On 18 Oct, 21:07, DaveP wrote:
past. The notion that someone with say a Gold Card Travelcard (i.e.
an annual) for a few zones wants a further Day Travelcard for all the
zones seems to cause considerable confusion at LU ticket offices.

I split my travel into 2 tickets - a point to point into zone 4 and a 4
zone travelcard (both annuals). If I want to buy a discounted travelcard
for someone, I must also buy one for myself (even though my ticket
combination covers the journey already).

Of course what your ticket combination doesn't cover is travel in
zones 5 & 6 - for better or worse the rule demands that you must have
a ticket with exactly the same zonal validity as your travelling
companions(s), and as they can only get Z1-6 at a discount then a
ticket (either a season or also discounted Day Travelcard) valid for
Z1-6 is what you too must have.


This makes the discount pointless, it's cheaper to buy the thing full rate.

D

I suppose that's the downside of splitting your ticket.

I split my travel into 2 tickets - a point to point into zone 4 and a

Of course what your ticket combination doesn't cover is travel in
zones 5 & 6 - for better or worse the rule demands that you must have

Indeed it doesn't, though the point to point ticket allows travel along the
route through those zones, and that's all I need. Like most commuters I go
same route every day and rarely travel anywhere else. If I do go out
socially it's invariably within Z1-4 anyhow, at least this way I'm not
paying for three sides of London I never use.

... discount pointless, it's cheaper to buy the thing full rate.
I suppose that's the downside of splitting your ticket.

The upside being £400 saving a year, which pays for quite a few day
travelcards without discount, overall I'm quids in, but it would be nice to
have the discount for travelcards too

D

On 19 Oct, 16:02, DaveP wrote:
I split my travel into 2 tickets - a point to point into zone 4 and a

Of course what your ticket combination doesn't cover is travel in
zones 5 & 6 - for better or worse the rule demands that you must have

Indeed it doesn't, though the point to point ticket allows travel along the
route through those zones, and that's all I need. Like most commuters I go
same route every day and rarely travel anywhere else. If I do go out
socially it's invariably within Z1-4 anyhow, at least this way I'm not
paying for three sides of London I never use.


... discount pointless, it's cheaper to buy the thing full rate.
I suppose that's the downside of splitting your ticket.

The upside being £400 saving a year, which pays for quite a few day
travelcards without discount, overall I'm quids in, but it would be nice to
have the discount for travelcards too

D

Everything you say I well understand, as it's all perfectly
reasonable.

Having the discount for Day Travelcards would of course be great,
however so long as the discount is only available to zones 1-6 Day
Travelcards then there would be problems:

(1) Your travelling companions would have a ticket which on face value
would be valid for all the zones, but would in actually fact only be
valid for the zones covered by your Gold Card Travelcard. Arguably not
an insurmountable problem as their discounted Day Travelcard would
only be valid when accompanied by you and your Gold Card Travelcard.

(2) Even if there was a rule that their discounted Day Travelcard was
only valid in the zones covered by your Gold Card Travelcard, if you
had your Gold Card loaded on to an Oyster then you would easily be
able to travel outside of its zonal validity on routes where Oyster
Pay-as-you-go is available (i.e. the whole LU network and a few
limited National Rail routes) as Oyster PAYG allows holders of season
Travelcards to automatically get ticket extensions (i.e. the system
combines the Travelcard validity and PAYG to charge you the
appropriate excess fare).
Thus it'd be practically unenforceable to insist that your whole party
only travelled within the zones covered by your Gold Card - they'd
appear to have a valid ticket, as would you (especially given that
it'd likely be ticket gates examining your tickets, not a ticket
inspector).


The alternative would be to introduce discounted Day Travelcards for
each and every zonal combination so as to match the zones that might
be held by a Gold Card holder (bearing in mind that there are only
four existing Day Travelcard combinations - 1&2, 1-4, 1-6 and 2-6).
This is v unlikely to happen!

Also one needs to consider why all-zone discounted Day Travelcards
exist. I believe it is because otherwise railcard-discounted Day
Travelcards from stations just outside the zones would actually be
cheaper than those available within the zones, which wouldn't be fair
- hence the discount being available only for an all-zones Day
Travelcard.

Having the discount for Day Travelcards would of course be great,
however so long as the discount is only available to zones 1-6 Day

I've certainly had the GOLDC discount issued on Z1-4 travelcards from an NR
station in the past, physically it's possible but I guess it's not a
permitted product (though the kit certainly allows its issue).

I see what you're saying, it would complicate matters to allow it.

Hopefully when some form of integrated smartcard ticketing comes around
this won't be a problem anymore (though I suppose discounted tickets will
always need to be done on paper or loaded specially onto the card?).

Cheers,
Dave