If I have to go to Brighton from Balham (which I do, next week), does anyone
know of a site that will tell me how far my Oyster PAYG will take me?

Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and use my
Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

Ian

--

In message , Ian F.
writes

If I have to go to Brighton from Balham (which I do, next week), does
anyone know of a site that will tell me how far my Oyster PAYG will
take me?

It will take you to the outer boundary of Zone 6.

Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and
use my Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

You need to ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to Brighton" return.
--
Paul Terry

On Jul 10, 10:20*am, "Ian F." wrote:
If I have to go to Brighton from Balham (which I do, next week), does anyone
know of a site that will tell me how far my Oyster PAYG will take me?

The TfL website - specifically the following page which tells you
"Where you can use Oyster":
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14869.aspx

Scroll down to the "National Rail" heading and you'll see where you
can use Oyster on NR services - there is also a link to the "Oyster
Rail Services Map", which for convenience I'll also link to below:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...rvices-map.pdf

Essentially Oyster Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) can be used for journeys
between stations in the London zones (that's zones 1-9), plus Watford
Junction, plus four c2c stations (that's the London, Tilbury &
Southend line) just east of the zones in Essex.


Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and use my
Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

When using Oyster, you *have to* touch-in your card at the start of
your journey and touch-out at the end of your journey in order to use
it properly - this touching-in or out is done on an Oyster pad that is
located either on the automatic gates at a station, or else on a
standalone validator at the entrance to the station, or at a few
stations actually on the platforms themselves (these are basically
stations where there's a large potential flow of passengers coming off
NR services from outside the zones and starting a journey on the Tube
network, and these validators are intended for these interchanging
passengers).

Coming from Brighton, if you wanted to start using your Oyster card at
the *earliest opportunity* you'd have to get off at the first station
the train stopped at in the London zones - in all likelihood East
Croydon - then go and exit the gates with your paper ticket, then re-
enter the gates using your Oyster card, then continue your journey (or
if this was a station that didn't have gates you'd have to go and
touch-in your Oyster on a standalone validator - oh, and UIVMM at East
Croydon there are no 'interchange validators' on the platforms so
you'd have to go and exit and then re-renter the gates).

Of course doing that would be rather daft. If your end destination is
Balham, just buy a ticket to Balham (return if req'd). If you're
travelling on from Balham (either immediately or later on) then you
could use Oyster PAYG for your onward journey in London, or otherwise
you could buy a Day Travelcard from Brighton - this is an inclusive
day return to London plus a Travelcard that allows unlimited travel in
zones 1-6 in London on trains, Tubes and buses for the day. An off-
peak Day Travelcard from Brighton to London costs £25.20, or if you
buy it in advance from the Southern website you can take advantage of
a 15% off offer so that brings it down to £21.40.

Depending on what you're planning to do, then the inclusive Day
Travelcard might well be the best option. It should be noted that the
Oyster system is designed for journeys *within* London, so whilst it'd
work fine for you to use for a journey on from Balham to say Camden
Town by Tube, it's not intended for people coming from outside of
London to use it as soon as they arrive at the boundary of the London
zones.

Hope that helps rather than confuses! If you were willing to give us
some specifics, then I'm sure we could tell you what your various
options could be.

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

raft of useful information snipped

Thanks for that. I'm a reasonably savvy traveller, but I totally forgot
that, of course, one would have to touch out at the last station on the
Oyster and in again at, say, East Croydon.

I'm going from Balham (where I live) to Brighton for a couple of hours-worth
of meeting and then back home. Southern's £5/£8.50 return options are
clearly the best option, rather than involving Oyster at all.

Thanks again to you and Paul.

Ian

On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:01:32 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:

It will take you to the outer boundary of Zone 6.

Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and
use my Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

You need to ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to Brighton" return.

Are you *sure*? I thought you could only use BZ tickets with
Travelcards, either day or period, because with PAYG Oyster you must
get off and touch out, and you can't do that at BZ6 itself because
it's not an actual place!

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:01:32 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:

You need to ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to Brighton" return.

Are you *sure*? I thought you could only use BZ tickets with
Travelcards, either day or period, because with PAYG Oyster you must
get off and touch out, and you can't do that at BZ6 itself because
it's not an actual place!

You're right - the journey would have to be split at Coulsdon South (or,
more practically, at East Croydon) in order to touch out (and back in on
the return). I'd forgotten about that annoyance now that I have a
Freedom Pass, with which I habitually get BZ6 tickets for places such as
Gatwick and Lewes.

But, as the OP says, the current Southern £5 offer is going to be better
value than using Oyster.
--
Paul Terry

On Jul 10, 11:01*am, Paul Terry wrote:

In message , Ian F.
writes

If I have to go to Brighton from Balham (which I do, next week), does
anyone know of a site that will tell me how far my Oyster PAYG will
take me?

It will take you to the outer boundary of Zone 6.

One would need to touch out at a station in zone 6 in order to
properly use the system and avoid an unresolved journey charge being
applied to the card.


Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and
use my Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

You need to ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to Brighton" return.

'Boundary Zone' tickets are only available for use in combination with
Travelcards, as they are an extension of that Travelcard - one cannot
buy Boundary Zone (BZ) tickets without already holding a Travelcard
(and because of the nature of the touch-in touch-out Oyster PAYG
system, BZ tickets *cannot* be combined with Oyster PAYG).

The only way the OP could take advantage of a BZ ticket and use it
with their Oyster card would be if they already held a season
Travelcard loaded on their Oyster card - if so then functionally it
would no different to combining a paper Travelcard with a BZ ticket.

On Jul 10, 11:04*am, Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 10, 10:20*am, "Ian F." wrote:

If I have to go to Brighton from Balham (which I do, next week), does anyone
know of a site that will tell me how far my Oyster PAYG will take me?

The TfL website - specifically the following page which tells you
"Where you can use Oyster":
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14869.aspx

[snip]

Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and use my
Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

When using Oyster, you *have to* touch-in your card at the start of
your journey and touch-out at the end of your journey in order to use
it properly [...]
Coming from Brighton, [...]
[snip]

It would have helped if I'd read your question properly and realised
that you were starting from Balham, not Brighton - d'oh!

Everything I wrote stands, but it's the wrong way round if you're
starting a journey from Balham. If I was going from Balham to Brighton
I'd probably simply just buy a normal rail ticket from Balham to
Brighton!

*If* you've got a season Travelcard (weekly, monthly or longer) loaded
on your Oyster card then you could buy a ticket from the edge of the
outermost zone that it covers, which is called a "Boundary Zone"
ticket - e.g. say you've got a z1-3 monthly Travelcard, you could buy
a ticket from "Boundary Zone 3" (that's the outer boundary of the
zone) to Brighton, which would be a bit cheaper than a ticket from
Balham.

As I see you've already noted, instead of buying a straightforward
return rail ticket, an alternative cheaper option is Southern's
Advance fares which are available for Balham to Brighton journeys,
although one does then need to stick to the specified trains.

Another option is Southern's DaySave ticket (£10 per person, £20 for a
group ticket), though that needs to be purchased a full 7 days in
advance and cannot be used before 10am on weekdays (other evening peak
restrictions for journeys from London also apply) - full info he
http://www.southernrailwaytickets.co...hp?page_id=189

On Jul 10, 11:54*am, Neil Williams
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:01:32 +0100, Paul Terry
wrote:
It will take you to the outer boundary of Zone 6.

Presumably I would then buy a return ticket from wherever that is and
use my Oyster for the rest. Advice much appreciated.

You need to ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to Brighton" return.

Are you *sure*? *I thought you could only use BZ tickets with
Travelcards, either day or period, because with PAYG Oyster you must
get off and touch out, and you can't do that at BZ6 itself because
it's not an actual place!

You're correct Neil.

On Jul 10, 11:19*am, "Ian F." wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:
raft of useful information snipped

Except it was all written in the wrong context - for some reason I
misread your post as saying that you were starting from Brighton,
which is why my reply is all a bit back-to-front for your situation!


Thanks for that. I'm a reasonably savvy traveller, but I totally forgot
that, of course, one would have to touch out at the last station on the
Oyster and in again at, say, East Croydon.

I'm going from Balham (where I live) to Brighton for a couple of hours-worth
of meeting and then back home. Southern's £5/£8.50 return options are
clearly the best option, rather than involving Oyster at all.

Note that if you want to buy Southern's own Advance tickets (i.e. for
journeys wholly on Southern, such as Balham to Brighton), then buy
them from Southern's own website as they exclusively offer 25% off
these Advance fares (though that's not quite as good as the 40% off
they offered for ages until recently) - the three fare levels are thus
£3.75, £5.65 and £7.50.

As I also mentioned upthread, something else that might come in handy
is the Southern DaySave ticket (basically a rover ticket for Southern)
- peak restrictions do apply though, and it has to be bought at least
7 days in advance so that's no good for you making a trip next week.
Full info:
http://www.southernrailwaytickets.co...hp?page_id=189

That said, I've just remembered the slightly more expensive
"Downlander" ticket, which only needs to be purchased 2 days in
advance and furthermore is a 'print-at-home' ticket - it's intended to
promote tourism on the South Downs, but there's nothing to prevent you
using it for a trip from Balham to Brighton - well, apart from the
fact it can't be used before 10am on weekdays. If doing this I would
however factor in a bit of time to negotiate the gateline at Balham
(or other suburban stations served by Southern), as I rather suspect
many staff might not be all that clued up about its existence! Full
info:
http://www.southernrailwaytickets.co...hp?page_id=281