On 9 Mar, 23:23, (Neil Williams) wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 21:22:08 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

The equivalent test for extending a Travelcard, is discovering if any
ToCs don't accept them. I think the answer is "only GatEx are that
petty", but maybe others can confirm.

Careful - I am almost certain that BZ6 tickets are *not* valid on
Virgin trains. *I suspect this extends to other IC TOCs as well. *It's
to do with different accounting - an outboundary MKC to R1256 is
priced based on the idea that most people will do MKC-EUS on Virgin
then just use the Travelcard around London, whereas in the other
direction it can't work like that because the Travelcard is already
purchased.


Hmm, I don't think that they can refuse them (they are not LM only
tickets and I havn't seen one marked not Virgin West Coast Trains).
Just because the ticket comes under a different calculation for fare
revenue, it doesn't mean that Virgin won't get their share, this is
why the tickets are issued from Boundary Zone 6 and not from Hatch
End, this allowing similar revenue allocation to a London fare.
Remember that revenue is shared based on the number of trains that can
be used for a journey, so LM will always get the bulk of MKC - London
fares, as the stopping services count as equally as the fasts; from
last month, Southern will also be getting a share of the travelcard
revenue as well.

The old FGW (the Inter-City only bit before the merger) certainly
allowed use to Reading / Didcot etc, as did Cross-Country (FGW still
do, XC, of course, no longer run through the zones).