Lee to Canterbury Stations

[island]

I should like to travel from Lee (London) to Canterbury Stations on 21 February. I hold an Annual Gold Card though not on any part of the route in question. I should like to travel Lee-Dartford-Gravesend-Ebbsfleet Int-Ashford Int-Canterbury West. I note from BRFares.com that an off-peak day return fare of £16.65 is available with route NOT VIA LONDON. However, despite my journey not going anywhere near London, I am unable to get that to appear on any journey planner; they will only offer the +ANY PERMITTED fare at £23.95.

It may be that the NOT VIA LONDON fare is intended for travel to Canterbury East via Rochester and Selling, but nevertheless the ticket is offered and I'm wondering if anyone knows why it is not accepted on the journey planners. Only thing I can think of is that the electronic version of "NOT VIA LONDON" might exclude Ebbsfleet Int or Ashford Int as well?

 

[RJ]

The Not Via London route is banned via Ebbsfleet in the journey planners. Fortunately, this method Southeastern has apparently employed to restrict certain routes showing as valid has no impact on the validity.

 

[yorkie]

Agreed; it's valid.

Is Mr Bowden still at Southeastern? He is apparently known within the industry for not liking people travelling on their shiny new trains on tickets he seemingly deems to cheap. Underhand methods are used to deter people, but as RJ says, validity is unaffected.

 

[RJ]

See this thread - might be a litte out of date but contains a list of some restrictions that may be in place in journey planners - though the data actually is held in a different database and may vary in some cases.

 

[island]

In the event my NOT VIA LONDON ticket was rejected by the barriers at Ebbsfleet where I needed to change from platform 5 to 3, but the attendants had no issue with it. Haven't encountered an OBM yet.

It's snowing on the southern reaches of HS1.