Ticketing question

Posted to the wrong group but I expect people here will know the answer anyway !!!

A simple answer, but probably correct: If it is the most convenient for you, it will surely not be available. If there is something similar. but not suitable, it will be much cheaper than what you had hoped, but of no use whatsoever. For example, you might be able to stop off in Cardiff, but nowhere else.

Guess how I know this?

It's often cheaper to buy several tickets to "split" your journey into different legs.

There are several web site that will do this for you, e.g.

I thought generally you had to complete your journey on the same day but the conditions of travel say :-

INFORMATION: Most Tickets allow you to break your journey. This means that you do not have to make the whole of your journey at the same time or, where allowed, on the same day.

... however when you select a ticket for that route you will find most options say there are special restrictions one of which is no break of journey except to change trains.

I think they generally want you to buy an "Advance" which are much cheaper..

I think you need to try options on the web site

Dave

My opinion (and my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it) is that you could do it on the return leg but not on the outward one.

If you look at the paper ticket (or presumably somewhere on your phone if you have your tickets sent to your phone) the outbound ticket is printed with the words "Valid on" followed by the actual date of the outbound journey and the return ticket is printed "Valid until" with a date approximately one month after the outbound ticket date. The return ticket is the one you could probably play around with - provided that starting your return journey doesn't set some cunning countdown mechanism into play. You might want to look into that aspect.

Nick

Thanks. Found it on Avanti website. This seems to cover the situation:

Ticket Description

Off-Peak fares are cheaper tickets for travelling on trains that are less busy. You may need to travel at specific times of the day, days of the week and sometimes on specific routes or operators.The times when you may use your Off-Peak ticket will depend on the journey you are making and you will be advised when buying your ticket. The National Rail Journey Planner will automatically work out which tickets are valid for your journey. Valid by the route shown - Outward Within 01 Day, Return Within 01 Month

Yes, BoJ and ticket validity are separate things. The outward of an Offpeak is valid on one day only. If BoJ is allowed it means you could stop off for several hours for, say, a football match and then resume your journey. You couldn't break for a day or more then resume. (although I think you could continue onto the next day after 4.30am if you started travelling before then, but with no further BoJ)

An Anytime Return allows 5 days for the outward (including unlimited BoJ where permitted). But you may find buying separate tickets is cheaper.

Theo

Forgot mention that the 'return 1 month' often does allow unlimited BoJ. So your itinerary would work on an Offpeak Return if you did it in reverse - Glasgow to Newton Abbott in one day, then a leisurely multi-day return.

Any permitted route:

- the former has a blackout on some trains arriving Euston before 10am.

Theo

Yes - I have certainly found that to be true. Sometimes the price difference is ridiculously high.

While a ticket may be valid, say, for one month for a return journey the T&C may indicate that once you board the first train for the return the journey must be completed within that day or within a certain limited time and/or must be completed via certain (more) direct routes.

But while a ticket may be valid, say, for one month for a return jo

In message snipped-for-privacy@wylie.me.uk>, Alan J. Wylie snipped-for-privacy@wylie.me.uk> writes

JOOI, does the train have to stop at a 'split' station?

Put another way, were I travelling from, say, Aberdeen to Kings Cross and found the cheapest option being a ticket from Aberdeen to Cambridge plus a ticket from Cambridge to Kings Cross, could I use a train which did not stop at Cambridge?

Technically it has to be scheduled to stop at that station (I suppose there might turn out to be a reason it is unable to do so) but you don't have to get off and on again.

Additionally some stations are classed as "pick up" or "set down" only, they're invalid for splitting.

No. Though I have witnessed a ticket inspector let someone off.

Back in ye olden days the rule was that at least one train a day on the flow had to stop, but they changed it to *your* train stopping.

Although there are some such trains, I've never encountered a rule which affects split ticketing.

As it happens, Cambridge is one of those stations where every* passenger train stops.

• Apart from extremely rare exceptions like the Royal Train, or diversions during engineering works.

No, and as a result it would force you to route via Cambridge. ie you couldn't just catch the direct train from Aberdeen to King's Cross which would go straight down the ECML (via Huntingdon) and not pass through Cambridge. Even if it was sent that way due to engineering works (it happens occasionally) it would need a timetabled stop at Cambridge for your ticket split to be valid - not just an operational stop to change crew or whatever.

Theo

I think you would have to use a train which did not stop at Cambridge.

It may be that changing at Hitchin is valid for both Aberdeen to Cambridge, and Cambridge to King's Cross. Could an inspector spot that a side trip to Cambridge had not been made ?

I wonder if you're travelling on electronic tickets in an app, whether it GPS tracks you, to detect sneaky moves like that?

Also if you're on a train so busy the collector doesn't complete all coaches, and you decide to try and refund the ticket as "unused", would they say "that's funny, your phone departed station abc at the same time as our xx:yy o'clock service and followed the route of the xyz line"?

You'd need to take a train that stopped at Hitchin. So that would be a train from Aberdeen to Peterborough and then change onto a slower Thameslink train that stopped at Hitchin.

If there weren't on-train checks between Peterborough and Hitchin then you might get away with it, but it would be technically against the T&C.

If revenue protection stopped you at the gateline and asked for your story, they could spot something that didn't make sense (eg if you claimed to be coming off a train you boarded in Cambridge but the train you'd been observed coming off was a Peterborough one). But that's only likely if they had reason to question you in the first place.

I don't think so. There's a collection of apps from different ticket vendors and different train companies, so I can't see how/why they would orchestrate such tracking. ie if you bought your ticket in the Trainline app then why would Trainline track you?

They may have access to gate scan information ('your ticket was scanned at ABC at 14:42'). I suppose if you scanned in at Edinburgh at 14:42 and out at King's Cross at 19:59 there's no way you could have made a side trip to Cambridge. But that would only likely come into play if the fraud investigators were called.

Theo

the ones from Aberdeen to Kins Cross don't :)