Great Western Coffee Shop

Here's one that has me stumped ... an enquiry from a local contact who mistakenly thinks I know everything about train fares.

Booking online with FGW ... from Melksham to London and then onto underground stations ... pulldown menu offers lots of ticket zones.   Now - even assuming you know what these zones are - I can only get a price for Zones 1-6, otherwise I'm told that there are "no fares have been found for your selected service".  My contact had a final destination in zone 2 ...

My contact tells me he gave up and has bought an advance Chippenham to London (Paddington) ticket from theTrainLine and is having it posted to him, just like he's done in past years  :-\

Too late for this booking ... but why are all those zones offered?   They don't seem to work from Chippenham either, by the way.

I think it might be an error on the website.

I'll explain. If coming in from outside London then off-peak a Zone 1-6 is always cheaper than any other combination of Zones.

You can't get a Melksham Zones 1-2 Travelcard, because you have to travel through zones 6-3 first to get to Zones 1-2!

As for why the short Zones are offered... for journeys just within them in London they can work out cheaper - especially in the peaks. Your contact buying a ticket to London if travelling off-peak is now going to pay more if they buy a Travelcard inside London. A Zone 1-2 Travelcard is ^9 (no off-peak fare), yet an Off-peak Zone 1-6 travelcard is ^8.90.

You can often obtain a ticket to U1, a single trip in zone on the Underground. Most often these are peak tickets

From Melksham you can get fares to: ZONE U1* LONDN, ZONE U12* LONDN, ZONE U123* LONDN,
ZONE U1234*LONDN, ZONE U1245 LONDN, and ZONE U1256 LONDN, across all walk-up single/return ticket types. There are also Advance Purchase fares available to/from these 'destinations'.

(The asterisks are there to prevent additional numbers being added on the ticket)

Each of these allows a journey (to and from, in the case of a return) on the Underground between the relevant London Terminal and a station in the highest numbered zone.

Tickets to and/or from these Underground 'destinations' are available to and/or from nearly every station in Great Britain that is outside the London Zones. Across a range of Anytime, Off Peak, Super Off Peak (single and return) and Advance ticket types. They are not limited to Anytime (Peak) tickets.

Chris and BNM, if you look at Grahame's screenshot and have a go on the FGW website you'll note he was searching for Travelcards.

Plane signal/return Underground trips appear on the FGW as just "Zone U12* London (Not Travelcard)" etc, and these are available on the FGW website.

Grahame's contact had a final destination in Zone 2, so a point to point ticket may have been more appropriate than a Travelcard. Also, if this was a single journey, then an Outboundary Travelcard, being a Day Return product only, may not have offered best value.

Plus, ATOS booking engines (ie FGW's) will only offer the Outboundary Travelcard option 'London Zones 1-6' as a valid destination if both the 'Return' radio button are selected and the 'Outward' and 'Return' date are the same.

Quite why they still have other Outboundary Travelcard options such as 'London Zones 1-2' is beyond me. These options are no longer sold. An Outboundary Travelcard is now only available for Zones 1-6.

It's Mornington Crescent, in all but name.  :o ::) ;D

I'm not quite sure why so many Zonal combinations are shown when many of them don't even have available fares. You could normally buy a season ticket to London Zones 5-6 for example though, but such fares don't seem to be available from Melksham. Only a Zones 1-6 season fare is available.