Travel to Heathrow T4 from outside London via Elizabeth Line

[osmium]

I'm trying to buy a ticket which will allow me to travel from my home city, St Albans, to Heathrow Terminal 4 via the Elizabeth line. I travel out on a Wednesday at off-peak times and come back to the UK on a Sunday via Terminal 5, returning to St Albans. Obviously I want to take the Thameslink line from St Albans (SAC) to Farringdon, then change to the Elizabeth line to Heathrow Terminal 4 railway station.

The Thameslink website quotes me a single in each direction for this:
- St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6 (£18.20)
- London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6 to St Albans City (£18.20)

This says "London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6" which I note doesn't seem to include "Elizabeth Line". Is this an error and will the tickets sold to me be valid for travel on the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow Terminal 4 railway station (not to be confused with Heathrow Underground)?

 

[Haywain]

I'm trying to buy a ticket which will allow me to travel from my home city, St Albans, to Heathrow Terminal 4 via the Elizabeth line. I travel out on a Wednesday at off-peak times and come back to the UK on a Sunday via Terminal 5, returning to St Albans. Obviously I want to take the Thameslink line from St Albans (SAC) to Farringdon, then change to the Elizabeth line to Heathrow Terminal 4 railway station.

The Thameslink website quotes me a single in each direction for this:
- St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6 (£18.20)
- London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6 to St Albans City (£18.20)

This says "London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6" which I note doesn't seem to include "Elizabeth Line". Is this an error and will the tickets sold to me be valid for travel on the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow Terminal 4 railway station (not to be confused with Heathrow Underground)?

No, that is for travelling to Heathrow by underground. For the Elizabeth line you will want a ticket to Heathrow Terminal 4 (HAF), but it will be considerably cheaper to split tickets as the through ticket assumes you will use Heathrow Express. Splitting at Farringdon is probably the ideal with a 'Not Heathrow Express' fare available from there.

 

[osmium]

No, that is for travelling to Heathrow by underground. For the Elizabeth line you will want a ticket to Heathrow Terminal 4 (HAF), but it will be considerably cheaper to split tickets as the through ticket assumes you will use Heathrow Express. Splitting at Farringdon is probably the ideal with a 'Not Heathrow Express' fare available from there.

The above ("St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6") is what the Thameslink website gives me if I specifically input SAC to Heathrow Term 4 (HAF). It also explicitly lists the Elizabeth line as a recommended route, but still describes the ticket as "St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6". So it doesn't appear to be assuming use of the Heathrow Express and seems to be suggesting I use the Elizabeth line?

See images.

 

[Alex365Dash]

Splitting at Farringdon is probably the ideal with a 'Not Heathrow Express' fare available from there.

GTR tend to price outboundary Travelcard tickets to the extent that the return journey will be cheaper with a Travelcard:
- St Albans City to London Zones 1-6 (Weekend) Super Off-Peak Day Travelcard (WRE): £14.90

For the outbound journey, you’ll get the cheapest fare at £18.40 by just using contactless the whole way!

 

[Haywain]

GTR tend to price outboundary Travelcard tickets to the extent that the return journey will be cheaper with a Travelcard:
- St Albans City to London Zones 1-6 (Weekend) Super Off-Peak Day Travelcard (WRE): £14.90

For the outbound journey, you’ll get the cheapest fare at £18.40 by just using contactless the whole way!

Yes, I overlooked that a Travelcard is valid via Elizabeth line services to Heathrow.

 

[sk688]

if you're willing to take the time penalty the 724 from St Albans to Heathrow is just £2 at the moment

 

[Alex365Dash]

The above ("St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6") is what the Thameslink website gives me if I specifically input SAC to Heathrow Term 4 (HAF). It also explicitly lists the Elizabeth line as a recommended route, but still describes the ticket as "St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6". So it doesn't appear to be assuming use of the Heathrow Express and seems to be suggesting I use the Elizabeth line?

TfL perpetuate that in the core (Paddington - Whitechapel - Abbey Wood) itself of the Elizabeth line, tickets to National Rail named stations aren’t valid (unless you’ve just come into the core on a London Terminals ticket and you’re getting off at Paddington or Liverpool Street) and all National Rail tickets must either have cross-London validity, be Travelcards, or start/end in the Underground zones.

It appears On Track’s TIS seems to have some trouble implementing those rules, and has interpreted that a Underground Zones 1-6 ticket is valid to Heathrow NR via Hayes & Harlington on Elizabeth line. This is incorrect, but if you can buy the ticket with that itinerary it becomes contractually valid on those trains.

Whether you want to deal with possible hassle to save 20p is a choice you’d have to make, but you should also carry your itinerary with you if you do go down that route.

 

[Watershed]

The above ("St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6") is what the Thameslink website gives me if I specifically input SAC to Heathrow Term 4 (HAF). It also explicitly lists the Elizabeth line as a recommended route, but still describes the ticket as "St Albans City to London Underground and DLR Zones 1-6". So it doesn't appear to be assuming use of the Heathrow Express and seems to be suggesting I use the Elizabeth line?

See images.

I think there may be some confusion here. There are a few different fares you might use for this journey:

• An outboundary Travelcard from St Albans City to London Zones 1-6, costing £24.40. Amongst other things, this is valid on most rail and Tube services within the Zones, but not Heathrow Express. So you could use this on the Elizabeth line or Tube to Heathrow, but not the Heathrow Express.
• A single from St Albans City to Heathrow Rail, costing £38.70. This is priced on the assumption you'll use the Heathrow Express, and is valid on that plus the Elizabeth line. If you wanted to use the Elizabeth line, you'd be better off buying an outboundary Travelcard.
• A single from St Albans City to London Underground Zones 1-6, costing £18.20. This is only valid to Heathrow on the Tube, not the Elizabeth line or Heathrow Express.

However, whilst the latter would ordinarily only be valid on the Tube, Thameslink's site is erroneously offering you an itinerary involving the Elizabeth line. You are contractually entitled to travel in line with such an itinerary, but if you do so, I would expect hassle at the Heathrow rail barriers.

TfL have made this all unnecessarily complex and confusing by falsely claiming that you always need to have a ticket with Underground validity in order to use the Elizabeth line 'core', and insisting that journey planners apply this "rule" - whilst simultaneously insisting that you can't use an Underground ticket on the Elizabeth line outside of the 'core'. Clearly, Thameslink's journey planner has not yet implemented this correctly.

Obviously they'd much prefer for you simply to use contactless - and that is in fact the cheapest option here, as a single off-peak journey on the Elizabeth line would cost you £18.40. But that's not particularly helpful if you search for tickets on a journey planner, or if you're travelling from outside the contactless / Oyster area of validity.

 

[osmium]

Thanks, this is very helpful. So basically this is a defect in the Thameslink website. I guess the safest thing is to get two Z6 travelcards or use contactless. Was leaning towards paper tickets as it's easier to have records for the purposes of filing expenses but I might use contactless.

Interesting to note that Trainline charged the £38.70 price for the same journey (if you disable their splitting function), I assume it was charging based on the Heathrow Express route (but interestingly still suggested I take the Elizabeth line).

I've always wondered, is it possible to get an orange travelcard inside London? Or can I get a travelcard "to" SAC for the return journey in advance at SAC when I depart?

 

[miklcct]

I've always wondered, is it possible to get an orange travelcard inside London? Or can I get a travelcard "to" SAC for the return journey in advance at SAC when I depart?

Yes, it is possible to add these 2 tickets into a single basket for Ticket on Departure collection, such that they will all be spit out with a single reference number.

 

[Haywain]

is it possible to get an orange travelcard inside London? Or can I get a travelcard "to" SAC for the return journey in advance at SAC when I depart?

Yes, you can buy in advance at St Albans station or online and collect before you go.

Interesting to note that Trainline charged the £38.70 price for the same journey (if you disable their splitting function), I assume it was charging based on the Heathrow Express route (but interestingly still suggested I take the Elizabeth line).

Charging is based on using Heathrow Express but the quicker journey with just a single change at Farringdon is shown, for which that ticket is also valid. I'm not convinced that pricing for Heathrow Express is ideal but I don't think adding even more options would be helpful.

 

[osmium]

I'm not convinced that pricing for Heathrow Express is ideal but I don't think adding even more options would be helpful.

Amen, ticketing is already complex enough.

I'm finding exploration of BRFares.com quite fascinating, so thanks for the links. As someone in IT I do prefer it when I can get access to the "real" data the consumer-friendly interfaces try to abstract away and oversimplify. I already had to deal with the airline industry's ticketing systems, which are themselves their own microcosm of inscrutable complexity. Must be "fun" working on the systems for UK rail ticketing... not surprising they get it wrong sometimes.

Thanks again.

 

[Kilopylae]

I've always wondered, is it possible to get an orange travelcard inside London?

Yes. I quite frequently arrive in London by Oxford Tube (which is a coach from Oxford to Victoria) and purchase an orange CCST Travelcard from the machines at Victoria station.

I know you can buy paper Travelcards at Tube ticket machines, e.g. at the Victoria LU ticket hall or Hillingdon, although these are on white LU ticket stock rather than orange. In terms of price and validity they're identical.

 

[Haywain]

Yes. I quite frequently arrive in London by Oxford Tube (which is a coach from Oxford to Victoria) and purchase an orange CCST Travelcard from the machines at Victoria station.

I know you can buy paper Travelcards at Tube ticket machines, e.g. at the Victoria LU ticket hall or Hillingdon, although these are on white LU ticket stock rather than orange. In terms of price and validity they're identical.

Buying an outboundary Travelcard from St Albans at Heathrow Airport may be considerably more difficult, if not impossible.

 

[miklcct]

if you're willing to take the time penalty the 724 from St Albans to Heathrow is just £2 at the moment

I second this option. The 724 is much more direct than going into London and out on the railways, looking on a map the distance on the 724 is only about half of Thameslink + Elizabeth line. Given the price incentive I won't even take the circuitous rail routes into consideration if I can go orbital to avoid Zone 1.

 

[Alex365Dash]

Buying an outboundary Travelcard from St Albans at Heathrow Airport may be considerably more difficult, if not impossible.

I know Heathrow’s ticket machines are the Cubic kind - do they let you purchase Travelcards starting from another station?

If not, they do Ticket on Departure so buying it online and collecting it from Heathrow Terminal 4 is always an option (I’ve done it before from T5).

 

[Watershed]

Thanks, this is very helpful. So basically this is a defect in the Thameslink website. I guess the safest thing is to get two Z6 travelcards or use contactless. Was leaning towards paper tickets as it's easier to have records for the purposes of filing expenses but I might use contactless.

To be honest, it's easy enough to set up an online TfL PAYG account and configure it so you get weekly or monthly statements with all your journeys on. I don't think that's much more complex than using a booking confirmation and picture of your ticket, but YMMV!

Interesting to note that Trainline charged the £38.70 price for the same journey (if you disable their splitting function), I assume it was charging based on the Heathrow Express route (but interestingly still suggested I take the Elizabeth line).

That's because the fare is valid on the Heathrow Express (hence the higher price), but the fastest itinerary involves using the Elizabeth line throughout. The suggested itinerary would likely involve the Heathrow Express, if you were travelling from somewhere that didn't have a direct train to Farringdon.

The excessively high interchange time at Paddington (15 minutes) means that what accredited booking sites tell you is the fastest official itinerary isn't necessarily what other systems - such as Google Maps, Citymapper or TfL Go - will tell you is the fastest feasible itinerary.

I've always wondered, is it possible to get an orange travelcard inside London? Or can I get a travelcard "to" SAC for the return journey in advance at SAC when I depart?

You can buy inboundary Travelcards (i.e. ones that are only valid within the Zones) at any rail or Tube ticket machine, or buy them online and then select ToD for collection at any rail ticket machine.

Outboundary Travelcards (i.e. ones that also include a journey outside the Zones) can only be bought from a ticket machine if they have the facility to select a different starting station. This is because you can't buy a London Zones 1-6 to St Albans Travelcard, only a St Albans to Zones 1-6 one (so for your return journey, you'd just not make use of the validity between St Albans and Boundary Zone 6 in the "outward" direction). You can also buy them online and select ToD for collection at any rail ticket machine.

I'm finding exploration of BRFares.com quite fascinating, so thanks for the links. As someone in IT I do prefer it when I can get access to the "real" data the consumer-friendly interfaces try to abstract away and oversimplify.

No problem. Journeys to Heathrow are so complex in terms of fares (it's even worse if you're coming from the Reading/Woking direction as there's also the RailAir bus!) that it's almost impossible for any site to programmatically present all of the best options. The fact that contactless fares aren't all in the 'regular' fares database doesn't exactly help.

I already had to deal with the airline industry's ticketing systems, which are themselves their own microcosm of inscrutable complexity. Must be "fun" working on the systems for UK rail ticketing... not surprising they get it wrong sometimes.

Absolutely. Airline fares are hideously complex, but at least all of the rules are written down in black and white, so you can understand why you are (or aren't) being offered a particular fare and what flights you can expect to be able to book with it.

 

[fandroid]

I have a Senior Railcard. As another potential complication First Bus give the Railcard discount on RA1 and RA2 even during the morning peak. Their M-tickets are worth getting for those as they're valid for a year if not activated. That's something I've done due to disruption when another transport mode looked a better bet on the day.