wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:

I think one problem is that ticket office staff are not always au fait
with the rules themselves - there have been many past tales here and
on uk.railway of people being sold the wrong ticket, including (IIRC
Southern) ticket machines issuing them with the wrong destination
despite the right request being made!

Furthermore even if you have the wrong ticket it might not ever have
got flagged up at the ticket gates - past posts have suggested that
the ticket gates at Kings Cross Thameslink were programmed very
liberally, given the shear variety of ticket types they could feasibly
encounter (an issue that has perhaps been transferred over to St
Pancras Int'l). I'm not going to dig around for it now but I certainly
recall posters reporting that "London Terminals" tickets from points
south were accepted by the gates at KX Thameslink even though they
shouldn't have been.

I had a similar incident not too long ago.

IIRC, I bought a Saver Return ticket to Gatwick from the ticket machine at
KX Thameslink, which listed Gatwick and London Terminals as my destinations.
Going through the gates and getting out to the airport was not a problem,
but the return was another story as the gates would not let me exit back at
KX Thameslink.

One of the attendents then told me that the ticket was not good as the
destination was London Terminals, although he waved me through.

So,

-- Why was I sold that ticket if there was going to be a problem with my
getting back? Was it actually me who purchased the wrong ticket? If so, then
what ticket should I have purchased?


Because the ticket machine was very badly programmed badly. Anyone
buying tickets at KX Thameslink for a trip to Gatwick quite obviously
wants to use Thameslink through central London to get there. The
ticket machine there shouldn't have even offered anything else.

A properly issued ticket for that journey would have specified Kings
Cross Thameslink as the named station of origin station (*not* London
Terminals).


-- What significance does London Terminals have on tickets? I thought that
such a destination was good anywhere within London.


They are not. Mr Thant set out the rules clearly upthread in the first
reply to Colin's post.

Look at the National Fares Manual section A - the relevant pages are
A4 and A5:
http://www.atoc.org/retail/_download...8_Common_A.pdf

The all important sentence from the National Fares Manual is this...

"In addition London Terminals fares are NOT valid if travelling beyond
St. Pancras International from the north or beyond City Thameslink
from the south."