This is mainly out of interest now because I don't anticipate doing it
much more but I've recently been doing Z1 to Watford Junction using PAYG
with a gold card registered in the peak time but against the main flow
(i.e. out of London in the morning and into London in the evening)

On the way out in the morning I've been doing:

Z1-Euston Square on a second PAYG card 2.20
Euston to Watford Junction on my main PAYG card 3:10

Doing it all on my main PAYG card cost me 8.90

The return journey, Watford Junction to Z1 costs 3.95 on my main PAYG
card even though the Z1 underground bit is done in the peak hours.


This isn't a huge deal except that one morning as I sat down on the tube
I realized I had my main card in my hand and my second card in my pocket
and I wasn't sure I'd used the right one at the barrier. (I had, I'd
touched in and then put it in my pocket while holding the other card in
my other hand.) It would be nice if there was a way to force this break
of journey without the risk of using the wrong card somewhere and ending
up with two incomplete journeys.

One possibility would be to walk from KX to Euston instead of Euston
Square, however that can be quite a slow journey as the pavements aren't
very wide compared to the number of people who use them, many wheeling
large bags to or from St Pancras.


As an aside, I thought using oyster was supposed to guarantee the
cheapest journey. Even without the gold card, doing my journey on two
cards is 6.90.


Tim.




--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/

In message , at
21:05:16 on Mon, 14 Jul 2014, Tim Woodall
remarked:
Z1-Euston Square on a second PAYG card 2.20
Euston to Watford Junction on my main PAYG card 3:10

Doing it all on my main PAYG card cost me 8.90
....
As an aside, I thought using oyster was supposed to guarantee the
cheapest journey. Even without the gold card, doing my journey on two
cards is 6.90.

All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at
21:05:16 on Mon, 14 Jul 2014, Tim Woodall
remarked:
Z1-Euston Square on a second PAYG card 2.20
Euston to Watford Junction on my main PAYG card 3:10

Doing it all on my main PAYG card cost me 8.90
...
As an aside, I thought using oyster was supposed to guarantee the
cheapest journey. Even without the gold card, doing my journey on two
cards is 6.90.

All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.

and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single peak
journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of peak cap plus single
fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no concept
of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered as "free" if you
exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come from
reading the explanations, very very carefully)

tim

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
21:05:16 on Mon, 14 Jul 2014, Tim Woodall
remarked:
Z1-Euston Square on a second PAYG card 2.20
Euston to Watford Junction on my main PAYG card 3:10

Doing it all on my main PAYG card cost me 8.90
...
As an aside, I thought using oyster was supposed to guarantee the
cheapest journey. Even without the gold card, doing my journey on two
cards is 6.90.

All they say is that using Oyster is cheaper than either:

*a* paper ticket (probably some form of Travelcard) that would have
enabled all your journeys that day.

a series of paper singles.

A lie of course. if I want cheap travel around London I invariably do better
with a paper travelcard.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single peak
journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of peak cap plus
single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 03:26:01
on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single peak
journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single peak
journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
In article , (Roland
Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single peak
journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares recorded
on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to apply. This
means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper Off-Peak cap even if
you've travelled during the peak. This is because the system calculates the
cost of:
..All the journeys you made during the peak
..All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the best
value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
..An Off-peak cap, and
..The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what you
(and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do what the
above says?

tim

In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single
peak journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares
recorded on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to
apply. This means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper
Off-Peak cap even if you've travelled during the peak. This is
because the system calculates the cost of:
.All the journeys you made during the peak
.All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the
best value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
.An Off-peak cap, and
.The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be
applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what
you (and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do
what the above says?

Maybe I'm missing something but how does that differ from what I said? There
is one peak and a number of off-peak journeys.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Roland Perry) wrote:

In message , at
03:26:01 on Tue, 15 Jul 2014, remarked:
and it's particularly bad at penalising you if you make a single
peak journey, only capping you at the peak cap instead of

off?

My guess too.

peak cap plus single fare for peak journey.

It even does this if the peak journey is a bus journey that has no
concept of differential fares for TOD (and might even be considered
as "free" if you exceed the bus cap for the day).

(I have no experience of it actually doing this, the above has come
from reading the explanations, very very carefully)

I thought it would cap at off-peak cap plus single peak fare?

I think that's what Tim is saying it doesn't do.

That's why I was puzzled. I'm sure I read that that should happen.

It seems to say that, but it doesn't

It says:

Calculating peak and off-peak capping

As you travel, the system combines all the zones, times and fares
recorded on your Oyster card so it can calculate the cheapest cap to
apply. This means that sometimes you could be charged a cheaper
Off-Peak cap even if you've travelled during the peak. This is
because the system calculates the cost of:
.All the journeys you made during the peak
.All the journeys you made during the off peak

It then adds these together to work out which cap would offer the
best value. If this total is less than a Peak cap, you'll be charged:
.An Off-peak cap, and
.The cost of the individual journey(s) you made during the peak

If this total is more than the Peak cap, then a Peak cap will be
applied.

Do you see the subtle difference here between what it says, and what
you (and I) think it should say?

The question is? Is it just badly worded, or do they actually do
what the above says?

Maybe I'm missing something but how does that differ from what I said?
There
is one peak and a number of off-peak journeys.

Let's say the OP cap is 12.00 and the peak cap is 20.00.

A) you spend 15.00 OP and 3.00 P (18.00 total). It caps you at the OP cap
plus 3 pounds = 15.00.

b) you spend 18.00 OP and 3.00 P (21.00 total). It caps you at peak cap of
20.00.

c) you spend 8.00 OP and 6.00 P (14.00 total, but crucially, more than the
OP cap). It charges you the OP cap plus 6.00 = 18.00!

(c) can't be right, but that is what it says it does

tim