Reply To: Getting to Gatwick from underground network

[John]

Look out for GTR strikes or engineering, that may be the reason TfL wants you to take NatEx from LHR.

Touching out at East Croydon and immediately touching back in reduces the fare by £3 to £10 depending on your starting point. But with luggage and crowds it’s often annoying to do so. (Similar situation to anyone taking the tube from or through Zone 1 to Heathrow, the fare can be reduced by going out and in at Hatton Cross, but that station only has stairs.)

redlilly wrote:

Yes – though make sure you tap the contactless card reader, which is on the left at the top of the escalators (from the lizzie line). This is to register the interchange.

There is no need to do this as Farringdon is on the default route. The readers at Farringdon are only for people who are interchanging between oyster/contactless and a paper/barcode ticket there.

On contactless it doesn’t matter that much because RPIs can’t see your travel history in real time. But if using Oyster you should absolutely NOT touch at Farringdon. GTR has stepped up RPI presence on the BML this year, and when you touch at Farringdon you will end your journey so you will appear to an RPI as outside the system and be liable to prosecution (and worse, miss your flight while you are held up). Although the readers are set to Continuation Exit, so provided that you don’t get caught, Oyster will still let you out at Gatwick and charge you correctly.