araknis

Going to London for 5 days and staying near Victoria station. I plan on getting an Oyster card for all the tube travel in zone 1 and 2. Can anyone suggest the cheapest way to take advantage of the 2for1 deals by showing a National Rail ticket? Is there a cheap route I can buy at the Victoria station? I read if I buy a return ticket, I can use the 2for1 deal during the course of the trip.

alanR

If "I" is "I" then 2-4-1 won't be of any help for you.

If "I" is "we" then each buy a 7 day zone 1-2 Travelcard from Victoria station from the "ticket counter". This will be a paper card rather than Oystercard but is eligible for the offers

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/statio...tml?rtnloc=VIC

Roger

Q&A at http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/faq.aspx#2

Mizter T

To be absolutely clear, these are the ticket counters at the mainline railway station at Victoria (not the London Underground ticket counters!).

Actually, it is possible to buy 7-day Travelcards (issued as paper/printed tickets) from the National Rail ticket machines in Victoria station too - there are two different types which are run by (and branded with the logos of) the Southern and Southeastern train companies. That said, for those unfamiliar with these machines it might just be easier to queue up and buy from the ticket counter.

Worth noting that for anyone who's planning on making trips outside of zones 1&2 - e.g. to Kew Gardens (zone 3), Wimbledon (zone 3), Hampton Court (zone 6), Excel exhibition centre (zone 3), Colindale for the RAF Museum (zone 4) - then this isn't really an ideal solution, however the majority of visitors are likely to stay within the inner zones 1&2 (apart from getting to and from Heathrow).

A 7-day (or 'weekly') zones 1&2 Travelcard currently costs Ł27.60.

mtkeller

Just realizing I have a related question. I've got two guests coming to stay with me in late April for a bit over a week. Because of when we've inserted two days in Paris, a weekly Travelcard is not the best deal for them. However, my usual route from LHR is to catch the bus to Feltham, take the train to Clapham Junction, and then grab a bus from there to my flat. If they bought paper tickets for the train portion of that journey (and back to Feltham), does anyone know would those qualify as train tickets into London for purposes of using the 2for1 vouchers? The T&C only specify "valid train tickets", and the FAQs say tickets to London (with inbound and outbound if redeeming voucher on a date for which you don't have a train ticket).

Mizter T

mtkeller - I'm pretty sure the answer is no. In railway ticketing parlence, a ticket to London would be one showing the destination as "London Terminals" (or in the case of a few fares, a specified London termini e.g. "London Victoria"), or otherwise a Travelcard so with the 'destination' showing "Zones 1-6", or indeed tickets with destinations such as "U1 London" which is a ticket to the relevant London terminal plus a single zone 1 Tube trip (tickets to say "U123 London" are also available).

(I think it's all about the 'London Terminals' element - FWIW, a ticket for a journey from Feltham to Gatwick changing at Clapham Junction would be marked as "Not London", meaning it wasn't valid for travel via London terminal stations such as Victoria - i.e. the 'London' in this sense isn't a reference to the wider London metropolis or Greater London, instead it has a far narrower meaning.)

Besides, there are no period return fares (i.e. monthly as opposed to day returns) for Feltham to Clapham Junction - indeed, such fares are only available for rather longer journeys in the south east of England (a point which is relevant to the OP).

mtkeller

It doesn't look like you need a return fare (can have two singles, one in each direction) according to the FAQ. However, I think you're probably right about London Terminals. Given that, it sounds like Feltham to Waterloo plus Waterloo to Feltham as singles would work, since Waterloo is a London terminal. Does that seem right? I'll have to run the numbers price-wise and see what we're looking at doing that has 2for1 vouchers, but seems like it might be a good way to go.

Mizter T

No, you don't need a return fare - I was just jumping to the possibly erroneous conclusion that having fetched your friends from Heathrow and taken them back to your flat, you wouldn't then be going off to visit an attraction on that very same day.

I don't think a single ticket from Waterloo to Feltham is really valid for this offer either - it's aimed at people with tickets to London, not singles leaving London. I see there's some stuff in the blurb about how people with two Advance tickets (which are sold as singles) that encompass a return trip to London can take advantage of the 2-for-1 offers, but Advance tickets are a specific type of ticket, for longer distance journeys, with travel on a specified train or trains - you can't buy Advance tickets from Feltham to Clapham Junction!

What you could do I suppose is try and find some v. cheap Advance tickets that encompass the period your friends are in London - e.g. some cheap Brighton to London tickets (currently Ł3.70, Ł5.55 or Ł7.40 from the Southern website inc. a 25% discount for buying directly from them - search specifically for journeys to "London Victoria").

Note that I can imagine some attractions might greet the presentation of two such low-value rail tickets with a degree of scepticism - that said, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people working on the doors at various attractions are a bit bamboozled by the whole 2-for-1 offer and actually grant it when strictly speaking they shouldn't (either that, or they might have an, erm, flexible interpretation of the policy)!

alanR

Why do you assume that - they'll still have to get to St Pancras for the Eurostar which means 2 single fares each (Ł4-Ł5) and a 7 day Travelcard is less than the cost of 5 one day Travelcards

mtkeller

Yeah, I need to look at the numbers, I guess. We might wind up with a cab to St Pancras, as we've got the 0653 to Paris. I need to do a dry run to see how quickly we can make it from the Northern Line platforms to Eurostar departures to see how feasible I think this is with two (sprightly but short of stride) ladies in the 60+ set. I'm just so used to having an Oyster monthly travelcard work provides that I don't think about fares until I get to the edge of Zone 2. They're arriving on a Monday afternoon and leaving Tuesday of the next week with Wednesday and Thursday the Paris days. I guess if I could get them to decide where else outside of London we will venture, this would all be simpler. Set up a giant spreadsheet and see what's likely to be cheapest

Oh, I did find another forum where people reported that having cheapy Vauxhall-Waterloo singles work just fine for the 2for1 offers. Surely that's not within the intent of the offer, but given their vague T&C and the fact that clueless attractions staff who often don't ask to see tran tickets are enforcing it...

araknis

Sorry, yes, I am traveling with my SO so there are 2 of us. A few questions/clarifications about going the travel card route

- I must get a paper travelcard to take advantage of the 2for1.
- Oyster card is not longer necessary for me since I will have the paper travel card.
- When taking the tube from LHR to Covent Garden, does the travel card reduce the fare or do I need to purchase full tube ticket and then buy travel card later?

Thanks

Swiss Tony

Just a data point but on the few occasions I've redeemed these vouchers, I've never been asked to show the train ticket.

From what I can remember, This has been at the TFL museum and Vinopolis.

mtkeller

Correct, but it's not just a paper travelcard, it needs to be a paper travelcard issued at a National Rail (mainline) train station on their ticket stock, which has the crows feet logo. If you get a travelcard from a London Underground vending machine or ticket office, it won't meet the criteria. Yes, no need for Oyster, as your travelcard will cover buses and the Tube as long as you stay inside your designated zones when on the Tube. Most, but not all, attractions are in Zones 1 and 2, so you should be good with the cheapest travelcard. Probably want to take a look in advance and see which zones you plan to visit.

There's the sticky wicket that hopefully someone more familiar with the trains at LHR can answer. You could buy a travelcard at the Piccadilly Line station at LHR. However, that's the "bad" kind of travelcard for 2for1 offers. Further, it'd have to cover more zones (and thus be more expensive) than you'll likely need just for being a tourist in Central London. I'm not sure if there are mainline ticket machines at the Heathrow Express station at LHR. Depending on how long you're in London, you could get a one-day TfL travelcard covering your journey from LHR to Covent Garden for the first day and use that to get around visiting places you won't use 2for1s on arrival day and then start with your "crows foot logo" travelcard on the second day and make use of your 2for1s from then on.

stut

There aren't. If you're really determined, you could get the Heathrow Connect to Hayes & Harlington, buy a ticket there and continue, or use the Feltham Rail-Air bus to get to Waterloo... But I suspect it's not worth it.

mtkeller

Very true about not being worth it. (I like the Feltham Rail-Air bus, but I live in Clapham, use Oyster, and find the interchanges from Northern to Picadilly to be unpleasant with luggage.)

Simplest is probably just to pay the regular fare from LHR to Covent Garden and then walk to Charing Cross and get your travelcard on National Rail stock. Just deduct the extra fare from your savings on using the 2for1s.