
pointless peak-time bus hopping that it would necessitate!)

Next question: but presumably if you did four bus journeys before 0930
and four more off peak, there's no peak bus cap, ie you don't pay two
lots of £3.90, because on the bus fare page, there is no mention of
peak at all and £3.90 is a "daily" cap.

Correct - four bus journeys at any time of the day is enough to
trigger the daily bus cap - however if all or some of those bus
journeys would contribute to another cap, then that's what they'd
contribute towards - e.g. one, two or three peak-time bus journeys
would be charged separately from an off-peak cap, if one had made
enough Tube/rail journeys to justify that off-peak cap.

My understanding is that as well as the possibility of two caps being
imposed, during a day relevant journeys might shift from one cap to
another - e.g. say you make three peak time bus journeys, then an off-
peak (post-09:30) bus journey - you'd hit the £3.90 bus cap. If you
then went on to make a number of Tube and/or rail journeys, that off-
peak bus journey would instead contribute towards the off-peak cap and
the peak-time bus journeys would be charged separately. (Again this
isn't something I've actually done, but it's something I keep
intending to do whenever we have a discussion like this!)



The only indication of buses triggering a peak cap is when you hover
over the little question mark in the LU fares page. *There is no
little question mark to hover over in the buses page.

Of course they'd only ever trigger a peak cap if enough Tube or rail
journeys were also made that day - which is I think where you're
coming from on the next point...



So if I do four peak bus journeys, then after 0930 I do one LU journey
and four more bus journeys, I ought to be charged only the one LU fare
plus £3.90, and no subsequent bus journeys would contribute to my off-
peak cap as such (I think that's kind of what you implied by
mentioning LU/rail journeys specifically).

Yes. But do the requisite number of off-peak Tube or rail journeys and
you'd be subject to the relevant off-peak cap, plus the bus cap for
the peak-time bus usage (in practice, in most scenarios this would
simply mean that you were subject to the peak cap, as that'd be less
than off-peak cap + bus cap).

I'm gonna have to put my money where my mouth is and actually confirm
my hypotheses me thinks!


I'm not sure when I would ever get up early enough to do that many
separate peak journeys.