Overdistance Excess Questions

[trainJam]

From what I understand, overdistance is not meant to be something the public use often and is completely on the discretion of each ticket office/guard, unlike change of route excesses.

For the purpose of hypothetically obtaining these excesses, in the case that the seller says no and you aren't at the last opportunity to buy, the hypothetical solution is to shop around and ask other sellers.
I've had a few random questions in my head concerning overdistances:

1. What should happen if the new destination has a different route value? E.g. original ticket "via Banbury", new ticket " via High Wycombe"?
2. If the original ticket is an anytime can you excess to the off-peak for the new destination?
3. Example: Birmingham to Shrewsbury you can buy an Anytime Return but for Birmingham to Welshpool there is only an Off-Peak Return. Is an overdistance excess allowed?
4. Suppose you have a Y shaped network with stations A, B, C as the mainline and then a branch line from B to D. Suppose you hold a ticket A to B. Now, suppose you want to buy two over distance tickets, one to cover travel to C and another to cover travel to D. Motivation: this may be cheaper than buying a return, say A to C and buying a return B to D. (Example intended journey ABCBDBA). Is this even allowed or legal?

The last question is perhaps a bit cheeky.

 

[jamiearmley]

1. Change of route and destination excess. Fairly easy

2. Yes. Although, If for example, you are excessing the return portion of a anytime ticket, and the outward journey was made during peak hours when at the only time would have been the only valid ticket, then in access to an off-peak ticket would be inappropriate.

3. Yes

4. I'm struggling to picture this one. I'll have to have a think.

 

[Haywain]

Suppose you have a Y shaped network with stations A, B, C as the mainline and then a branch line from B to D. Suppose you hold a ticket A to B. Now, suppose you want to buy two over distance tickets, one to cover travel to C and another to cover travel to D. Motivation: this may be cheaper than buying a return, say A to C and buying a return B to D. (Example intended journey ABCBDBA). Is this even allowed or legal?

No. You can only excess to another ticket, and as there is no ticket that allows what you propose you cannot excess to it.

From what I understand, overdistance is not meant to be something the public use often and is completely on the discretion of each ticket office/guard, unlike change of route excesses.

As you note, overdistance excesses are something which there is no official right to purchase and may be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain so shopping around is no guarantee of success. If the journey has not been commenced the appropriate approach is to refund the unused ticket and purchase the one you actually want.