mckvakk

Hi,

I have a 10 hr layover in London, it's highly likely that i'll reach the daily cap for travel in underground zones 1 and 2 within that time.

I'm taking the Heathrow express into town since the connect service no longer stops at T5, but on the return i'll take the Heathrow connect into T4. I understand that this has now been taken over by TFL and is covered by their fares, what happens if i use the same payment method for this journey as for the underground in town? Will i only pay the cost of the connect ticket (£10) for the whole day, or will that come on top of the daily cap for the underground?

MoreMilesPlease

The Heathrow Express cost is separate from the daily cap.

mckvakk

Is that also true for Heathrow connect? I know the express is a separate ticket (separate company too i'm guessing?) :-)

stut

Heathrow Connect (aka TfL Rail) is now included in a Zone 1-6 daily cap.

mckvakk

Thanks. That should save me about £4 if i'm thinking correctly

:D!

You can still take the connect, but you just have to get the express for free from T5 to T23 (I'm not fully sure how it all works yet, but it may be best to print yourself a free ticket to T23, exit the station then re-enter with your bank card / Oyster).

If you do this you'll pay a maximum of £12.50 for the whole day's travel - even though a single fare for the connect would be £10.10 or £10.20 - rather than buying an expensive express one-way ticket unless you already paid / you are really in a rush to get to an event near Paddington.


In itself, this doesn't mean that you should take the Heathrow connect. The cap for Z1-2 is £6.80. If you reach that cap, and take two tube journeys, 1) Heathrow to Earls Court touching in after 0927, and 2) Earls Court to Heathrow touching in before 1635 or after 1857 - you would only pay £6.80 + £1.50 + £1.50 = £9.80 for the day, certainly with a bank card, not sure if Oyster does that yet (I recall that if you start with a journey involving Z6, it may then just work towards the Z6 cap though to be sure you could always use 2 Oysters back when they were refundable at the LHR tube ticket office).


EDIT: oops, I initially wrote that the off-peak cap for Z1-6 is £10.70. For the OP it will be £12.50 regardless of when he travels. It is only £10.70 if you travel off-peak in Z1-6 2 or more days in one week, 4 or more days in two weeks or 8 or more days in four weeks, and you get refunded automatically to your bank card the Friday after achieving this "goal", or to your Oyster provided that you use it again the next week. Yes, London fares are extremely complicated nowadays.

Aselwyn

FYI the Connect no longer exists its now been folded into TFL rail soon to be the Elisabeth line so it its £10.20 into Paddington and counts towards a zone 1-6 daily cap

mckvakk

The express ticket was only about £3 more than a single connect ticket if i bought more than 30 days in advance. So i bought this to save the hassle of changing at T2-3.
This was of course bought before i thought of the daily cap. But i'll definetly remember it for next time, that's a good travel hack.

:D!

OK, so you'll start the Oyster day in Paddington.

I made a small error in my post, but basically if you are only travelling in Z1-2 within London for the day, and the Piccadilly line happens to be more convenient when it's time to go back to LHR (instead of trekking back to Paddington), then you wouldn't even reach the Z1-6 cap.

You would just pay the Z1-2 cap, plus a single journey Z1 or Z2 to Heathrow (cheaper if you start in Z2, or you exit and re-enter at a Z2 station such as Earls Court or beyond).

But I would only recommend taking the Piccadilly line between 3pm-7pm if you have no more than a backpack and/or saving money is important to you.

rcspeirs

Silver Fox

That'll go a long way in London!

:D!

Indeed, you could go all the way to Theobalds Grove via Zone 1 off-peak

Silver Fox

Mornington Cresecent!

WorldLux

Or a Heathrow-Upminster return, avoiding zone 1 both ways, and have a quid left.

username

I have a stupid question about the daily cap...

It says "Zones you've travelled through" for the cap. However, say if I want to go from Zone 3 to Zone 3 on opposite sides of town and cross central London, how will the cap apply?

For single fares, it would say things like: "Avoiding Zone 1 via Canada Water or Shadwell" to get a lower fare. Does it make a difference when the daily cap is applied? Would this be a 1-3 daily cap or because I crossed more zones, it is a different daily cap?

Thanks.