Just to let Londoners (mainly) know in case they haven't seen it: the dreaded Oyster Extension Permit, which confused many Oyster holders with a travelcard on their Oyster but intending to travel out of zone using their payg balance, is to be abolished from a date to be confirmed in late May. See this very useful site.

Oooh - very interesting. I have a monthly but travel out of zone quite frequently. What's it to be replaced with? Anything?

p.s. I almost never bothered with the OEP and took my chances. But I always get off at stations where you can touch out. Have I been overcharged?

Afternoon.

No, it's not to be replaced with anything. You will just touch in and out in the normal way. The site I linked to above did mention that people were being charged penalty fares, especially by SWT, who are as you know the spawn of the devil, if people went out of zone without having set an OEP, so I'd personally advise setting one until they're abolished.

You haven't been overcharged, but have you considered getting an annual travelcard? That counts as a network gold card, which gives one third off off peak travel for you +1 in the South East; �5 first class upgrade at weekends; and most important one-third off tube and rail fares (and a third off the off peak caps) in London when you register the gold card on your Oyster. This might make sense if you travel out of zone a bit and might make use of the other benefits.

ETA: PS You could always try the Isle of Wight trick, depending on your travel patterns.

I read the previous thread about the IOW trick with much interest.

My commute is entirely Tube-based, Z1-3. I travel rarely outside the country with work, so I am commuting all but about six weeks per year.

Is this Annual Travelcard you speak of above the same thing as an Annual Tube Travelcard or does it have to be associated with the railways? I've thought on and off about getting an Annual Tube Travelcard but the economy of scale didn't seem worth it. I think it is the equivalent of paying for ten and a half monthly Travelcards but getting twelve, so as soon as I am gone for more than six weeks in any year, it would be cheaper to have bought monthly cards instead. Also, if I were to move halfway through my year, would it be possible to amend?

The O/H does do a lot of PAYG travel through London, though, and rarely if ever travels enough to warrant a Travelcard. We might seriously investigate purchasing an IOW Annual Travelcard for him if it makes travel cheaper - that is, if it would save us more than ~�140 in any year.

It wasn't dreaded - it was just ignored, not least because few people knew about it and fewer understood it!

It only ever came about because the train companies demanded it as a condition of their eventual agreement to accept Oyster Pay-as-you-go on their services - TfL went along with this only grudgingly. The hope from the beginning was that the OEP was such an awkward system that it wouldn't last long... and lo it has come to pass!

A Travelcard is a Travelcard is a Travelcard, whether it's purchased from a TfL outlet or from a train company (National Rail) outlet. Same applies whether it's issued on Oyster or on printed/paper ticket (from rail ticket offices - though a few can issue it on Oyster) - the advantage of having it on Oyster is that you can just use it in combination with Pay-as-you-go credit loaded on the same card to travel to other places in London (well to be precise the PAYG area - that's zones 1-9 plus a handful of stations just beyond) which are beyond the zones covered by your Travelcard without having to buy extension tickets before setting off.

Another advantage is that with a paper/printed ticket they only allow you one replacement (because of the fraud risk) - with Travelcards issued on Oyster there isn't such a rule if you lose it or have it nicked (because they can hotlist the missing/stolen card) - in both cases admin fees apply of course (reasonable admin fees one should add - this isn't Ryanair!).

With an annual season ticket, you get 52 weeks for the price of 40. And yes you can both amend it and also get a refund for the unused portion of it (up to 40 weeks into its validity) - again (reasonable) admin fees apply.

And just to be clear, regardless of who you buy it from, an annual Travelcard is by default a 'Gold Card', which provides for the third-off discount on off-peak rail fares in the south east.

Note that (as a slightly separate point) you can now have a gold card (or any other applicable railcard) loaded on to a PAYG-only Oyster to give you the same discount within London as you used to get with paper tickets.

This is only for loss, however. For damaged/worn tickets, you can get as many as you want, provided you can present the old ticket. And that's a good thing, too - it's hard to get through a year with fewer than 4 of them! Explaining this to a grumpy ticket agent at King's Cross on a Monday morning is not always straightforward, though.

Just to be clear, though, you don't get a pro-rata refund. You get the difference between the cost of the gold card and what the cost would have been if made up of monthly and weekly tickets instead, minus the admin fee. However, this still means that you're not losing out.

Indeed, and do shop around, as TOCs offer various bonuses of their own for Gold Cards - from free travel vouchers to unlimited weekend travel (on the TOC's network)!

A new annual season has appeared - a discounted version of Exeter Central to Exeter St David's - which is cheaper than the Ticket to Ryde. However, it's not yet clear whether or not this will get gold card benefits (or possibly also Devon & Cornwall ones).

There's also a couple of Southern Tickets that are as cheap - Newhaven Town to Newhaven Harbour and Pevensey & Westham to Pevensey Bay.

(Newhaven Harbour is a bizarre station, as it has a 'platform 3', which is actually a separate station - Newhaven Marine. This is a 'ghost station' - it's legally open, and has a service running once a day in the evening. However, as the station/platform is crumbling, public access is prohibited due to Health & Safety...)

If you have an annual travelcard on your Oyster is the gold card discount automatically added to your oyster PAYG? (With Oyster you get a separate paper 'gold record card' which alongside your oyster is classed as a gold card).

When I last looked at National Rail PAYG they had deliberately omitted gold cards from the list of suitable railcards that'd be recognised by PAYG - glad that was changed.

Do they still do the Gold Partner Card? Last I looked it was �1 and may be ideal for ajax, he buys an annual travel card and gets a gold card for himself (valid for up to 4 people travelling together) and one for his partner when travelling separately.

Yes. It's only if you have a non-Oyster gold card (or non-travelcard gold card - mine was always to 'London Terminals' as I cycled the last bit) that you need to load it on.

Yes, me too! They received a barrage of complaints from some long-distance commuters when they omitted this!

Yes, they do, although there's plenty ticket agents who are unaware of it. Get it in London with gentle persuasion and much form filling. Get it in the country by handing over a pound coin

Remember, though, that the partner card does have the �13 minimum weekday fare and 10am restriction, so it depends on your usage. Also remember that, for groups of 4, Groupsave gives a 50% discount off-peak.

Do you need a passport sized photo to accompany the pound coin?

Nope - no photo needed for a Network Card (which is effectively what it is).

The back of your Gold Card should be endorsed when you buy one, as you're technically only allowed one per year. However, this rarely happens outside London, and the endorsement rarely gets carried across when you get a replacement Gold Card...

Oh, also, the other Gold Card Benefit is the �5 upgrade. On commuter routes, it's much of a muchness - First really isn't a great benefit (unless it happens to be overcrowded). However, on the Wessex Mainline and Cotswold Line, it can be rather worthwhile...

No - it's nothing other than a very cheap Network Railcard, which doesn't require a photo (it does require a name which is printed on it though) - in the past, they were branded as 'Gold Card Partner's Cards' and had special ticket stock (though functionally they did the same thing as a Network Railcard), however these days its just issued on standard Network Railcard ticket stock.

stut - re the difficulties of getting one in London, I've come across the contrary, with tales of ticket offices happy to dispense them with perhaps a little too easily - e.g. no stamping or marking of the Gold Card (or accompanying Record Card in the case of Oyster), leaving the GC holder, er, free to try again...

(Which reminds me of something I've come across in the past - whilst replacing a lost Oyster which had an annual Travelcard loaded on it might be relatively easy procedure, I think I've read about how replacement Record Cards are not issued, or at least not routinely issued - potentially problematic if you want to take advantage of the third-off discount for travel in the south east outside London...)

Edit - as you can see, my post crossed with stut's!

I've used the �3 (as it was then) upgrade on SWT to Bournemouth before, OK not InterCity levels of F comfort and service but the little differences are well worth that price (and indeed the fiver now).

It should be added by the ticket agent when you buy it, but mine wasn't and I had to get it added at a later date.

If you buy the ticket online and collect it from a station you may also need to get it added manually.

Is there anyway to check it yourself? e.g. should it show up in your online oyster account?