Super Off Peak ticket validity

[spalding78]

Hello, I have a Super Off Peak return ticket from Brighton to Bath with reservations on Paddington to Bath and Bath to Paddington trains.

 

Can I use the return part to travel via Southampton instead of London? And if so how can I tell which particular trains it's valid on?

 

Thank you

[kirkbyinfurnesslad]

On your ticket what does it say in the section "via". Any valid route or a certain station?

[spalding78]

Thanks - for route it has Any Permitted with the London cross, and validity is As Advertised. There's no via section.

[kirkbyinfurnesslad]

Go to http://railforums.co.UK

Ask on the ticket advice section and they will tell if what u are asking is a valid route

[kirkbyinfurnesslad]

It's the fare policy and advice

[spalding78]

Thank you, will do that

[oleg]

http://www.atoc.org

Enter "routeing guide" in search box .

Gives permitted routes between *any* two points.

[The Urbanite]

http://www.atoc.org

Enter "routeing guide" in search box .

Gives permitted routes between *any* two points.

 

It's very user unfriendly and now pointless to the casual user, because a route is only valid if it is shown as valid in the National Rail Enquiries Journey Planner.

[oleg]

I thought it had precedence over the Journey Planner. Not so?

In today's Radio 4 You and Yours a solicitor argued successfully against FCC over just such a point.

I know the Routeing Guide is not particularly user-friendly but comprehensiveness and ease of reference can be hard to reconcile.

[firstclassx]

I thought it had precedence over the Journey Planner. Not so?

In today's Radio 4 You and Yours a solicitor argued successfully against FCC over just such a point.

I know the Routeing Guide is not particularly user-friendly but comprehensiveness and ease of reference can be hard to reconcile.

 

The Routeing Guide is essentially defunct now and customers should not have reason to use it owing to some recently made changes to how routes can be determined.

 

If the ATOC Routeing Guide shows a possible permitted route, the National Rail (website) journey planner MUST validate the route by offering appropriate itineraries. If the National Rail website does NOT allow journeys to be routed that way, then the route is NOT permitted, even if the Routeing Guide "maps" says it is.

 

Care must be taken to ensure that the National Rail website doesn't specify you need to purchase more than 1 ticket for the journey when adding "via" or "interchange" points.

 

[This reflects changes made in early October 2013].

 

The FCC v Commuter issue was ridiculous IMO - the commuter exercised his right to a court hearing, and won in the short term, but all it has done is draw attention to "loop holes" and "anomalies" which, in this case, has forced TOCs to (start to) implement more, complex restrictions and conditions, which ultimately affect everyone adversely, probably in the pocket.

[The Urbanite]

I've been exploiting a number of loopholes from the National Routeing Guide (NRG) myself over the last couple of years. I have correspondence between ATOC and East Midlands Trains showing that they wanted to make the NRG maps advisory only subject to NRE JP validation from a few months ago.

 

However, I'm just one person and there are probably only a handful of people who actively use the NRG to use such loopholes, possibly a few more like Mr Myers who stumble upon them by trial and error, word of mouth or by pure accident. Up until this point, ATOC and the TOCs only patched over the loopholes one by one, where possible. Quite a lot of times, I faced resistance from East Midlands Trains and more recently Southeastern who always try their best to claim that such loopholes cannot be used - normally by senior retail/revenue protection staff who don't know how to establish the validity of a ticket who receive reports from retail/revenue protection staff on the front line who similarly have no idea. It is true that there are (or were) hundreds of loopholes in the system that would allow people to save thousands of pounds. Not always because of the National Routeing Guide itself, but in many cases, if you know the rules and can interpret them creatively, you can find some real gems. If you can get your head around restriction codes and mileages then you can make savings.

 

I've always stood my ground and to date, neither TOC has been able to pin anything on me despite various Penalty Fare/Unpaid Fare Notices issued, Travel Irregularity Reports filled out and the odd Notice of Intention to Prosecute for fare evasion sent. Solely because you can't criminalise someone for using a valid ticket, despite certain TOC's preference to attempt to do so rather than address their own staff's shortcomings. Going to the media was a poor error of judgement - a few days after this was done, the NRG was changed significantly due to the magnitude of the consequences. Perhaps it was changed before it was fully appropriate to do so owing to the problems the new NRG has thrown up, but that's a matter for another topic.

 

Mr. Myers allegedly chose to go to town with it and as a result, droves of people reportedly went to St Albans demanding £700 refunds for the next few days. A ticket office clerk's obligations are laid out in the Retail Standards Guide - we sell the simplest and cheapest (in that order) ticket for the journey being made. We don't have to sit there trawling the system for loopholes or suggest starting short or anything of the sort. The onus is on the customer to do their own research. Impartiality means that we sell whatever ticket is requested. I think certain media outfits have exhibited a degree of irresponsibility by claiming that FCC were sued for not selling the cheapest ticket - that wasn't the case at all.

[timbo58]

Interesting post Urban.

I remember quite a few times being asked for a ticket from A-B and another from C-D and yet another from D-E to make a journey fare less than A-E, fortunately since I was 'on train' most of the time and at least one of those changeovers (if not the start) had a working ticket issuing facility, I was able to decline politely.

 

Unfortunately although they really DO exist as we all know 'loopholes' that customers use are frequently not loopholes at all but invalid routes.

i.e. we found customers with Kemble-Paddington season tickets with Swindon addresses, boarding at Swindon in order to take advantage of the cheaper branch line discounts in the peak quite a few years ago, not a loophole at all: downright illegal!

[The Urbanite]

Interesting post Urban.

I remember quite a few times being asked for a ticket from A-B and another from C-D and yet another from D-E to make a journey fare less than A-E, fortunately since I was 'on train' most of the time and at least one of those changeovers (if not the start) had a working ticket issuing facility, I was able to decline politely.

 

Unfortunately although they really DO exist as we all know 'loopholes' that customers use are frequently not loopholes at all but invalid routes.

i.e. we found customers with Kemble-Paddington season tickets with Swindon addresses, boarding at Swindon in order to take advantage of the cheaper branch line discounts in the peak quite a few years ago, not a loophole at all: downright illegal!

 

If the passenger couldn't buy the ticket(s) of their choice at their origin station then they should be offered the full range of tickets at the first available opportunity. Nowadays with the virtues of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage, there is no obligation to make a journey using only one through ticket (or get off a train at the stop where tickets are changed.) As such I think it's safer to assume that retailing guidelines correspond to that than risk a passenger kicking up a stink because they were told by a member of staff that they were subject to a disadvantage by the lack of ticket issuing facilities at their point of boarding.

 

I do sympathise with passengers using "loopholes" that are in actual fact, completely invalid for the journey they are making. Anybody who does attempts to do something "clever" to save money and gets it wrong should certainly have to face up to paying the full price for a new ticket, a PF or whatever the appropriate action is for travelling without a valid ticket.

Edited October 20, 2013 by The Urbanite