I am somewhat disappointed to have received only one reply to this
message,

Perhaps no one could work out exactly what happened in your case.

On the outbound trip there is clearly an OSI and the end result is the
Senior Railcard discounted journey at £3.75 that Barry quoted, though I
didn't see where it was mentioned myself.

On the way back you were charged the Oyster PAYG off-peak single fare of
£3.90 from Ockendon to Fenchuch Street. Not sure why the £3.75 doesn't apply
in this direction but there you go.

It rather looks like an OSI wasn't applied and so your journey from
Liverpool Street to King's Cross was treated as a new single journey. The
fare would have been £1.80 but a Senior Railcard discount on the £14.20
off-peak price-cap gives £9.40 by my calculations and so it was capped to
£1.75.

The lack of an OSI hasn't actually changed the fare as it would have been
£5. 70 anyway which of course is the same as £3.90+£1.80.

So there are two issues he
1) Should there have been an OSI applied on your return journey?
2) Should the return journey have also been £3.75 like the outbound one?

Had it been £3.75 in both directions it would of course have totalled £7.50,
the same as a discounted 1-6 cap and a discounted Upminster-Ockendon return
(that National Rail site gives £2.50 as the cheapest discounted return
rather that the £2.70 you quoted).

so let me try something more general. Is it, or is it not, the case that
Oyster PAYG should always be the cheapest way to pay for a journey within
the area covered by Oyster PAYG? My impression is that Oyster has been
promoted in that way, but now I'm wondering whether that only applies to
LO and LU travel, i.e. excluding other 'National Rail' travel.

I certainly wouldn't use the word 'always' and I don't believe TfL do
either. I believe they acknowledge that there can sometimes be ways of using
paper tickets to save money given that Oyster PAYG doesn't have the concept
of a return ticket and doesn't discount single journeys, only caps.

Taking part of your example, without a railcard discount an off-peak single
from Upminster to Ockendon is £3.00 and a return is £3.80. Railcard
discounted the fares are £2.00 and £2.50. (Cheapest fares taken from the
National Rail site without actually checking for any limitations). The
Oyster PAYG is £1.90 each way according to TfL so it is cheapest for single
tickets, the same as the undiscounted paper ticket for a return, and more
expensive than a discounted return.

Now what would have happened if your Oyster PAYG journey was actually via
Upminster with touch-outs and touch-ins? Perhaps it would have been charged
at £5.00+£1.90+£1.90 = £8.80 compared to the £9.40 cap via Fenchurch Street.
An anomaly perhaps, but at the end of the day it isn't the same journey.

Following up my own post...

On the outbound trip there is clearly an OSI and the end result is the
Senior Railcard discounted journey at £3.75 that Barry quoted, though I
didn't see where it was mentioned myself.

I've now found it, rather obviously under the 'railcard' tab of
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14414.aspx.

On the way back you were charged the Oyster PAYG off-peak single fare of
£3.90 from Ockendon to Fenchuch Street. Not sure why the £3.75 doesn't
apply in this direction but there you go.

The railcard discounted fare for the appropriate National Rail only ticket
is only £2.60 so that is the figure I should be querying in this case.

It rather looks like an OSI wasn't applied and so your journey from
Liverpool Street to King's Cross was treated as a new single journey. The
fare would have been £1.80 but a Senior Railcard discount on the £14.20
off-peak price-cap gives £9.40 by my calculations and so it was capped to
£1.75.

The TfL site doesn't actually show an off-peak cap for Zones 1-9 + Grays in
the 'Adult' tab of the previously mentioned page, only a peak cap of £18.00.
I had assumed the off-peak cap must also exist and be the same as for Zones
1-9 + Watford which has the same peak cap. I then assumed a 34% discount on
that assumed off-peak cap of £14.20 and that gave £9.40 which is consistent
with the figure quoted for Watford on
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresa...ares/6769.aspx (Grays
not being mentioned) which is quite probably an old page that Google still
indexes on the site. However on the page mentioned previously the figure of
£9.50 quoted by Barry appears for both Watford and Grays. However a £9.40
cap being applied is certainly consistent with the Oyster history shown.

Just to add to the apparent inconsistency, the page
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx which covers Tube, DLR and London
Overground fares specifies Zones 1-9 + Watford and Zones 1-9 + Grays as both
having peak caps of £18.00 and off-peak caps of £14.50. It isn't clear to me
what a Grays fare is doing on that page at all.

So there are two issues he
1) Should there have been an OSI applied on your return journey?
2) Should the return journey have also been £3.75 like the outbound one?

So that should be rewritten as...

1) Should the railcard discounted fare of £2.60 have been applied for the
journey from Ockendon to Fenchurch St?
2) Should there have been an OSI applied, resulting in a railcard discounted
fare of £3.75 for the whole return journey?

G.

"Graham J" wrote
Following up my own post...

On the outbound trip there is clearly an OSI and the end result is the
Senior Railcard discounted journey at £3.75 that Barry quoted, though I
didn't see where it was mentioned myself.

I've now found it, rather obviously under the 'railcard' tab of
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14414.aspx.

On the way back you were charged the Oyster PAYG off-peak single fare of
£3.90 from Ockendon to Fenchuch Street. Not sure why the £3.75 doesn't
apply in this direction but there you go.

The railcard discounted fare for the appropriate National Rail only ticket
is only £2.60 so that is the figure I should be querying in this case.

It rather looks like an OSI wasn't applied and so your journey from
Liverpool Street to King's Cross was treated as a new single journey.
The fare would have been £1.80 but a Senior Railcard discount on the
£14.20 off-peak price-cap gives £9.40 by my calculations and so it was
capped to £1.75.

The TfL site doesn't actually show an off-peak cap for Zones 1-9 + Grays
in the 'Adult' tab of the previously mentioned page, only a peak cap of
£18.00. I had assumed the off-peak cap must also exist and be the same as
for Zones 1-9 + Watford which has the same peak cap. I then assumed a 34%
discount on that assumed off-peak cap of £14.20 and that gave £9.40 which
is consistent with the figure quoted for Watford on
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresa...ares/6769.aspx (Grays
not being mentioned) which is quite probably an old page that Google still
indexes on the site. However on the page mentioned previously the figure
of £9.50 quoted by Barry appears for both Watford and Grays. However a
£9.40 cap being applied is certainly consistent with the Oyster history
shown.

Just to add to the apparent inconsistency, the page
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx which covers Tube, DLR and London
Overground fares specifies Zones 1-9 + Watford and Zones 1-9 + Grays as
both having peak caps of £18.00 and off-peak caps of £14.50. It isn't
clear to me what a Grays fare is doing on that page at all.

So there are two issues he
1) Should there have been an OSI applied on your return journey?
2) Should the return journey have also been £3.75 like the outbound one?

So that should be rewritten as...

1) Should the railcard discounted fare of £2.60 have been applied for the
journey from Ockendon to Fenchurch St?
2) Should there have been an OSI applied, resulting in a railcard
discounted fare of £3.75 for the whole return journey?

Thanks very much for your input. It helps me to decide how to challenge the
charging - which I intend to do as a matter of principle, even though the
amount of the apparent overcharge is small.

If it helps anyone else who is intending to respond (e.g. Mizter T - thanks
for your earlier message), here are all the touch-in and touch-out times for
that day as shown on my journey history:

Victoria LU entry 13:09
Tower Hill exit 13:26
Fenchurch Street NR entry 13:27
Ockendon exit 14:19
Ockendon entry 14:57
Fenchurch Street NR exit 15:32
Liverpool Street LU entry 15:45
King's Cross Picc Vic exit 15:56

1) Should there have been an OSI applied on your return journey?

[...snip...]

Fenchurch Street NR exit 15:32
Liverpool Street LU entry 15:45

I deliberately phrased my points as queries because of my incomplete
knowledge of the subject and I think I may well have been wise to do so as I
now believe the answer to point 1) may well actually be NO. Looking at
http://www.dragondark.co.uk/osi/osi.pdf, which gives a recent list of out of
station interchanges (and is consistent with other lists), there is an OSI
shown between Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street NR, but there is NOT one
between Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street LU. It seems if you are
changing to the underground from Fenchurch Street you are actually expected
to use Aldgate, Bank, Monument or Tower Hill.

So I think you were actually charged correctly for that leg of your journey,
with just the inconsistency (in your favour) over a £9.40 cap seemingly
having been applied when the fare tables online suggest it should have been
£9.50.

So that seems to only leave the question of whether your journey from
Ockendon to Fenchurch Street should have had the railcard discount applied
to it. I can't immediately think why the answer would be no.

G.

On 6 Oct, 01:11, "Graham J" wrote:
1) Should there have been an OSI applied on your return journey?

[...snip...]

Fenchurch Street NR exit 15:32
Liverpool Street LU entry 15:45

I deliberately phrased my points as queries because of my incomplete
knowledge of the subject and I think I may well have been wise to do so as I
now believe the answer to point 1) may well actually be NO. *Looking athttp://www.dragondark.co.uk/osi/osi.pdf, which gives a recent list of out of
station interchanges (and is consistent with other lists), there is an OSI
shown between Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street NR, but there is NOT one
between Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street LU. *It seems if you are
changing to the underground from Fenchurch Street you are actually expected
to use Aldgate, Bank, Monument or Tower Hill.

So I think you were actually charged correctly for that leg of your journey,
with just the inconsistency (in your favour) over a £9.40 cap seemingly
having been applied when the fare tables online suggest it should have been
£9.50.

So that seems to only leave the question of whether your journey from
Ockendon to Fenchurch Street should have had the railcard discount applied
to it. I can't immediately think why the answer would be no.

G.

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is not?

The latter is one that I would naturally use and it wouldn't have
occurred to me not to do it on PAYG, but luckily I happen not to have
done.

"MIG" wrote in message
...

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is not?

Presumably because Cannon St to Monument(Bank) has a direct tube service?

Paul S

On 6 Oct, 09:22, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message

...

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is not?

Presumably because Cannon St to Monument(Bank) has a direct tube service?

Paul S

That may be the formula, but it's not a good reason. Who in their
right mind would go one stop in the wrong direction in order to walk
further under the ground than the walk from Cannon Street? Travelling
west on the Central Line from the south east, Cannon Street to Bank is
the obvious interchange.

On 6 Oct, 09:22, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message

...

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is not?

Presumably because Cannon St to Monument(Bank) has a direct tube service?

And I note that so does Waterloo to Embankment, which is an OSI and
much further.

In article ,
(Paul Scott) wrote:

"MIG" wrote in message
...

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is
not?

Presumably because Cannon St to Monument(Bank) has a direct tube
service?

The walk to Cannon St from Bank Central or W&C will be shorter than that
through Bank/Monument. Look at a street map. Bank to Mansion House is no
longer either.

Imagine a right-angled triangle with Bank at the right angle. Monument and
Mansion House are at opposite ends of the hypotenuse, with Cannon St in
the middle of it.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

I ought to have paid more attention before, but how the eck can
Fenchurch Street to Bank be an OSI when Cannon Street to Bank is not?

Perhaps even more to the point, why are Liverpool St NR to Bank LU, Waterloo
NR to Embankment LU, and Waterloo East NR to Embankment LU all considered as
OSIs when Cannon Street to Bank isn't? It doesn't seem to be an even playing
field.