Using a season ticket at odd times/broken journeys

[Lockwood]

I am looking at getting a job in London, which would involve shift work.
I see that I can get an annual travelcard season ticket for just over £5,000, which works out cheaper per day than driving and parking.

AIUI, The season ticket would cover me for a journey from Havant to London, whatever I want zones 1-6, then back to Havant, on any day of the week for a year.
Would this ticket allow me to travel short? ie going to Guildford for the day on a day off? Would travelling short on the Southern route be acceptable as well, ie Havant to Chichester, as that is not on the direct route?

The ticket is only one journey per day? ie Havant -> London -> Havant -> Petersfield -> Havant is unacceptable?

Though I can't see a reason for it right now, assuming the questions above don't cover it already, I'm guessing that Havant - London - Guildford - London - Havant is also not valid on that ticket?

If the shift pattern meant I would be returning home on the first train, would the ticket be valid, as it would be impossible to have done Havant -> London to get to the station in time for that train?
Last train from Havant would be ok, since that'd just be missing the last train back?


Preemptively, I am not looking to defraud the railway or learn how to evade fares - I want to know what the legitimate capabilities of the ticket are.

 

[tsr]

Starting/stopping short should be OK, but gatelines sometimes might not work.

Operator-specific restrictions for your ticket are as printed & advised at time of purchase.

Use it as many times as you want per day.

 

[soil]

This may help:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1132953

You (you only! not wife, friends, etc.) can make unlimited journeys between any two stations that are on a permitted route between Havant and London Zone 6 and then unlimited travel between any stations within London Zones 1 - 6.

And in either direction.

So all the journeys you mention are all permitted - Havant - Brighton would be permitted, Brighton - London would be permitted and many others that you might not have thought of, such as Havant - Southampton - Reading - London (or any subset of this, such as Havant - Southampton).

£5k is quite a lot in fact and there are some cheaper tickets valid for these journeys.

 

[Lockwood]

If there are cheaper options, I'd be happy to look into them.
One of the employee benefits is an interest free season ticket loan, I'm guessing that they buy the ticket for you and you repay them back out of your wages.
I'm also looking at another job in Sussex, which would make the travelling a lot simpler (and probably swing back in favour of the car).

Can I infer from what you've said there that Havant to London via Southampton and Reading is a valid route normally?
I've been advised in the past by SWT staff that I "might not" be able to use the Waterloo-Portsmouth via Basingstoke, change at Fratton and come back up route. That sounds less circuitous than Southampton and Reading.
(If this ticket covers me for Southampton and Reading as well, I'm not knocking it - I'd have use for both of those)


If you wanted to do a trip from Z6 to Z7-9/A-D/whatever it is today, how would you get the extension ticket from Z6 to the destination? Buy it before you board, and get it sold from the boundary and not from the origin station? Buy it at the destination and plead you're not evading?

 

[maniacmartin]

£5k is quite a lot in fact and there are some cheaper tickets valid for these journeys.

Indeed. One example is that a lot of tickets valid from the Southampton/Portsmouth area to the Redhill/Crawley area are valid with a change at Clapham Junction, and are about half the price of a season ticket to London. National Rail Enquiries will show this if you type Havant to Redhill, and specify via: Clapham Junction. It's important to check the site does not say that a journey requires more than one ticket when you click the itinerary.

The only problem is you'd need a separate ticket to get from Clapham Junction to London. If you wished to combine 2 season tickets here (such as with a Zone 1-2 Travelcard on Oyster), you'd have to take a train would have to actually make a timetabled stop at Clapham Junction, which not all do.

Alternatively, you could spend a bit more and buy a series of Anytime Day Returns from Clapham Junction to Zone U12* London at 8.80 per day. Assuming you worked 200 days per year, these would total 1760. adding on the 2400 season makes 4160 - much cheaper than the Havant to Zones 1-6 that's 5184 per annum. (Even cheaper if you could get away with Off-Peak tickets on some of the days). Combining these day tickets with a season ticket would mean you could get a train that passed through Clapham Junction non-stop.

This is most likely not the cheapest way of doing this commute, but hopefully should show you that with a bit of digging there are cheaper alternatives to be had than the straightforward ticket.

 

[JamesRowden]

National Rail Enquiries does not show the routes from Havant to London via Winchester as being valid and nor does the new routing guide. But, via Southampton/Botley, Winchester and Reading is a valid route between Havant and West Drayton (only station in zone 6 on the GWML). Would it make the season ticket valid along this route?

 

[maniacmartin]

Can I infer from what you've said there that Havant to London via Southampton and Reading is a valid route normally?

Very recently National Routeing Guide was changed to require passengers to check routes with the NRE website to 'confirm' they are valid, and I've not been able to get the site to confirm these routes. This is problematic when the Guide shows rotues as valid but the website won't show them. Make of that what you will.

If you wanted to do a trip from Z6 to Z7-9/A-D/whatever it is today, how would you get the extension ticket from Z6 to the destination? Buy it before you board, and get it sold from the boundary and not from the origin station? Buy it at the destination and plead you're not evading?

First of all, you must buy before boarding if facilities exist at the origin station to do so, otherwise you are committing a criminal offence, regardless of whether you intend to pay at the destination. Let's assume you held a Zones 1-6 Travelcard. At the station you start your journey, go to the ticket office and ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to wherever" ticket. You can buy such a ticket from any staffed ticket office in the country for any date if you produce your travelcard, before you travel. You can then use this in conjunction with your travelcard to travel to the named station, and the train would not need to call at the station where you changed between tickets with such a combination.

 

[Lockwood]

This is at the moment a paper exercise, given that I've not yet got to the interview stage - makes sense to get the information I need sooner rather than later, which helps with the "So, how will you get here?" question

At the moment, all I know is that the job is within a 620 square mile area.
I'd guess that HR would be smart and put me somewhere Waterloo/Wimbledon/Victoria/Clapham-ish

If I do get based somewhere that's walking distance to a NR station, that'd save a lot of money straight away by dropping the Travelcard aspect.

 

[maniacmartin]

National Rail Enquiries does not show the routes from Havant to London via Winchester as being valid and nor does the new routing guide. But, via Southampton/Botley, Winchester and Reading is a valid route between Havant and West Drayton (only station in zone 6 on the GWML). Would it make the season ticket valid along this route?

Yes if the ticket was a Havant to Zones 1-6

 

[Lockwood]

First of all, you must buy before boarding if facilities exist at the origin station to do so, otherwise you are committing a criminal offence, regardless of whether you intend to pay at the destination. Let's assume you held a Zones 1-6 Travelcard. At the station you start your journey, go to the ticket office and ask for a "Boundary Zone 6 to wherever" ticket. You can buy such a ticket from any staffed ticket office in the country for any date if you produce your travelcard, before you travel. You can then use this in conjunction with your travelcard to travel to the named station, and the train would not need to call at the station where you changed between tickets with such a combination.

Cool - that was more of a separate question with the logistics of the "out of zone" zones. That's often puzzled me as to how the process works.


Ever since I got sold a Z1-4 Travelcard when I asked for an all zones one at Morden, I'm a little cautious about such things.
Of course, I only really notice that it's the wrong ticket after getting a train to East Croydon and having to talk to the revenue guys there about why I was travelling out of zone.
To the man's credit, he accepted my version of events and let me out without issuing a penalty.

 

[swt_passenger]

National Rail Enquiries does not show the routes from Havant to London via Winchester as being valid and nor does the new routing guide. But, via Southampton/Botley, Winchester and Reading is a valid route between Havant and West Drayton (only station in zone 6 on the GWML). Would it make the season ticket valid along this route?

Yes, when I checked a couple of months back, I also found that Fareham (Portsmouth Group) to 'London' was also not valid into Paddington (ie via Reading), although stations from Botley or Swanwick were. I started a thread on it at the time but it got no response...

I must admit having lived in the area a while I'd never have expected Havant to London via Southampton to be valid under the old 'reasonable routes' rule. It's quite a detour.

 

[soil]

Can I infer from what you've said there that Havant to London via Southampton and Reading is a valid route normally?

The travelcard, which you enquired about, is a zonal product, and has different routeings from a point-to-point season ticket.

Specifically you can take a permitted route (which is often, but not always, the route to London) between the origin and any boundary zone station.

One such station is West Drayton.

NRE shows that a Havant travelcard is valid for the route Havant - Southampton - Reading - West Drayton:

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/HAV/WDT/211013/1115/dep?via=Eastleigh

(click 'with travelcard', and it's actually a few pence cheaper than the Havant - West Drayton single).

A Havant - London Terminals ticket (distinct from the travelcard) would NOT be valid for this routeing.