London season ticket advice

[_toommm_]

I would be looking for advice for anyone who's familiar with London season tickets, specifically through the likes of Clarity Travel.

I have moved near to Streatham Hill, and would be commuting to Oxford Circus roughly 5 days a week. I have an Oyster card with a railcard, and have worked out travelling peak in the morning, and off-peak in the evening, it would work out at roughly £10 per day by getting the train from SRH to VIC, then tube from there (and vice versa). A one month Z1-3 travelcard is roughly £201, with a yearly being £2,100.

My work offers season ticket loans through Clarity Travel and payroll deductions, but they don't do travelcards anymore since TfL stopped selling paper ones. I'm trying to wrangle it to give me a years season less than £2,100, which would allow me to do the above journey. I've tried seasons from SRH to stations just on the other side of the river, such as Wembley Central/Stadium, Harrow and Wealdstone, Finsbury Park, but they all return results of tickets not valid via the underground.

Does anyone have any suggestions of ways to make this work please, who might have had experience with it?

 

[Surreytraveller]

You can't. Any season ticket including the Underground (except limited examples where there is dual availability - but that's not applicable here) has to be a Travelcard

 

[iphone76]

I don't want to encourage you getting into debt, but have you considered a 12/24 month zero % interest credit card?

You could purchase a travelcard, put the card in a drawer, then pay off an equal amount each month on pay day?

I notice there are some 24/25 month cards so would cover 2 years.

Just a thought if the work loan doesnt work out. When I did have a work loan, we could purchase the ticket ourselves and send a photo of purchased ticket to HR and that was evidence enough. I used a cashback Amex credit card to get 5% which on £4k per year was a nice little bonus.

 

[Hadders]

I don't think you're going to be able to get a Travelcard issued through Clarity.

An annual season ticket might not be the best way for you. The idea of a season ticket loan is so that you pay the loan back in monthly installments across the year, deducted from your pay. A season ticket loan is not salary sacrifice so there are no tax advantages of a loan. Using Oyster means that you simply pay as you go on a daily basis, you don't have to find a lump sum of money to pay up front.

Streatham Hill to Oxford Circus costs £6.60 peak and £3.55 off peak (with your railcard) which totals £10.15 but remember the Anytime Daily Cap for Zones 1-3 is £10.50 so even if both journeys were made in the peak this is the most you would pay. An annual Zones 1-3 Travelcard costs £2,100 so the question is how many times do you expect to travel to work during the year? An annual season only becomes worth it if you travel more than 206 times.

 

[_toommm_]

You can't. Any season ticket including the Underground (except limited examples where there is dual availability - but that's not applicable here) has to be a Travelcard

Shame - I've only just moved here and I assumed season tickets would work in the same way as point-to-point tickets and could be sold with validity for LU (a Maltese cross).

I don't want to encourage you getting into debt, but have you considered a 12/24 month zero % interest credit card?

You could purchase a travelcard, put the card in a drawer, then pay off an equal amount each month on pay day?

I notice there are some 24/25 month cards so would cover 2 years.

Just a thought if the work loan doesnt work out. When I did have a work loan, we could purchase the ticket ourselves and send a photo of purchased ticket to HR and that was evidence enough. I used a cashback Amex credit card to get 5% which on £4k per year was a nice little bonus.

The credit card might be an option for me - my employer stopped doing loans paid directly to us a good few years ago.

Streatham Hill to Oxford Circus costs £6.60 peak and £3.55 off peak (with your railcard) which totals £10.15 but remember the Anytime Daily Cap for Zones 1-3 is £10.50 so even if both journeys were made in the peak this is the most you would pay. An annual Zones 1-3 Travelcard costs £2,100 so the question is how many times do you expect to travel to work during the year? An annual season only becomes worth it if you travel more than 206 times.

I work on average 4.5 days a week, the break even point where a travelcard works out better value is 4 days.

 

[Hadders]

I work on average 4.5 days a week, the break even point where a travelcard works out better value is 4 days.

It depends on how many times you plan to travel in the year. As explained above the break even point is 206 journeys.

What you’ve got to look at is how many weeks won’t you travel due to holidays and other absence. You should of course factor in any leisure travel outside your normal commute to work.