A quick query - when buying a Gold Card Travelcard (i.e. an annual
Travelcard), are Underground stations and TfL Travel Information
Centres able to issue the Partner's Network Card (i.e. the £1 offer
for Gold Card holders to get a Network Card for their partner)?

If not, I presume it would be possible to take your Underground-issued
Gold Card Travelcard to a National Rail station at a later date and
then purchase the £1 Partner's Network Card.

Can anyone clarify or confirm this?

That's what I did - bought Annual Travelcard (Oyster Card) from LU and
later got my £1 partner card from NR at Paddington. They wrote on the
back of my Record Card to say the partner card had been issued. The
partner card is actually valid for a year from the date I got it,
rather than when I got the Travelcard.

Dominic

Dominic wrote:
That's what I did - bought Annual Travelcard (Oyster Card) from LU and
later got my £1 partner card from NR at Paddington. They wrote on the
back of my Record Card to say the partner card had been issued. The
partner card is actually valid for a year from the date I got it,
rather than when I got the Travelcard.

Dominic

Slighty OT

I have a gold record card that I got via my annual travelcard. One of
the benefits is the ability to upgrade a standard ticket 1st (only in
the NSE region?). Is there a limitiation on the type of standard
tickets that can be upgraded? and how would one go about upgrading.
Just get on the train and pay the ticket inspector? or get it from the
ticket office before you travel?

Stu

wrote

I have a gold record card that I got via my annual travelcard. One of
the benefits is the ability to upgrade a standard ticket 1st (only in
the NSE region?). Is there a limitiation on the type of standard
tickets that can be upgraded? and how would one go about upgrading.
Just get on the train and pay the ticket inspector? or get it from the
ticket office before you travel?

The latter. AIUI it is just on NSE, and there are restrictions on peak
journeys to/from London. They seem to be available on all tickets - when
they were available with an ordinary Network Card I even managed to get one
on one of the Network Day tickets.

Peter

wrote:
Dominic wrote:
That's what I did - bought Annual Travelcard (Oyster Card) from LU and
later got my £1 partner card from NR at Paddington. They wrote on the
back of my Record Card to say the partner card had been issued. The
partner card is actually valid for a year from the date I got it,
rather than when I got the Travelcard.

Dominic

Slighty OT

I have a gold record card that I got via my annual travelcard. One of
the benefits is the ability to upgrade a standard ticket 1st (only in
the NSE region?). Is there a limitiation on the type of standard
tickets that can be upgraded? and how would one go about upgrading.
Just get on the train and pay the ticket inspector? or get it from the
ticket office before you travel?

Stu


Thanks for the reply Dominic - I suspect that your experience is
universal, i.e. that Underground ticket offices and TfL Travel Info
Centres are unable to issue the Partner's Network Railcard. So if you
want an annual Travelcard on Oyster and the Partner's Network Railcard,
two purchases are necessary. I can live with that, though in the future
I think we'll see National Rail stations issuing Oyster cards, not
least because I'm sure they're losing ticket sales to TfL as passengers
catch-on to the benefits of Oyster.


Stu - only a partial answer to your questions. The upgrades to 1st
class, like all the Gold Card benefits, are only available in the
former NSE area (as specified on the map in the Network Railcard
leaflet - the Gold Card offers the same benefits *and* AIUI it's not
subject to the Mon-Fri £10 minimum fare that the Network Railcard
suffers from). I don't know if you can upgrade on board as with the
Weekend First arrangement on InterCity trains.

There's info on Gold Card benefits on these pages, though it is
insufficient to answer all the queries one may have:

http://www.swtrains.co.uk/ourservices/gold.asp
http://www.setrains.co.uk/SETrains/F...ketDetails.htm
http://www.thameslink.co.uk/main.php?page_id=148

"Mizter T" wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
Dominic wrote:
That's what I did - bought Annual Travelcard (Oyster Card) from LU and
later got my £1 partner card from NR at Paddington. They wrote on the
back of my Record Card to say the partner card had been issued. The
partner card is actually valid for a year from the date I got it,
rather than when I got the Travelcard.

Dominic

Slighty OT

I have a gold record card that I got via my annual travelcard. One of
the benefits is the ability to upgrade a standard ticket 1st (only in
the NSE region?). Is there a limitiation on the type of standard
tickets that can be upgraded? and how would one go about upgrading.
Just get on the train and pay the ticket inspector? or get it from the
ticket office before you travel?

Stu


Thanks for the reply Dominic - I suspect that your experience is
universal, i.e. that Underground ticket offices and TfL Travel Info
Centres are unable to issue the Partner's Network Railcard. So if you
want an annual Travelcard on Oyster and the Partner's Network Railcard,
two purchases are necessary. I can live with that, though in the future
I think we'll see National Rail stations issuing Oyster cards, not
least because I'm sure they're losing ticket sales to TfL as passengers
catch-on to the benefits of Oyster.


Stu - only a partial answer to your questions. The upgrades to 1st
class, like all the Gold Card benefits, are only available in the
former NSE area (as specified on the map in the Network Railcard
leaflet - the Gold Card offers the same benefits *and* AIUI it's not
subject to the Mon-Fri £10 minimum fare that the Network Railcard
suffers from). I don't know if you can upgrade on board as with the
Weekend First arrangement on InterCity trains.

There's info on Gold Card benefits on these pages, though it is
insufficient to answer all the queries one may have:

http://www.swtrains.co.uk/ourservices/gold.asp
http://www.setrains.co.uk/SETrains/F...ketDetails.htm
http://www.thameslink.co.uk/main.php?page_id=148


Don't forget that on the annual cards, your best bet would be to use a rail
company which gives 52 weeks for the price of 40 (like Thameslink)

You can still just buy a zone 1-2 or zone 1-4 travelcard like this. Not sure
if they can also give you an oyster for this if bought at a suitable
station.

A.

I never realised that all rail companies charged 40 weeks instead of
52.

But you are right. Thanks for that.

ANDY

londoncityslicker wrote:
snip
Don't forget that on the annual cards, your best bet would be to use a rail
company which gives 52 weeks for the price of 40 (like Thameslink)

You can still just buy a zone 1-2 or zone 1-4 travelcard like this. Not sure
if they can also give you an oyster for this if bought at a suitable
station.

As Barry Salter has already pointed out, you get 52 weeks for the price
of 40 whether you buy from TfL or National Rail (NR). You do, however,
get a reduction in line with the Passenger's Charter if your National
Rail route has performed badly.

I am unclear as to exactly how the Passengers Charter reductions
operate - I think it is specific as to a line (or group of lines), and
I think it only operates for those who are renewing a monthly or longer
ticket (i.e. it doesn't operate for weekly tickets, nor for first
purchases). I also don't know the extent of the savings on offer if one
was to shop around. Perhaps someone in the know can contribute to this.


With regards to Oyster cards, most NR stations don't issue them, though
a few do. There's a list in the TfL Fares leaflet (link below), but I
believe that there are more NR stations than on that list that now
dabble in Oyster. All the listed stations are either served by the
Underground/DLR or the North London Line (Silverlink Metro), which for
ticketing purposes increasingly masquerades as a tube line (IIRC it now
uses tube zonal ticket pricing throughout). Before I get carried away
with this, I'm actually going to start a new thread asking about which
NR stations sell Oyster.

Link to the TfL Fares leaflet list:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...05.pdf#page=13

Mizter T wrote:

With regards to Oyster cards, most NR stations don't issue them, though
a few do. There's a list in the TfL Fares leaflet (link below), but I
believe that there are more NR stations than on that list that now
dabble in Oyster.

Now here's the toughie - where can you get NR extension tickets on top of
travelcards on Oyster? I sometimes have to pop beyond Zone 6 in south
London.

Mizter T wrote:
snip
All the listed stations are either served by the
Underground/DLR or the North London Line (Silverlink Metro)...

Er, sorry, scrub that. Plenty of NLL stations arn't on the list (Acton
Central, Hampstead Heath etc etc), though all the Silverlink Metro
stations served by the Bakerloo Line up to Harrow & Wealdstone are,
sensibly enough, on the list and able to deal with Oyster.