FCC Evening Peak

[bb21]

BRFares might be, but the information in Post 2 was quoted from NFM18.

What a beautiful mess all this is.

 

[talldave]

Yes. I seem to be the Off Peak rebel. Still can't get Southern to fix the Gatwick Express website's Off Peak errors. Staff at Gatwick don't understand Off Peak rules, nor do FCC obviously.

Perhaps I should offer to run training courses for the TOCs to teach them their own convoluted rules !

 

[jon0844]

Tell them I said it's valid. That should be good enough to see you through!

Saying 'I know RJ' will probably see an armed response unit called.

 

[RJ]

you are kidding me. so for weeks now i've been paying £2 extra...
and is this valid on EMT too? how does the evening peak ACTUALLY work? i did a search but ended up on silver's old/confusing thread..

and re: excessing fares other than penalty faring them, EMT always say 'if your ticket isnt for this service you will be charged a whole new one at maximum fare' so thats not actually allowed ?? they should just excess it?

Perhaps take a printout of the National Rail website;

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/STP/BDM/tomorrow/1715/dep

This shows that a London to Bedford Off Peak ticket is valid on trains between 16:30 and 18:30. The same result is produced if you use the East Midlands Trains website.

Staff may say it's an error - or they may be aware of this and let you through. Off peak tickets to EMT destinations such as Leicester and Sheffield aren't valid to leave St Pancras at that time - so staff are liable to assume this also applies to Luton and Bedford tickets. It doesn't, as the websites demonstrate.

Hopefully you'll save your £2.10 on this journey in the future - if you have any further issues, feel free to ask for help.

Saying 'I know RJ' will probably see an armed response unit called.

They're one of the units I haven't come across! Hoping it stays that way

 

[sliver]

Thanks to everyone who helped with my original post. Wasn't expecting it to make it to three pages

 

[talldave]

Yes. I seem to be the Off Peak rebel. Still can't get Southern to fix the Gatwick Express website's Off Peak errors. Staff at Gatwick don't understand Off Peak rules, nor do FCC obviously.

Perhaps I should offer to run training courses for the TOCs to teach them their own convoluted rules !

UPDATES:

1) Out of curiosity I decided to check if the Gatwick Express website issue had been fixed. Amazingly, Southern have made a change to the website. Unsurprisingly, they've still got it wrong! They really are utterly incompetent!!!

2) I've emailed FCC about the restriction code TN error. Let's see what happens.

 

[RJ]

EMT twitter is not accepting the ticket's validity!

That's most likely because they aren't asking people within their company who understand tickets. Those on this forum who assert the ticket is valid are correct.

 

[stephy]

They have now confirmed via DM that the ticket has no evening restriction!
Now why all this bull about an evening peak!

 

[yorkie]

They have now confirmed via DM that the ticket has no evening restriction!
Now why all this bull about an evening peak!

A small minority (or, in the London area, a sizeable minority) people think that a 'blanket' peak time rule applies for all tickets. This is due to inadequate training. EMT gateline staff only get 1 week of training for everything - clearly that's not enough!

The reality is that you need to look up the restrictions applicable to the specific ticket held.

For as long as I can recall FCC have had a policy of not applying restrictions to Off Peak Day Singles, or outward portions of Off Peak Day Returns out of London to any destination priced by them.

EMT do not price Off Peak Day products, but do apply evening restrictions on the Off Peak fares they do price.

Other operators price longer distance tickets, and these will generally have no evening restriction to Bedford/Luton, and will certainly have no restriction if the origin is outside the 'Network Area' and travel is via London.

If a member of gateline staff is unsure which restriction applies, they should either check, or let you through if they are unable to check. Making it up is not acceptable.

The staff who mis-advised you on Twitter are probably not adequately trained themselves, but it would be very easy for them to look up the restriction. I am glad they did do this eventually.

What I find most concerning is that passengers can be heavily penalised when making a mistake (under certain circumstances), and yet the Train Companies appear to be able to make mistakes with impunity. It's not a level playing field.

 

[talldave]

They have now confirmed via DM that the ticket has no evening restriction!
Now why all this bull about an evening peak!

Was the previous Twitter denial viewable by all? (Sorry not a twitterer, so no idea who sees what). If so, they should announce their U turn in public too.

Edit: A bit of Google digging shows me this was tweeted by them on 4 Aug.

I totally agree with Yorkie's view that when we as passengers get it wrong we're penalised, but when TOCs (who should get things right) get it wrong there's no comeback. I know it's a pipe dream, but it would be nice if incidents of TOCs handing out mis-information could be financially penalised, since money is the only thing that interests them.