Season ticket clarification- SWR: Teddington

[waltairexpress]

Hi Everyone,
I'm new here and I think this is the right place to ask my question.
I'm planning on purchasing an annual season ticket and am confused between the two:

1. TED - VXH - £1428
2. TED - VXH (any permitted route) - £2288

Q1: What is the difference between the two? Is there any merit in getting the later?

For context: My commute is 5 days a week from TED - Clapham Jn. But the reason I am opting for a ticket to Vauxhall is because if and when I choose to go into the city, I can use my season ticket to reach the tube (VXH).

Q2: So, am I allowed to break my journey at Clapham Jn if I have an annual season ticket between TED - VXH

Attached below is a screenshot of the same on SWR website.

Thank you!

 

[akm]

What a horrible screen. I've tried it out myself and as far as I can tell, NOWHERE does it actually explain what you are buying.

The cheaper one is a season between Teddington and Vauxhall (I think, but I haven't checked, that the only permitted routes here would be either way round the loop to Clapham Junction, then to Vauxhall)

The more expensive one is in fact a season between Teddington and London Terminals! Which would allow you travel to any of the London Terminals that you could reach by rail from Teddington (*), which is obviously a lot more validity than just to Vauxhall!

The reason this awful screen is shown to you, I'd guess, is because Vauxhall is defined as a London Terminal, in some dataset somewhere. But that's no excuse for not telling the customer what they are looking at!

Here's a link to the brfares.com page for this flow, where you can see:



that the more expensive flow is in fact "Ticlet issued to: LONDON TERMINALS"



Finally, just to say that given "My commute is 5 days a week from TED - Clapham Jn" and occasional forays into central London, you might want to consider just using contactless pay as you go, for convenience if nothing else.




(*) there are ongoing unsettled debates on this site about exactly what stations a London Terminals ticket allows...

 

[jfollows]

Q2: So, am I allowed to break my journey at Clapham Jn if I have an annual season ticket between Teddington - Vauxhall

Yes
You can break your journey at any intermediate station along the valid route between the end points of a season ticket, in this case this includes Clapham Junction.

 

[waltairexpress]

What a horrible screen. I've tried it out myself and as far as I can tell, NOWHERE does it actually explain what you are buying.

The cheaper one is a season between Teddington and Vauxhall (I think, but I haven't checked, that the only permitted routes here would be either way round the loop to Clapham Junction, then to Vauxhall)

The more expensive one is in fact a season between Teddington and London Terminals! Which would allow you travel to any of the London Terminals that you could reach by rail from Teddington (*), which is obviously a lot more validity than just to Vauxhall!

The reason this awful screen is shown to you, I'd guess, is because Vauxhall is defined as a London Terminal, in some dataset somewhere. But that's no excuse for not telling the customer what they are looking at!

Here's a link to the brfares.com page for this flow, where you can see:

View attachment 149538

that the more expensive flow is in fact "Ticlet issued to: LONDON TERMINALS"



Finally, just to say that given "My commute is 5 days a week from TED - Clapham Jn" and occasional forays into central London, you might want to consider just using contactless pay as you go, for convenience if nothing else.




(*) there are ongoing unsettled debates on this site about exactly what stations a London Terminals ticket allows...

Ah! that makes sense (a little bit)
The reason I opted Vauxhall and not Clapham Jn is because the annual season ticket price to both is the same.

As a matter of fact I checked in my employer 'season ticket loan' portal and it shows what you described :

you might want to consider just using contactless pay as you go, for convenience if nothing else.

This is a fair shout, but I thought I'd tap in from Vauxhall as the daily cap would fall under Zone 1-2 as opposed to Zone 1-6 if I PAYG all the way from Teddington.

Thanks for your reply!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jan 2024 ==

Yes
You can break your journey at any intermediate station along the valid route between the end points of a season ticket, in this case this includes Clapham Junction.

That is good to know! My swift google researches always ended with 'routeing'. Which tbh overwhelmed me! thank you for the clarification.,

 

[jfollows]

That is good to know! My swift google researches always ended with 'routeing'. Which tbh overwhelmed me! thank you for the clarification.,

Don't worry about 'routeing' overmuch, but as akm already said, Teddington to Vauxhall is valid via either Kingston or Richmond, and so you can use this ticket for any journeys which are part of either of these valid routes. And clearly Clapham Junction is part of either way round.
So you can equally use it for a journey from Twickenham to Kingston, as a random example.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Strange as Vauxhall is part of the London Terminals group

 

[Deerfold]

Strange as Vauxhall is part of the London Terminals group

What's strange?

 

[Wallsendmag]

What's strange?

That there is a price difference between the fare to Vauxhall and the fare to London Terminals

 

[island]

That there is a price difference between the fare to Vauxhall and the fare to London Terminals

Not really. It's in a different fare zone, nearer the origin, and lower demand. The size of the price difference is perhaps surprising, though not its existence.

 

[Watershed]

That there is a price difference between the fare to Vauxhall and the fare to London Terminals

Not really, when you consider the fact that point-to-point season tickets for journeys within Zones 1-6 are (mostly) zonally priced.

Vauxhall is in Zone 1/2 so you are effectively paying the cost of a Zones 2-6 point-to-point season, rather than Zones 1-6, if you buy one issued to Vauxhall rather than London Terminals.