Help! Anytime ticket validity (possible issuing error)

[DelayRepay]

Hi

I need to be at Gatwick at 5am. I already have a season ticket from St Albans (home) to London Thameslink, so I asked for a ticket from London to Gatwick. I said I wanted to catch the 3.20am train from St Albans which arrives at Gatwick at 4:56 (yes I know I must be mad getting up at that hour!)

Anyway she has sold me an Anytime Day Single (price £6.80 with Gold Card discount) but I've just gone to take a photo of the ticket for my expenses claim and noticed it's dated today.

My gut feeling is she has made an error and this ticket won't be valid because I won't complete my journey before 4:29.

So my options would seem to be either catch the 02:59 which gets to Gatwick at 4:25, OR buy a new ticket online to pick up at the TVM in the morning.

Is this all correct? OR have I misunderstood something?

Appreciate any help anyone can give (and I guess if I take this ticket back to the booking office next time I'm passing, they'll refund it since it's unused and seems to have been incorrectly issued).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, I would say this is an error. It should have been issued for tomorrow (valid any time from 0001[1] onwards).

[1] There are no trains at 0000.

 

[bb21]

That is correct. If i were you, provided that there is no major reason why the 0259 cannot be caught, i would just get that, as it seems to be the easiest solution.

 

[DelayRepay]

That is correct. If i were you, provided that there is no major reason why the 0259 cannot be caught, i would just get that, as it seems to be the easiest solution.

Does 21 minutes extra sleep count as a major reason?

Thanks for the advice... moral of the story is always check your tickets before leaving the window I suppose.

 

[Haywain]

The correctly dated ticket would not benefit from the Gold Card discount as travel is before 10:00.

 

[talldave]

The correctly dated ticket would not benefit from the Gold Card discount as travel is before 10:00.

Although not relevant to the OP, Gold Cards are valid 09.30 onwards.

 

[Hadders]

But a ticket dated for the previous day with a Gold Catd discount would be OK until 0429 the following morning.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But a ticket dated for the previous day with a Gold Catd discount would be OK until 0429 the following morning.

So maybe this is one of those cases where they thought they were doing a favour but in fact weren't.

 

[Reason077]

There is no problem with the validity of the ticket itself! Anytime Single tickets are valid for the 2 days following the ticket date. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46550.aspx

The only issue is that the Gold card discount may not be valid on a train that arrives after 0429. Personally I'd think you'd be very unlucky if anyone noticed this or held it against you at that time of the morning.

Are ticket barriers programmed to detect this? Is Gatwick Airport station even staffed at 5AM?

 

[island]

There is no problem with the validity of the ticket itself! Anytime Single tickets are valid for the 2 days following the ticket date. http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46550.aspx

The only issue is that the Gold card discount may not be valid on a train that arrives after 0429. Personally I'd think you'd be very unlucky if anyone noticed this or held it against you at that time of the morning.

Are ticket barriers programmed to detect this? Is Gatwick Airport station even staffed at 5AM?

The ticket is an anytime day single (SDS) not an anytime single (SOS), and as such is valid for one day only.

As mentioned elsewhere a gold card discount would be inapplicable on the ticket issued for the actual date of travel.

 

[talldave]

But a ticket dated for the previous day with a Gold Catd discount would be OK until 0429 the following morning.

Agreed. You were just using the wrong time (10.00) for when Gold Card discounted tickets wouldn't be valid until!

And Gatwick barriers do reject Gold Card discounted tickets "out of hours".

 

[Haywain]

Although not relevant to the OP, Gold Cards are valid 09.30 onwards.

Fair point. I thought hard about which it was before typing that, and played safe with the Network Card restriction. In my defence, I was in a different time zone, and sitting outside having breakfast. I blame the sun!

 

[talldave]

Fair point. I thought hard about which it was before typing that, and played safe with the Network Card restriction. In my defence, I was in a different time zone, and sitting outside having breakfast. I blame the sun!

Nice!

I've often felt that Gatwick's barriers were in a different time zone