On 9 Jan, 23:14, Dave wrote:
Have relatives in Guildford, and would like to visit more often. A
cheap day return is £11.50. But looking at megabus.com I can get a
train ticket for Portsmouth which stops at Guildford on the way. Is
there anything stopping me from booking with megabus far in advance
and getting the ticket for £2 return and using it to get to Guildford
and back again? Also how would I explain it to the guide at the ticket
barrier? Many thanks,

[assuming you're travelling from London]

With a Megatrain ticket alone, this wouldn't be allowed - the ticket
would become void when you left the train at Guildford, and therefore
you'd be in line for a penalty fare at the barrier.

However, it would be perfectly legitimate for you to also purchase a
£3.30 CDR from Woking to Guildford before boarding the train at
Waterloo (all London - Guildford - Portsmouth trains stop at Woking,
barring weird engineering chaos), and use that to escape the
station... this way, there is no part of your journey that isn't
covered by a valid ticket, just some parts that are double-covered.

You'd probably /get away/ with purchasing a £2.30 CDR from Shalford to
Guildford, which I think is the cheapest return fare it's possible to
get to/from Guildford, but this would be a bit higher-risk if you were
manually inspected (since nobody in their right mind would actually
make that journey, and you'd have clearly got off the wrong train for
it). You're not necessarily in the wrong, since you haven't actually /
travelled/ anywhere without a valid ticket, but I'm not sure I'd want
to chance the argument.

In any case, the main problem would be the return trip - I don't know
how strictly the rules are enforced on board, but officially if you
don't turn up at Pompey for your return leg, the ticket is completely
void and so you wouldn't have a valid ticket between (Guildford/Woking
depending on strategy above) and London.

NB I also have relatives in Guildford and make this journey relatively
often. If you have a Z12 Gold Card, it costs £6.20 (ticket from either
Clapham Junction or BZ2, plus 1/3 discount). If it's a Gold Card that
covers more zones, the journey will probably be even cheaper. If not,
then you might still benefit from a Network Railcard, which would cut
the price from Waterloo to £10 on weekdays and £7.70 at weekends.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org