I'm confused, stut and Gagravarr seem to have answered a different question.

What is an Oyster+ card? Silver Fox says it gives "free travel from Surbiton". Do you mean a 60+ Oyster? Railcards have nothing to do with 60+ Oysters, as there is no need to discount travel which is already free.


A 60+ Oyster is equivalent to a Zone 1-6 off-peak travelcard. If this is what you have, you can buy a Basingstoke to Surbiton ticket (with or without a Veterans Railcard, makes no difference to the Oyster), and use these in combination to travel to Waterloo. You do not have to get off the train at Surbiton to touch in, and the train doesn't even have to stop at Surbiton - it only has to pass through.

You could also buy a Basingstoke to Boundary Zone 6 ticket, but in this case it is the same price as BSK to SUR, and there would be no benefit unless you wanted to travel a different route on the return (such as via Feltham, which I'm not sure is actually valid). Also you can only buy BZ tickets at ticket offices and possibly a limited selection of machines.


Not exactly sure how you worked out the £4 saving as you didn't say whether you are buying a single or return, or what times of day you are travelling. But if you were talking about a difference between £23 and £27, then there is a cheaper £20 ticket routed "via Woking". You don't need the £23 ticket unless you want to go via Reading.


stut and Gagravarr are talking about adding a railcard to a normal adult Oyster. This gives you 33% off off-peak fares and the off-peak daily cap. In this case there would not be a saving of £4 as you still need to pay £2.85 for Surbiton to Waterloo. If you use the PAYG balance on Oyster in combination with a paper ticket, you absolutely have to get off the train and touch in and out. (If you are departing London and happy to pay the maximum Oyster fare, you could just not bother touching out, but the train still has to stop at a station where your paper ticket becomes valid, and you would still have a ticket that seems valid at any point it is likely to be checked... but it's against the Oyster T&Cs and if you make a habit of it you will get caught. Going towards London you would not have a valid ticket once you pass the changeover point.)

Surbiton staff are notoriously unhelpful and I don't think they have Oyster facilities in the ticket office. In theory anyone with an Oyster machine could add a railcard, I think corner shops who provide top-up services could even do it, but the best place to do this is in large tube stations as there is more likely to be someone who knows how - if you know what you are doing you can guide a TfL staff member to do it too.... The oyster does NOT need to be registered, although some TfL staff will claim that it needs to be. If it is unregistered you will be asked to enter a postcode on the machine.