On 16 Feb 2007 07:35:12 -0800, Mizter T wrote:

Surely if Rob bought a return to Gatwick Airport at KXTL, they would
have sold him one that was valid.

Quite.

However I'm sure I've read a tale of someone being sold a plain
vanilla "London Terminals" ticket from a Southern ticket office
despite specifying they were heading to KXTL - i.e. the ticket office
made a mistake.

IIRC the issue was to do with ticket machines (though it may be a
problem with ticket offices too). There are specific fares to KXTL
from many stations in the Southern area (routed "Not Underground" or
"FCC Only"), at slightly higher fares than those to London Terminals.

However, when you buy one of these from certain types of ticket
machine, the ticket gets printed incorrectly; they print the correct
price and route, but "London Terminals" as the destination.

Of course if a "London Terminals" ticket from the south is wrongly
accepted at KXTL then this can only add to the confusion that
perpetually surrounds this issue!

....and this is probably why the problem hasn't been properly
identified/corrected yet. (Although it may have been corrected by
now.)