Validity of one-day travel card

[JBuchananGB]

I had an enjoyable excursion yesterday using a super off-peak zones 1-6 travel card from Billericay. I had always wanted to travel the entire orbital Overground, so departed at 11.57, travelled to Stratford then to Clapham Junction via Willesden Junction, then to Canonbury via Whitechapel, back to Stratford and Billericay arriving at 16.11.

If I had then wanted to visit London again in the evening, would it have been permissible to retain my ticket on arrival at Billericay, and then purchase a super off peak return Billericay to Boundary Zone 6?

Never know, I might want to that one day.

 

[yorkie]

Yes, you can break and resume your journey (it would not be practicable to deny you this right!) within the validity period of the ticket, which is until 0429 the following morning.

 

[island]

Whilst this is allowed, in practice the Travelcard would potentially be retained in the ticket barriers at Billericay if it has them, which could cause unwarranted difficulty. Occasionally TOC staff argue that the validity of the ticket ends when the return part outside the Travelcard zones is used, which isn't correct.

 

[blakey1152]

This used to be a bit of a problem at Dartford because the barrier could quite happily retain your ticket even though directly outside you can use TfL buses to Bluewater which of course your Travelcard is more than still valid on!

I imagine that as Dartford is now in zone 8 that it probably wouldn't happen now but I've not tried it to find out!

Blakey

 

[hounddog]

I've had a travelcard purchased *inside* the zones swallowed by the barrier on exiting the issuing station.

 

[methethpropbut]

I'm surprised to hear that barriers routinely swallow travelcards - at Cambridge it's always been returned to me!

 

[JBuchananGB]

My Travelcard was swallowed by the barriers at Billericay, so, if I do want to do this trick in future, I will have to take the appropriate precaution by showing it to the person at the gate.

Thanks for helping me with this question.

 

[PeterC]

Occasionally TOC staff argue that the validity of the ticket ends when the return part outside the Travelcard zones is used, which isn't correct.

Surely the validity of the ticket at the issuing station has ended. It is only valid for one return trip to the Travelcard zones.

How you can surrender the return ticket while keeping the still valid travelcard printed on the same piece of card is another matter.

 

[furlong]

Surely the validity of the ticket at the issuing station has ended. It is only valid for one return trip to the Travelcard zones.

An out-boundary Travelcard consists of two independent elements - a normal travelcard (governed by separate travelcard conditions) within the zonal area PLUS a return journey to the boundary of that zonal area (governed by National Rail conditions). That return journey can only be taken once, but you can purchase additional returns to the boundary, or travel back into the zones by other means, and continue to use the primary, travelcard, element of the ticket until its expiry.

But anyone planning to do this should consider purchasing a return ticket FROM the boundary TO their origin (i.e. in the opposite direction) and using that in the middle so as not to use the return journey attached to the travelcard until their final journey back to the origin.

 

[yorkie]

Surely the validity of the ticket at the issuing station has ended. ....

Doesn't matter. The Travelcard remains valid within the relevant zones until 0429 the following morning.

 

[Surreytraveller]

It used to be the case that the validity of an out-boundary travelcard finished once you arrived back at the originating station, although you could retain it to use on bus services outside the zones. Perhaps this is what confuses staff. Although I'm not surprised that barriers at a station inside the zones do this too.