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I’m trying to get my head round the validity and availability of this ticket.
It seems to be only available from tube stations in zones 7,8 or 9 even if the origin or destination station is in one of those zones.
Booking engines will offer the ticket if you starting at Amersham but if you’re ending your trip there it doesn’t show and there can be some massive fare differences.
For example. Upminster to Amersham comes up at £19.60 return with a paper ticket as a return ticket but Amersham to Upminster offers the £17 Travelcard 1-6 AAA 7-9.
Yet I believe the £17 Travelcard is valid for the Upminster to Amersham return as well!
Even worse, Dartford (zone 8) to Amersham comes up with an insane £27.50 return ticket and again I’m 99% sure that the £17 1-9 Paper Travelcard is valid.
I remember when I picked up one of these Travelcards with my TOD at Slade Green I was told that the ticket was only valid for one trip to Amersham and that the ticket would be taken at the barrier!
Why is the information and availability of this ticket so poor?
ChrisChris – this may not help but it reflects my experience when looking into the same issue. I wanted to do a ‘Tube Challenge’ so needed a ‘go anywhere’ ticket. I didn’t buy the paper ticket. After a lot of research and advice from others I bought a Z1-6 Day Travelcard electronically & loaded it onto a Smart Card. I used Chiltern Railways but you can use other companies too. The only part of the Tube not included was the NW part of the Met line, and I used PAYG for that. During the day I tapped in and out of the tube, buses & overground, with no issues at all. From memory, last September, the TC cost under £15.
Hi Chris,
You probably won’t be surprised to know that several issues are combining here to make the system so complex.
First of all, retail systems understand a travelcard to originate at a station and end at zones 1-6. Beyond zones 1-6 you get out boundary travelcards which are valid for one return journey from the origin to the zone 6 boundary and unlimited travel within zones 1-6. From the point of view of rail services an out boundary travelcard is finished on exit at the origin station because it’s not valid the other way round (zones – origin – zones). If you want to do the other way round you need a boundary zone to origin return to use with a standard zones 1-6 travelcard. It should also be noted that a travelcard is still valid to use in zones 1-6 until 0430 the next morning, but you’ll need to pay separately (or use a TfL bus) to get back to the zones. So, when searching for fares between two stations, if the origin is outside zones 1-6 and the destination is inside you will get travelcards quoted, but not the other way around.
Next you get the problem of zones 7-9. This is originally a TfL concept which has been kludged onto the National Rail systems in a sub-optimal way. Any day travelcard from a zones 7-9 origin uses a special route code which says (also available at) AAA zones 7-9. This expands the out boundary validity to include unlimited travel in the extra zones. It’s still classed as an out boundary travelcard, hence the suggestion that you’ll only get one return from Amersham. To further complicate things there are out boundary travelcards from Watford Junction, Broxbourne, Rye House, St Margarets (Herts), Ware and Shenfield which also include unlimited travel in zones 1-9. They only allow one return journey to the zone 9 boundary, although some staff may believe that it’s the zone 6 boundary.
Then you get the Kent problem. Swanley is now pretty much standard because the old Swanley to zones 1-6 travelcard has been removed from the system. Initially it was slightly cheaper to get some versions of the out boundary travelcard to zones 1-6 which was obviously fine if you didn’t want any other parts of zones 7-9. It was also a regulated product which prevented it being removed at first.
Dartford has an even bigger issue. You can buy tickets, including travelcards, which are valid via Gravesend and onto HS1. This means that there are two versions of every ticket, one with a route code saying “Plus High Speed” and the other saying “Not valid on HS1”. This means that the “AAA zones 7-9” route code cannot be used. So whilst a travelcard which includes zone 8 is absolutely valid at Dartford, if Dartford is the origin station then it is not valid at any other zones 7-9 stations. I’m fairly confident that the retail staff at Dartford would sell you an appropriate ticket if you ask, but this is definitely an issue which ought to be addressed somehow.
I hope this clarifies things, but do ask a followup if you want.
It’s definitely quite a confusing issue and I can see why staff at national rail stations would also give mixed information as to sell an AAA 7-9 ticket they’d have to change their station to one in zones 7-9.
Just to clarify, if I bought online a TOD Travelcard from Amersham to Zones 1-6 AAA 7-9 I’d be able to pick it up from Slade Green, travel to Amersham, then go to Chesham, back to Epsom and then go to Dartford and board a 428 back to Slade Green without my ticket being eaten at the barriers (particularly Amersham)
I would normally use Oyster but with £5 off a ticket with Uber making the paper ticket £12 for the day it’s a bargain (and no max journey times to worry about as a bonus)
Chris
Hi Chris,
Yes, you can pick such a ticket up at any TOD enabled station. It will be fine at all the stations mentioned and it shouldn’t get swallowed as they are all in zones 1-9. The only caveat is Epsom. The gates are definitely programmed to accept zone 1-9 travelcards, but staff members might be confused. I’d have a link to https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/stop/910GEPSM/epsom-rail-station/?Input=Epsom+Rail+Station ready to show to anyone who might question it, as that page clearly says that Epsom is in zone 9.
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