Tickets via Croydon Tram

[Chris999999]

I am planning a journey from Basingstoke to Clock House (Beckenham) and I have asked for details from SouthWest Trains website.

With a senior railcard after 09:30 it gives a fare of £20.20, return off peak up to a month later.

I have no problem with this and the route I have always taken is Basingstoke to Waterloo, walk to Waterloo East and train to Clock House.

I then asked it for personalised timetable for the days and times I am travelling. This gave me the expected route but also gave an alternative:

Basingstoke - Clapham Junction - East Croydon, then Tram to Beckenham Junction, train to Kent House (2 minutes) and walk to Clock House (4 minutes).

Two points arise from this:

Firstly if I buy the £20.20 ticket is it valid on the route using the tram?

Secondly (I had never considered this route before) I happen to know the area well and whilst the route using the tram takes only a few (less than 10 minutes more) than the route via Waterloo (depending on catching or missing connections), it is not the best alternative because if you take the tram from East Croydon towards Beckenham Junction, the sane way to get to Clock House is to alight at Beckenham Road (the stop before Beckenham Junction) and walk to Clock House (around 2 minutes) - This makes the journey time compared with the route via Waterloo the same or even less. I assume getting off the tram a stop early and not doing the journey Beckenham Junction to Kent House is not going to create a problem though some people do have problems with stopping short with tickets. So can I do this legally with the £20.20 ticket?

Thanks

Chris

 

[island]

That ticket is not valid on Tramlink; assuming you don't have a London Freedom Pass you would need to pay £2.20 (£1.30 on Oyster).

No problem with break of journey.

If returning same-day a slightly cheaper ticket is the Off-Peak Day Return at £18.30, and depending on when you travel a Super Off-Peak Day Return at £15.25 might work for you (valid outbound after 1200, return on any train timed to depart London Terminals between 1100 and 1559 or at or after 1901.

For the sake of completeness I did check the route is valid, but it isn't — you're off route between Streatham and Croydon; they expect you to go via Crystal Palace. However if you've got a print-out from SWT's website of the route, you should not be challenged.

 

[Chris999999]

So why does SWT trains offer this alternative when the ticket it sells is not valid?

Ignoring the fact (for now) that the route using the tram via Beckenham Junction is stupid:
How is an average person who looks up this on its website supposed to know that the ticket SWT sells is not valid on trams which its personalised timetable shows as a route?

Chris

 

[island]

Because the routeing guide is absurdly complicated?

 

[t0ffeeman]

Clock House is walking distance from Beckenham Road tram stop. One of the five stations in Penge! Would just use the tram from Wimbledon.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

So why does SWT trains offer this alternative when the ticket it sells is not valid?

Ignoring the fact (for now) that the route using the tram via Beckenham Junction is stupid:
How is an average person who looks up this on its website supposed to know that the ticket SWT sells is not valid on trams which its personalised timetable shows as a route?

Chris

Because, as has been discussed on here quite a bit recently, most of the online journey planners are poor in this respect. Many of them often give invalid routes or tell you to catch methods of transport for which your ticket isn't valid (buses, trams etc) without giving you any warning your ticket isn't valid. It seems this is due to the way the different systems interpret different information such as permitted routes, ticket acceptance etc. This is probably due to programming. It is not uncommon to put the same query to different systems and get different answers to what is valid or not. This is partly due to things such as permitted routes being unnecessarily complicated, but also due to some aspects being done on the cheap.