Chiltern Super Off Peak ticket valid on XC between Banbury and Birmingham NS ?

[General Zod]

Hi,
I'm just planning a Bank Holiday journey to the beautiful north and upon checking the various tickets / times on Trainline I am listed the return leg of a "Super Off Peak Return" ( £19.50) , travelling from Birmingham Moor St. to High Wycombe, to be via New Street - Banbury on Arriva XC and then Banbury - HWY on Chiltern . Just a bit confused here as I thought the Chiltern SOPR was a Chiltern specific ticket and hence not valid on XC out of BHM down to Banbury ? Perhaps the rules changed since Virgin lost the XC route ?
The journey is question is the 19.16 BMO "departure" arr. HWY 21.33.
(Screencaps included).

cheers
Z

 

[OwlMan]

It is a route via High Wycombe ticket not a TOC restricted ticket.

Peter

 

[barrykas]

Hi,
I'm just planning a Bank Holiday journey to the beautiful north and upon checking the various tickets / times on Trainline I am listed the return leg of a "Super Off Peak Return" ( £19.50) , travelling from Birmingham Moor St. to High Wycombe, to be via New Street - Banbury on Arriva XC and then Banbury - HWY on Chiltern . Just a bit confused here as I thought the Chiltern SOPR was a Chiltern specific ticket and hence not valid on XC out of BHM down to Banbury ?

Perfectly valid on XC (and on fGW out of Paddington too), as the tickets are route High Wycombe or route Banbury, not Chiltern only.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[General Zod]

Thanks !
This ticket used to be called the "Just 18" ticket ( or something similar) and at the time I was specifically told that if I embarked on a High Wycombe - Birmingham Stns journey using this ticket I could not get off at Banbury and use the Virgin XC service onwards to Birmingham. I had to use Chiltern for the entire journey.
I'm going to Manchester from HWY and my ticket combo will be HWY-Birmingham Stns SOPR and a Birmingham Stns - Manchester Pic OPR. I don't mind changing trains at BMO for BHM on the outward journey but on the return leg I would like to remain on the Manchester - Reading train, alight at Banbury and catch the HWY train from there. I was just wondering if my HWY-Birmingham SOPR would be valid on the XC train betweem BHM and Banbury.

cheers,
Z

 

[John @ home]

I'm going to Manchester from HWY and my ticket combo will be HWY-Birmingham Stns SOPR and a Birmingham Stns - Manchester Pic OPR. I don't mind changing trains at BMO for BHM on the outward journey

This ticket will show HIGH WYCOMBE - BIRMINGHAM STNS route BANBURY, so if you prefer an easy change in both directions it is permitted to change at Banbury both ways.

 

[Ferret]

Perfectly valid on XC (and on fGW out of Paddington too), as the tickets are route High Wycombe or route Banbury, not Chiltern only.

Cheers,

Barry

Just to be clear, if it was a London Terminals-Brum route High Wycombe then that would not be valid on FGW out of Paddington via Reading!!!!!!

To answer the OP's question, yup, perfectly valid on XC. See those all the time....

 

[General Zod]

Excellent, that is very re-assuring. I am quite surprised that it is valid. Do a lot of people use that ticket between the two stations and if so does this not lose XC revenue ? They could easily refuse to accept such tickets and enforce their own ticket pricing on XC trains. Something similar to the non-validity of the cheaper Chiltern tickets on XC trains during Peak hours. I've seen signs at some Chiltern stations warning Chiltern customers that certain tickets may not be valid on XC trains during the Peak hours.

Thanks again,
Z

 

[John @ home]

They could easily refuse to accept such tickets and enforce their own ticket pricing on XC trains.

I don't think they could do this easily. Their Franchise Agreement and the Ticketing & Settlement Agreement significantly limit what they can do.

 

[General Zod]

Thanks for that John. I am intrigued as to how they managed to get CDRs bought from Chiltern stations Kings Sutton, Banbury and Leamington Spa to BHM to be refused on any trains in either direction on Mondays to Fridays before 0930, or between 1530 and 1815 ?

http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/news/news-archive/change-to-ticket-validity-kgs-ban-lms-bmo/

This does seem very petty.

Z

 

[yorkie]

Excellent, that is very re-assuring. I am quite surprised that it is valid.

Chiltern cannot introduce a High Wycombe to Birmingham Stns Chiltern Only ticket, because they set the fare for that flow. I'm surprised you are surprised that it's valid on multiple operators as TOC specific tickets are not the norm.

Do a lot of people use that ticket between the two stations and if so does this not lose XC revenue ?

How does it lose XC revenue?

They could easily refuse to accept such tickets and enforce their own ticket pricing on XC trains.

If XC withdrew from the TSA and stopped receiving ORCATS revenue, they would be in breach of their franchise, would lose the vast majority of their income and... well, we're in cloud cuckoo land, it can't happen, let alone be easy!

Something similar to the non-validity of the cheaper Chiltern tickets on XC trains during Peak hours. I've seen signs at some Chiltern stations warning Chiltern customers that certain tickets may not be valid on XC trains during the Peak hours.

Thanks again,
Z

Are you sure? Can you take a photo of one of these signs? I think you may be confusing the message on the signs for something else...

Thanks for that John. I am intrigued as to how they managed to get CDRs bought from Chiltern stations Kings Sutton, Banbury and Leamington Spa to BHM to be refused on any trains in either direction on Mondays to Fridays before 0930, or between 1530 and 1815 ?

http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/news/news-archive/change-to-ticket-validity-kgs-ban-lms-bmo/

This does seem very petty.

Z

XC are very petty indeed.

How did they do it? Well, they wasted taxpayers money (they are heavily subsidised by us) on putting together a case to take ownership of certain flows from Chiltern. Sadly, they won. This meant that XC could control the conditions, and they implemented draconian conditions that are in line with their policy of screwing customers.

The solution is to find fares that XC do not set the conditions for, and use those instead!

For example York - Birmingham can be brought down from £95 to £34 on the 08:27 or 08:44 services simply by splitting at Sheffield and Derby. Yes, XC want to defraud a customer to the tune of £61 for that journey, and many businesses simply pay up.

 

[bb21]

Hi,
I'm just planning a Bank Holiday journey to the beautiful north and upon checking the various tickets / times on Trainline I am listed the return leg of a "Super Off Peak Return" ( £19.50) , travelling from Birmingham Moor St. to High Wycombe, to be via New Street - Banbury on Arriva XC and then Banbury - HWY on Chiltern . Just a bit confused here as I thought the Chiltern SOPR was a Chiltern specific ticket and hence not valid on XC out of BHM down to Banbury ? Perhaps the rules changed since Virgin lost the XC route ?
The journey is question is the 19.16 BMO "departure" arr. HWY 21.33.
(Screencaps included).

cheers
Z

Your quoted journey is interesting as we had a discussion not long ago about the minimum connection time between New St and Moor St and we did not have a definitive answer but my conclusion of 22 minutes was not disputed. Now it seems that it is no more than 17 minutes and the OP of that case could have made his original connection 'legitimately'.

 

[snowhill]

Your quoted journey is interesting as we had a discussion not long ago about the minimum connection time between New St and Moor St and we did not have a definitive answer but my conclusion of 22 minutes was not disputed. Now it seems that it is no more than 17 minutes and the OP of that case could have made his original connection 'legitimately'.

I frequently transfer from Moor Street to New Street and allow, and achieve, a 10 mins transfer time. My best ever, and I was pushed to make a special family committment, was a shade under 7mins.

Nothing special in that and I am a 78 y.o. so 17 mins is very very genourous

Dave

 

[tony_mac]

The minimum connection time between platforms at New St is 12 minutes; in that context having an extra 5 minutes to walk to Moor St seems quite tight - particularly if you don't know the way.

As for misleading signs - these are normal at Paddington - the screens there tell you that off-peak tickets are not valid at all for many services when some of them clearly are.

On the 19:00 they specifically said off-peak tickets were only valid for Taunton and beyond; yet all the journey planners had said that my ticket to Reading was valid. Not that there was any chance of a ticket-check anyway!

 

[A60K]

I frequently transfer from Moor Street to New Street and allow, and achieve, a 10 mins transfer time. My best ever, and I was pushed to make a special family committment, was a shade under 7mins.

Nothing special in that and I am a 78 y.o. so 17 mins is very very genourous

Dave

Just remember that the connection times are not for the benefit of people who know their way!

 

[bb21]

Here it is, the original discussion we had on the definition of the 'official connection'.

Shows you how 'simple' the system is eh?

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31727