Chris Read wrote on 25 July 2009 21:24:14 ...
"Richard J." wrote:

If you ask for "cheap day return to City Thameslink", surely the natural
assumption is that you want to return from City Thameslink? If you wanted
to return from a different London station, perhaps you should have said
so.

That was my initial reaction, but if we assume use of the ticket machine
rather than the booking office, and further assume (for sake of argument)
that the OP is unfamiliar with rail travel, it's not quite so clear cut, is
it?

It depends on how he selected his destination. Presumably he chose
"City Thameslink" rather than "London" or "London Terminals" or whatever
the machine offered. If, however, he chose the latter and the machine
only offered him an FCC-only route because it was cheaper, then I agree
that that's not helpful.

We're speculating here. Hopefully Albert can say how he specified the
ticket he wanted.

The other day I used a machine to investigate options for rail travel from
Brighton to Exeter. The permutations ran to four pages (six buttons per
page, I think), with sundry routing combinations - some compulsory ('via')
and others forbidden ('not London'). That's the kind of ticket choice that
clerks have been known to get wrong, let alone the average punter left to
work it all out for themselves.

OK, but it's hardly comparable to Three Bridges - London.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)