Advance ticket after a flexible ticket

[andy33gmail]

Today (10th Dec) I was travelling return from Littleport(LTP) to Liverpool Street (LST). I used a combination of :
-An anytime return from LTP-ELY(Ely) obtained in an Uber promotion for a whopping £0.30. That arose from getting £5 off your first ticket, from a nominal price of £5.30
-An advanced / promo advanced singles from ELY-LST

The Great Northern (GN) train became unexpectedly late by about 9 minutes - from looking at Tracksy I can best guess they stopped for a fag between Downham Market(DOW) and LTP. No reason given by announcement or online, and the station screens were stuck in a boot loop - i.e. just kept restarting and showing their software version, IP address and other internal config.

That made me wonder … what would I have done GN’s tardiness had caused me to miss the advance Greater Anglia (GA) train? Would I have had to negotiate an endorsement to continue to London on GN? Buy a new ticket, then claim it back on delay repay?

Just thought I ought to know for next time

------
Edited for better clarity, no material change

 

[125Spotter]

You can take the next available train provided by the operator of the original service you missed. National Rail Conditions of Travel (the terms of which form the contract between you and the rail company) clause 9.4:

Where you are using a Ticket that is valid on a specific train service or train services and you are unable to make the booked service because a previous connecting train service was delayed or cancelled, you will be able to travel on the next train service provided by the Train Company(s) with which your ticket was valid without penalty.

You should not need to obtain an endorsement of your ticket beforehand, provided you can explain the reason for catching a later service. I have never done so, and would rely on open running data if challenged, although in some cases in some regions (and especially if changing TOCs) it can be helpful to your journey later if you can obtain an endorsement or present yourself to the guard of the next service when you board.

In the event you are ‘stranded’, any TOC that is in a position to do so should step in to assist you – although getting them to acknowledge this right, and to actually do so, is not always guaranteed.

It does not matter that you were using two separate tickets nor that you booked them in separate bookings, as multiple tickets can usually be combined to comprise one ‘journey’ from A to B. However, you must ensure that the intended itinerary (i.e. sequence of trains and their route that you intend to use) constitutes a valid itinerary and that the tickets you hold are valid for travel on the intended services, otherwise you have no legal right to recourse under the contract if you miss one of your trains due to an earlier delay or cancellation. You could be treated as having no valid ticket in the event of disruption that delays you reaching a later booked service.

This is an advantage to booking split tickets under a single booking in which the retailer provides you with an itinerary for the entire journey, because travel in accordance with that itinerary automatically constitutes a valid route and set of trains to catch. Likewise, if you can convince a journey planner to produce an itinerary for the trains you plan to take, that is also valid.

If you book separately yourself, you must ensure that the tickets can be used together (most can) and that you booked a valid itinerary. This includes the requirement to allow sufficient time to connect between trains where you must change trains – the ‘minimum connection time’, which is defined for each station in the network separately. For Ely, this is 6 minutes – https://www.brtimes.com/!board?stn=ELY&date=20251211 – so you must allow at least 6 minutes between the timetabled arrival and departure times of the trains you intend to catch. This is particularly important where you intend to change at the same station as your ticket split point. At many stations, connections may be possible faster than the MCT, but these are ‘unofficial’ – journey planners will not offer these connections, and the railway is not obliged to help you, nor honour your ticket on a later service, nor pay compensation in the case of delays meaning you miss a train.

If you are sufficiently late arriving at your final destination, provided you booked and travelled in accordance with a valid itinerary, you are also entitled to claim delay repay for the entirety of the journey. Delay repay is a compensation scheme, so will only ever pay some fraction of the original purchase price for the ticket(s) used to complete your journey. If you were ever forced to buy a new ticket, such as by a guard or RPI onboard a train, I would expect in these circumstances that the costs would be refunded on application to the TOC’s customer services with relevant details of the journey undertaken and ticket(s) held.

As always, keep copies of your tickets – and these days I tend to take a photo of the information screens at stations to prove I was there and that trains were delayed. It has come in useful numerous times.

 

[andy33gmail]

Fantastic advice, thank you

And in this example, it would not be permissible to just continue via GN to KGX - despite the hypothetical situation being “their fault” … because firstly I’d still be constrained to using a GA train & secondly the ticket specified LST rather than LON.

 

[125Spotter]

in this example, it would not be permissible to just continue via GN to KGX - despite the hypothetical situation being “their fault” … because firstly I’d still be constrained to using a GA train & secondly the ticket specified LST rather than LON.

Correct. Your second ticket is an advance, so you normally still need to travel in accordance with the other terms of the ticket (same operator and route).

The problem you would have here is there are only a handful of direct GA services from Ely to Liverpool Street in the morning peak, so it’s possible you would miss one of those and be left without a direct service to London.

If that happens, you can rely on two rights:

• The right to be assisted by any operator if you are stranded – NRCoT clause 28.2 (below)

Where disruption prevents you from completing the journey for which your Ticket is valid and is being used, any Train Company will, where it reasonably can, provide you with alternative means of travel to your destination, or if necessary, provide overnight accommodation for you.

• After a delay of 60+ minutes, the right to be re-routed to reach your original destination under comparable conditions – the Passenger Rights and Obligations (commonly known as the PRO) clause 16 – https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...-and-obligations#reimbursement-and-re-routing

In practice, enforcing these rights can be patchy with staff, you’re travelling on Driver Only Operated (DOO) services so there is no guard to ask while onboard, and you do ideally want to speak to staff to make arrangements or have your ticket endorsed before attempting to use a different operator or route to reach your destination. I would leave the train at Ely as planned and speak to station staff, who I expect are likely to advise you to take GA services to Cambridge and change there for a Liverpool Street service.

In theory, you could also argue a right to continue to Kings Cross and use the underground to reach Liverpool Street, particularly as GN caused the original delay. I’d want that endorsed before doing so though, or to buy additional tickets and claim them back from GN later. It’s unlikely you would talk your way through Underground barriers with this argument, but GN should cough up.

If you are late arriving at your original destination, you would also be entitled to delay repay compensation on the cost and tickets that comprised the original through journey.

 

[saismee]

I’d want that endorsed before doing so though, or to buy additional tickets and claim them back from GN later.

Contacting GN on Twitter prior has been helpful for me in the past, so that's also an option.

 

[andy33gmail]

To be fair, in this instance I wouldn’t have cared whether I arrived at Kings Cross or Liverpool Street.

So the underground wouldn’t have been a factor; so long as I could have talked my way out of the barriers without finding myself posting here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/forums/disputes-prosecutions.152/