Bits: Gatwick train ticket prices cut, Shangri-La airline transfer deal, PartnerPlusBenefit promo

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• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  16 Nov16 November 06:05

  For those going to Victoria this is definitely a good thing as it means there’s no reason not to get the Gatwick Express that has more luggage space. However for me Thameslink is the better option and I look forward to not having to worry about purchasing tickets on this route. Just like I do in London I use contactless payments (Apple Pay) via my phone.

• Mike says:

  16 Nov16 November 06:15

  Gatwick express will still carry a premium so this may be a reason not to do it!

  Their platforms at Victoria will be codes differently and charge a higher PAYG fare.

  The biggest benefit will come to tourists being able to use oyster (or contactless debit and credit card) for their whole journey to the UK and hopefully reducing the ticket window / machine scrums at both Gatwick and Victoria stations.

• Neil says:

  16 Nov16 November 07:13

  Hi Rob,
  Can I redeem shangri-la points for food and drink at ting in the shard? If so, how do I do it?
  Thanks in advance.
  Neil

  • TimS says:

    16 Nov16 November 07:42

    Yes you can. Search for Shangri La on the right hand side of this website and you will see all of the past articles explaining how to do it.

    • Fred says:

      20 Nov20 November 16:28

      No you can’t. It’s been removed as an option at the Shard.

      • Fred says:

        20 Nov20 November 16:34

        Sorry, I’m incorrect. Not valid for ‘Instant Rewards’, but still valid as a non-room award.

• Simon says:

  16 Nov16 November 07:37

  Does this mean Gatwick has been absorbed into Fare Zone 6? How would this price up if you were travelling from, say a Zone 5 station avoiding Zone 1?
  Or does that mean you can just pay a premium with Oyster a la Emirates Airline?

  In a convoluted way, assuming that you had already used your Oyster to get to a start London station (ie. Victoria/London Bridge), it is cheaper for you to continue your journey to East Croydon and use an advance purchase (£3.95 return) non-Oyster ticket rather than use an Oyster PAYG fare from Victoria.

  Obviously this means getting off the train and touching out but the difference in fares can be remarkable.

  • JQ says:

    16 Nov16 November 09:49

    No, Gatwick will be in Zone Gatwick, and special fares will apply just like for Watford Junction, Shenfield and Grays. There will also be special daily caps, just like for Euston-Watford Junction, Liverpool St to Cheshunt/Broxbourne/Hertford East and Fenchurch St to Grays.

    There will be many circumstances where it is cheaper to buy a paper ticket for part or all of your journey, or split ticket at East Croydon or elsewhere.

    If one of the tickets you want to use is a season ticket, which includes a 7-day or longer travelcard, you do not need to alight the train, nor does the train actually need to stop at the station where you switch tickets (unless you are switching from a season ticket to another season ticket).

• Cheshire Pete says:

  16 Nov16 November 07:51

  Isn’t the daily cap to zone 6 £9.20? So in conjunction with related travel to get to Victoria the saving will be even more evident. For instance if you had a connection from Heathrow then an onward from Gatwick then Zone 1 travel it should all cap at £9.20.

  • JQ says:

    16 Nov16 November 09:56

    Hehe, it is more complicated than that. The daily cap to Zone 6 is £11.70, but if you travel off-peak (which means between 0926 to 0433 and all day Sat/Sun/PH) two or more days from Monday-Sunday, four or more days from Monday to Sunday 13 days later, or eight more days from Monday to Sunday 27 days later, then you will be refunded £2.90 per day, automatically to your bank card, or you need to touch into a station for Oyster. If on contactless, the refund may be different depending on whether you travelled off-peak Z1-4 on any of the days, as well as whether Mon-Sun capping applies.

    But Gatwick is not going to be in Zone 6, because Gatwick isn’t going to pay Govia Thameslink Railway the tens of millions of pounds it would lose in revenue from the current fares.

• IslandDweller says:

  16 Nov16 November 08:03

  There are many details about oyster still to be announced. Gatwick will very likely be in a new ‘special’ zone, not one of the existing zones. Whether capping applies or not (some oyster routes, such as the Emirates dangleway do not get included in capping) has not been announced yet.
  As for the comment about using trains branded express for luggage space…. From the timetable change next month, 50% of trains branded express will continue to/from Brighton – not really a dedicate airport service….

• idrive says:

  16 Nov16 November 11:04

  OT: confirmed. Marriott bought Starwood.

  • Rob says:

    16 Nov16 November 11:08

    Oh. Dear.

  • ankomonkey says:

    16 Nov16 November 14:32

    I was looking for a way to get Marriott Gold without making the stays. I wonder if Amex Plat to get SPG Gold might now be a way to do it…???

    • Rob says:

      16 Nov16 November 15:57

      Are you BA Gold by any chance …..?

      • ankomonkey says:

        16 Nov16 November 16:42

        Silver…

        • Rob says:

          16 Nov16 November 18:54

          Unfortunate 🙂

        • AndyGWP says:

          16 Nov16 November 19:03

          I’m curious – what does BA Gold do?

        • harry says:

          16 Nov16 November 19:25

          Creamy white thighs in white stockings & leather boots 🙂

        • ankomonkey says:

          16 Nov16 November 20:20

          I’d looked at status matching and only getting United status or taking a Marriott challenge looked likely ways of achieving. Would United match BA Gold then? I also have the Alitalia one which matched my BA Silver – can’t recall the level…

        • Rob says:

          16 Nov16 November 22:37

          United will give a BA Gold a trial 3-month match. Once you have United Gold, you can instantly upgrade your Marriott account to Gold via the United / Marriott partnership scheme. This is good for a full year not just the 3-month trial period of United Gold.

  • ankomonkey says:

    16 Nov16 November 14:33

    I also wonder what this will mean for the 2 UK credit cards (Marriott and SPG)…

    • JQ says:

      16 Nov16 November 15:18

      Or more importantly what it means for the reward programmes…. fortunately I’ve been focusing on IHG and Hilton only for the past few years, so for me it just means I’ll continue to avoid Starwood completely unless it’s significantly cheaper until we see what happens. Probably plenty of speculation on FT

    • Rob says:

      16 Nov16 November 15:56

      Marriott and Amex do not get one. Expect to see:

      SPG Gold to go as a Plat benefit (you won’t get Marriott Gold instead)
      the end of Membership Rewards transfers to SPG (you won’t be able to transfer to marriott instead)
      the end of the SPG Amex (Visa is Marriott’s global partner)

      The Amex Plat team will not be happy today.

• Max says:

  16 Nov16 November 11:43

  Quick question:
  Where else can I use my 2,000 PartnerPlusBenefit points other than flights?

  • Alan says:

    16 Nov16 November 11:50

    Hotel voucher – I redeemed 1,900 pts for a £50 GlobalHotelCard.

    Be careful when using the voucher though – a bit like Kaligo, some of the rates seemed falsely inflated, so make sure you check the rates on the GHC website with a normal travel website to know that you’re getting a true £50 discount!

  • Rob says:

    16 Nov16 November 11:59

    There are a lot of option – Heathrow Express tickets, hotel gift cards etc. All on the website I assume?

  • Lady London says:

    16 Nov16 November 14:42

    It’s on the website plus Partnership Plus Benefits is quite good about updating new offers, they send you emails.

    They are also extremely pleasant and helpful on the phone if you need to check anything with them after you’ve checked the website.

  • Max says:

    18 Nov18 November 12:18

    Thank you for the responses

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