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Two people on a train buying train tickets from train staff

Ways to pay

To make your life a little easier, we offer several booking options – both at home and at the station – and multiple ways to pay.

How do I buy train tickets?

Everyone has their preferences. We offer several booking options to cater to yours.

  • Mobile app: Our Southern app offers a quick and easy way to buy tickets, with Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, eVoucher, or card payments. No booking fees, real-time updates, and features like keyGo make it the perfect travel companion. Download on iOS and Android.
  • Online: It’s quick, easy and safe to buy train tickets online using our journey planner. You can choose your delivery method, and we won’t charge you a booking fee
  • Contactless at the gateline: If you’re travelling in and around London, you can tap your contactless payment card or device on the move and we’ll charge you the best pay-as-you-go fare available on the day
  • Ticket office: If you’d prefer to speak to someone about your railway ticket, booking at a ticket office is the way to go. We have staffed ticket offices at our larger stations
  • Ticket machine: As well as collecting tickets bought online, you can use our self-service ticket machines to buy train tickets using cash or a credit or debit card

How do I collect my train tickets?

Online booking

When you book your tickets online, you can pay by credit card, debit card, eVoucher, PayPal, Visa CheckOut, or Amazon Pay.

Tickets booked online can be picked up at a train station ticket machine, added to your Key Smartcard, delivered to you by post via First Class, Recorded Signed For or Special Delivery, or accessed as an eTicket on your smart phone if it's available for your journey.

You can learn more about buying tickets online or log in now to get started.

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The Key Smartcard

Buy your season ticket as a Key Smartcard: it’s free, you can touch in and out and it’s securely registered to you.
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eTickets

For many journeys across our network, you can access your train ticket on your phone.

Pay as you go using contactless at the gateline

If you’re travelling in and around London, you can tap your contactless payment card or device on the move and we’ll charge you the best pay-as-you-go fare available on the day.

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KeyGo

Add keyGo to your Key Smartcard to get the best day fares available on the day of travel, and weekly capping, for your pay as you go journeys.
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Oyster card

Travelling to London

You can use an Oyster card on any of our trains in the London Travelcard area.
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Contactless

Travelling around London

If you have a contactless debit or credit card you can pay for buses, tubes, trams and most trains in London.

Using a ticket office

At our larger stations, you can book and pay for tickets at a staffed ticket office. We can accept payment by cash, debit card or credit card and National Rail vouchers.

Unfortunately, we no longer accept personal cheques at our ticket offices. We can accept company cheques if you’re buying an annual season ticket. By company cheque, we mean those from a PLC, limited company, partnership, registered charity, school or local authority. We can’t accept an individual’s cheque stating ‘trading as’.

To use a company cheque you must have a company headed letter to accompany the cheque, and bring two original forms of ID. One of these must be a driving licence, passport or other photo ID. The other must be a recent utility bill or another document that verifies your address.

 

Find a ticket office

Using a ticket machine

At our self-service ticket vending machines you can:

  • Buy tickets
  • Collect tickets purchased online
  • Buy weekly season tickets
  • Buy car parking tickets
  • Top up your Oyster card (at London stations)

You can pay for your tickets using cash or a credit or debit card.

We offer a wide range of tickets from our self-service ticket machines to offer the best value fare for your journey.

If you need help using our machines or finding the right ticket, ask a member of staff for assistance where possible.

Self-service ticket machine price guarantee

In the unlikely event you buy a ticket from one of our self-service machines, and realise it was not the right ticket, please speak to our staff at the ticket office or our Customer Services team, ideally before travel, otherwise as soon as possible. You may be entitled to a refund for the difference in fare.

Explore Ways to pay