Dear all

I've had conflicting advice on this, and have not been able to turn up
the definitive rule:

I have a Freedom Pass, my wife an Over-60 card and we both have Senior
Railcards/

At, say, 1030hrs, we can go the booking office at Woolwich Arsenal and
buy tickets from Z6 boundary to National Rail destinations which are
available on Southeastern's ticketing system (works as far as
Bournemouth, Portsmouth etc, not just SE destinations). The train
concerned does not have to stop at the boundary station.

However, boundary fares are only available at stations – not online –
thus allowing the ticket office staff to check that we have valid
passes from WWA to the boundary.

So to book an advance fare online I consult the Freedom Pass map to
identify the last station inside the boundary and use that as my
Departure station and book an advance or super advance ticket from
there.

I have been doing this regularly for a couple of years to make
significant savings – eg East Croydon to Portsmouth Harboud for just
£3.30 – and the only comment from a gripper seeing my FPass, Railcard
and discounted ticket has been a cheeful "Good morning, Sir, I'm
pleased to see you know how to get the cheapest ticket".

However, I recommended this technique to a friend, who was mortified to
be told on a SWT service (within the rules, ie 11.xx departure from
WAT) that his Surbiton – Southampton ticket was invalid for WAT-SOU
since the train did not stop at SUR. The gripper told him sternly
"You're a pensioner, and you have obviously been given bad advice by an
unathourised person, so in this case I won't issue a PF, but you will
need to pay the correct fare on future journeys" [with an unspoken, but
obvious "…or else" at the end].

Q! Are we – and the Southern conductor – within thr rules, or was the
SWT interpretation correct?

Q2 Assuming we are correct, what are the "magic words" which we could
quote to avoid a PF?

TIA folks – and BTW I will post in the next few days a detailed
response doc re cashless bus ticketing.

Ken

kenw wrote:

Q! Are we – and the Southern conductor – within thr rules, or was the
SWT interpretation correct?

Q2 Assuming we are correct, what are the "magic words" which we could
quote to avoid a PF?

TIA folks – and BTW I will post in the next few days a detailed
response doc re cashless bus ticketing.

By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

In practice, I suspect the vast majority of staff would have accepted
it without a second glance, particularly as the fare from Boundary Zone
6 is exactly the same as the fare from Surbiton.

Peter Smyth

On 21/08/2013 21:15, Peter Smyth wrote:
By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

What I find surprising is that when you explicitly ask at a ticket
office for a ticket from the Boundary Zone to some station X, you are
often sold one from a specific station just inside the boundary. If you
query it they always say "this costs the same". That may be true but it
misses the point as the ticket validity is different. Is this because
some types of ticket machine make it hard for the ticket clerk to select
the BZ as the origin of the journey so they do this out of laziness, or
is there some other explanation?


--
Clive Page

Clive Page wrote:

On 21/08/2013 21:15, Peter Smyth wrote:
By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

What I find surprising is that when you explicitly ask at a ticket
office for a ticket from the Boundary Zone to some station X, you are
often sold one from a specific station just inside the boundary. If you
query it they always say "this costs the same". That may be true but it
misses the point as the ticket validity is different. Is this because
some types of ticket machine make it hard for the ticket clerk to select
the BZ as the origin of the journey so they do this out of laziness, or
is there some other explanation?

You can even get sold the one from the station even if the Boundary Zone
one is more expensive one train an hour out of 4-6 doesn't stop) It
depends on which ticket seller you get.

--
Mark

In message , at 22:31:23 on Thu, 22
Aug 2013, Clive Page remarked:
By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

What I find surprising is that when you explicitly ask at a ticket
office for a ticket from the Boundary Zone to some station X, you are
often sold one from a specific station just inside the boundary. If
you query it they always say "this costs the same". That may be true
but it misses the point as the ticket validity is different. Is this
because some types of ticket machine make it hard for the ticket clerk
to select the BZ as the origin of the journey so they do this out of
laziness, or is there some other explanation?

It shouldn't be difficult, BZ6 is code 0072; see para 3:

http://www.perry.co.uk/avantix_for_dummies.html
--
Roland Perry

On 23/08/2013 10:25, Roland Perry wrote:

It shouldn't be difficult, BZ6 is code 0072; see para 3:

http://www.perry.co.uk/avantix_for_dummies.html

Thanks Roland, that's very useful. But is just possible that some
ticket clerks don't know this stuff?


--
Clive Page

In message , at 14:53:19 on Fri, 23
Aug 2013, Clive Page remarked:
It shouldn't be difficult, BZ6 is code 0072; see para 3:

http://www.perry.co.uk/avantix_for_dummies.html

Thanks Roland, that's very useful. But is just possible that some
ticket clerks don't know this stuff?

If their job, all day long, is selling tickets, they really ought to
know at least a substantial subset of those codes. Or have a
company-provided crib sheet.

And when the alphanumeric for BZ6 is "Boundary Zone 6", there's really
no excuse...
--
Roland Perry

On 2013-08-21 20:15:42 +0000, Peter Smyth said:

Thanks, guys

So for the avoidance of doubt…

To get the cheapest advance fare online while taking advantage of the
Freedom Pass, we should avoid trains which do NOT stop somewhere in or
near the boundary of Z6.

Doesn't affect our regular Portsmouth trips on Southern, since they all
stop at E Croydon. But on other routes, the advice must be to check the
timetable for stops of the service concerned.

Just a shame the online booking systems don't understand BZ5.

Ken


kenw wrote:

Q! Are we – and the Southern conductor – within thr rules, or was the
SWT interpretation correct?

Q2 Assuming we are correct, what are the "magic words" which we could
quote to avoid a PF?

TIA folks – and BTW I will post in the next few days a detailed
response doc re cashless bus ticketing.

By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

In practice, I suspect the vast majority of staff would have accepted
it without a second glance, particularly as the fare from Boundary Zone
6 is exactly the same as the fare from Surbiton.

Peter Smyth

On 21/08/2013 21:15, Peter Smyth wrote:

By a strict reading of the rules, the conductor was correct, a ticket
from Surbiton is only valid on trains that stop at Surbiton, while a
ticket from Boundary Zone 6 woule be valid on any train.

A Freedom Pass (and 60+ Oyster) is treated as a Season Ticket (albeit a
time-restricted one) for the purposes of Condition 19(c) of the National
Conditions of Carriage, thus the train does not need to stop at the
relevant station as long as you're travelling on a participating TOC
(i.e. all of them except East Coast, EMT, Grand Central, Heathrow
Express, Hull Trains and Virgin).

A briefing to this effect went out some time ago, but it appears that
some staff are in need of a reminder...

In message , at 17:14:45 on Tue, 27
Aug 2013, Barry Salter remarked:
A Freedom Pass (and 60+ Oyster) is treated as a Season Ticket (albeit a
time-restricted one) for the purposes of Condition 19(c) of the
National Conditions of Carriage,

That's very helpful, thanks.

thus the train does not need to stop at the relevant station as long as
you're travelling on a participating TOC (i.e. all of them except East
Coast, EMT, Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains and Virgin).

That list is almost as long as a "what did the Romans do for us" list.
--
Roland Perry