Anytime Sheffield to Abergavenny via Manchester Airport

I've checked that this is a valid route with the £57 Anytime single, and am sure a break of journey is allowed, at the airport.

But is it valid on any service, Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly, then to airport then Crewe and Abergavenny? Train split and National Rail will only show journeys starting with TPE services Sheffield to Manchester as it doesn't include the break of journey and they must be the best connections.

Appears so. Put the via points in on Trainsplit and it offers this ticket.

BRM said:

I've checked that this is a valid route with the £57 Anytime single, and am sure a break of journey is allowed, at the airport.

But is it valid on any service, Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly, then to airport then Crewe and Abergavenny? Train split and National Rail will only show journeys starting with TPE services Sheffield to Manchester as it doesn't include the break of journey and they must be the best connections.

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An Anytime ticket allows break of journey at any intermediate station along a valid route. This particular ticket is routed "via Shrewsbury" so it's valid on any operator along permitted routes that pass through Shrewsbury.

Map combination HV+MC in the Routeing Guide allows travel via Manchester Airport (MIA). A simple way of checking this is by entering MIA as a 'via' point on any of the above journey planners. They will show that the "via Shrewsbury" fare is valid that way.

I'm on this journey now and was made to be buy a single ticket for £5.50 when onboard a TPE service from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport. It was a Revenue Protection Officer and when I objected he threatened to escalate it saying my ticket wasn't valid and I had to use Northern. I paid to end the situation and have raised a complaint. The gates at Manchester airport also didn't allow me exit or enter.
Could the knowledgeable folks on here confirm I was not in the wrong. Many thanks
FYI I travelled
Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly dep 0911 TPE
Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport 1028 TPE
Man Airport to Wilmslow 1201
Wilmslow to Abergavenny 1248

BRM said:

I'm on this journey now and was made to be buy a single ticket for £5.50 when onboard a TPE service from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport. It was a Revenue Protection Officer and when I objected he threatened to escalate it saying my ticket wasn't valid and I had to use Northern. I paid to end the situation and have raised a complaint. The gates at Manchester airport also didn't allow me exit or enter.
Could the knowledgeable folks on here confirm I was not in the wrong. Many thanks
FYI I travelled
Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly dep 0911 TPE
Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport 1028 TPE
Man Airport to Wilmslow 1201
Wilmslow to Abergavenny 1248

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It's perfectly valid and you can get journey planners to validate it; the member of staff was making stuff up.

Why would it only be valid on Northern when the ticket doesn't have a TOC restriction? It doesn't make any sense, but then again, the kinds of things that frontline staff on a power trip say often don't make sense.

What have you said in your complaint?

I told them the ticket I hold, and that I was made to buy a single for using the TPE from Piccadilly. And to refund this, confirm my ticket was valid and offer some training on the complexities of the UK ticket system!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Oct 2026 ==

A bit of research brings up my exact journey on Trainsplit, albeit a week after I did the trip. But the journey is not even offered when using the TPE ticket buying website, which shows 'No results found'. Are there different ticket web portals which have different rules?

BRM said:

A bit of research brings up my exact journey on Trainsplit, albeit a week after I did the trip. But the journey is not even offered when using the TPE ticket buying website, which shows 'No results found'. Are there different ticket web portals which have different rules?

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The same underlying timetable, fares and Routeing Guide data feeds are used by all retailers. However:

• There are a number of accredited journey planners across the industry; these each search for possible journeys and determine valid and available fares.
• There are also a number of accredited Ticket Issuing System (TIS) providers; these each take the results of the journey planner and handle the sale and issuance of any ticket, and the associated financial transactions and accounting.
• Finally there are a number of User Interface (UI) providers; these design the website or app you interact with.

Any combination of different providers for these three services can result in a different outcome in terms of the journeys that do and don't get returned, and the fares that are offered.

It's not that one website is right and another is wrong - you're always entitled to follow the itinerary you get when you buy your ticket, or from National Rail Enquiries afterwards. Any issues with that itinerary are for the industry to pick up with the retailer through established mechanisms.

But some TISes or UIs filter out certain results if they're deemed too slow. Sometimes journey planners also can't find them in the first place, depending on how their search algorithm works and any configuration set up for the retailer.

I would say that FastJP, the journey planner behind the forum site/TrainSplit, is one of the best journey planners on the market and can often find itineraries that others won't - particularly when it comes to journeys where you are entering a less typical via point. Hence why I'm not entirely surprised that you can get an itinerary there, but not on the TPE site.

Watershed said:

It's perfectly valid and you can get journey planners to validate it; the member of staff was making stuff up.

Why would it only be valid on Northern when the ticket doesn't have a TOC restriction? It doesn't make any sense, but then again, the kinds of things that frontline staff on a power trip say often don't make sense.

What have you said in your complaint?

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That's more than a power trip though. How can someone think that a ticket without a stated TOC restriction nevertheless has one?

He seemed to think I should be on a Northern service which I would have been had it, the Blackpool to Airport service, not been late. I thought that Northern and TPE had a ticket acceptance agreement with delayed trains. I think the RPO was confused as they probably don't see many, if any Sheffield to Abergavenny Anytime singles on a TPE from Piccadilly to the Airport.

TUC said:

That's more than a power trip though. How can someone think that a ticket without a stated TOC restriction nevertheless has one?

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Because they are not focussed on this. Their entire job is based around extracting money from people so they shift their focus to doing so wherever possible. The mindset is “if I can see it’s valid and the machine says absolutely ok then all is good but if I don’t know or the machine suggests I do more checks then reject it” there’s not really a middle ground because their primary job role is penalising people, most of which have done something wrong and need to be penalised.

BRM said:

He seemed to think I should be on a Northern service which I would have been had it, the Blackpool to Airport service, not been late. I thought that Northern and TPE had a ticket acceptance agreement with delayed trains. I think the RPO was confused as they probably don't see many, if any Sheffield to Abergavenny Anytime singles on a TPE from Piccadilly to the Airport.

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It’s the same mentality, if you don’t know, ask. But unfortunately as I mention above it’s not how their minds work or how they are trained so you end up in a situation of “if you don’t know, prosecute them and let them deal with it”