Are National Rail tickets the same price as TFL Oyster for the same route?

score:4

Accepted answer

The Pay-As-You-Go fares you pay with Oyster or contactless are consistently cheapter than paper tickets.

According to the TfL single fare finder, the PAYG fare between Orpington and Charing Cross is £6.60 in the peak period, and £4.10 off-peak.

So you would most likely have saved around £4. If your return journey was was between 1600 and 1900, it would be less, but still a savings.

Upvote:3

No, they are not the same price, as to which is cheaper that is a complicated question.

When oyster was introduced, there was an explicit policy of making it consistently "same price or cheaper", compared to traditional rail tickets. This still applies on many journeys, for example the only traditional rail tickets for your particular journey are anytime singles and returns which are a bit more expensive than the peak oyster fares and daily travelcards which are a bit more expensive than the oyster caps.

However this policy has not applied to more recent extensions to the system. Prices have often been set at half the corresponding paper return fare, but with different peak/off-peak rules leading to some journeys being cheaper on PAYG and others being cheaper on traditional rail tickets.

And there seem to be some anomalies were oyster/contactless is significantly more expensive, Gatwick to Farringdon for example.

Further complicating matters there is the issue of railcards. Railcards cannot current be used with contactless pay as you go. Some but not all railcards can be used with oyster, however getting railcards activated on oyster has become increasingly difficult with the closure of London underground ticket offices and the discontinuation of oyster retailing at national rail ticket offices.

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