Why have an anytime ticket when off-peak has no restrictions?

[stephen rp]

Despite my explicit advice to buy an OP for £33.30, a friend paid Trainline £43.30 for an anytime ticket Oxenholme to Wigan.

Why call it an offpeak ticket when it's effectively an anytime ticket? If the ticket office had sold it, I'd have told her to seek redress, but she booked it on Trainline which doesn't have a box saying "You can have a ticket just the same for £10 less."

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's an 8A which bars break of journey in both directions. The Anytime would be useful if you wanted to break your journey overnight (nobody would likely care if you did it same-day).

 

[Hadders]

One key difference is that the outward portion of an Anytime Return is valid for five days.

 

[Watershed]

Despite my explicit advice to buy an OP for £33.30, a friend paid Trainline £43.30 for an anytime ticket Oxenholme to Wigan.

Why call it an offpeak ticket when it's effectively an anytime ticket? If the ticket office had sold it, I'd have told her to seek redress, but she booked it on Trainline which doesn't have a box saying "You can have a ticket just the same for £10 less."

I agree, it's pointless. All 8A Off-Peak Returns should be converted to Anytime Returns; it is an easy way to simplify things. In reality it's rather more likely that they would be turned into Anytime "Short Distance" Returns, which only have one day of outward validity (despite being used on some rather long distance flows!). But even this would be better than the current confusion.

Nobody is going to know about, let alone enforce, the break of journey restrictions. None of the stations at either end, or en-route, even have barriers!

Having a higher Anytime fare is nevertheless useful to TOCs insofar as it allows for a penalty for buying on-board.