On 10 Jan, 18:03, Michael Hoffman wrote:
Instead, it achieves the opposite. Which makes me think that it's not
complex discrimination, but just a way of filling a few empty seats
very very cheaply to the company (and to the passengers, of course).

That's exactly what price discrimination does, it allows them to fill
empty seats with cheaper tickets without abstracting away revenue they
already have. It's designed specifically to keep people like the OP from
doing what he wants to do.

Yes of course, but if the restrictions were demand-based, they would
not have chosen the restrictions they have chosen.

It is possible they would still not have covered London - Guildford
journeys. But it's certain that they would have allowed Guildford -
Portsmouth journeys, because that's the point when the train is
emptiest and the cannibalisation is most limited - even compared to
London - Portsmouth journeys, which they currently do allow.

But Guildford - Portsmouth is not covered - and indeed, the list of
stations you *can* travel between is almost the opposite of the list
of stations you would find if their primary aim was purely to fill
empty seats with cheap tickets and not abstract revenue.

Rather, their aim is to do that as much as they can /without imposing
any additional costs on the business/, and that is what determines the
stations they're serving.

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

John B wrote:

But Guildford - Portsmouth is not covered - and indeed, the list of
stations you *can* travel between is almost the opposite of the list
of stations you would find if their primary aim was purely to fill
empty seats with cheap tickets and not abstract revenue.

Rather, their aim is to do that as much as they can /without imposing
any additional costs on the business/, and that is what determines the
stations they're serving.

Agreed. But I think the price discrimination rationale explains why they
would be annoyed if someone followed the advice you gave upthread.
--
Michael Hoffman

In article
,
John B writes
That makes it clear that break of journey is prohibited, and therefore
NRCC paragraph 6 forbids ending the journey at an intermediate station
without paying an excess fare.

ITYM 16. That's interesting.

B) "[the right to stop short] may not apply to some types of tickets
for which a break of journey is prohibited, in which case the relevant
Train Companies will make this clear in their notices and other
publications."

Michael is reading too much into NCoC 16. It makes three separate
statements:
(1) There exist tickets that don't allow stopping short/starting late.
(2) All such tickets also prohibit Break of Journey.
(3) It will be made clear if you have such a ticket.

I'm not commenting on (3) with respect to Megatrain, but statement (2)
is *not* what Michael says it is. In particular, there are tickets where
BoJ is forbidden but stopping short or starting late is not.

The important bit of (2) is actually its contrapositive:
(2') All tickets that allow Break of Journey also allow stopping short
or starting late.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

Michael is reading too much into NCoC 16. It makes three separate
statements:
(1) There exist tickets that don't allow stopping short/starting late.
(2) All such tickets also prohibit Break of Journey.
(3) It will be made clear if you have such a ticket.

I'm not commenting on (3) with respect to Megatrain, but statement (2)
is *not* what Michael says it is. In particular, there are tickets where
BoJ is forbidden but stopping short or starting late is not.

I take your point. The use of the word "may" is key.

In any case, break of journey is still prohibited on these tickets, and
Megatrain isn't authorizing stopping short or starting late.
--
Michael Hoffman