Macclesfield to London Thu 15 Nov

[47550]

Hi. Apologies if this has been covered before on the forum.

I am looking to travel from Macclesfield to Euston on Thursday 15 Nov and return the same day.

Ideally depart around 10 am (there is a 9.56 departure) and flexible with the return time.

I can see the Virgin off peak return tickets are at £84.50 but I would not be able to catch the return train between 15.01 and 18.44.

I vaguely recall reading something about London - Lancaster tickets being valid via Manchester (and therefore Macclesfield (?) as a route, so if I bought a Lancaster to London Virgin off peak return at £96.50 then would I be able to make the outward journey as before and return on any train ?

Many thanks

 

[Shell]

National Rail will generate an itinerary for a Lancaster to Euston via Manchester Piccadilly ticket for £96.50 that can travel back on various trains between 1501 and 1844, so it would seem you're correct that it'd allow you to get back... however, the ticket restriction is 3A, which does not allow break of journey outward, which would mean you can't use this ticket to get from Macclesfield to Euston in the first place - essentially you can only start from Lancaster on this ticket.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Hi. Apologies if this has been covered before on the forum.

I am looking to travel from Macclesfield to Euston on Thursday 15 Nov and return the same day.

Ideally depart around 10 am (there is a 9.56 departure) and flexible with the return time.

I can see the Virgin off peak return tickets are at £84.50 but I would not be able to catch the return train between 15.01 and 18.44.

I vaguely recall reading something about London - Lancaster tickets being valid via Manchester (and therefore Macclesfield (?) as a route, so if I bought a Lancaster to London Virgin off peak return at £96.50 then would I be able to make the outward journey as before and return on any train ?

Many thanks

Tickets to Lancaster and northwards (as well as those to certain stations in Wales) have break of journey restrictions on the outbound leg. That is to say - if you use the outbound leg, you must use it in its entirety and cannot just make part of the journey. If you wanted to use a Lancaster-London Off-Peak Return on the way down you'd therefore have to travel up to Lancaster first and start using the ticket there. Probably still cheaper than getting an Anytime Return, but not a great use of time!

You are entitled not to use the outward leg at all, and to proceed straight to using the return leg (which does not have break of journey restrictions). However then you have to get a ticket for the way down, where an Off-Peak Single is, I think, just £1 less than the Return.

You may also face difficulties using an Off-Peak Return to Lancaster on an evening peak service that doesn't call at Lancaster. Whilst, if it is a return portion, it is an entirely valid use of the ticket to travel via Manchester (or even to break your journey intermediately), Virgin barrier staff are notoriously poor at accepting these kinds of (valid) tickets. If you do this, you have to be prepared to be (incorrectly) made to pay an excess when you travel, and then to claim that back afterwards.

There are plenty of alternatives to getting a through ticket, too. If time is not a primary concern, you could get a cheap ticket (Advance or otherwise) to Stoke-on-Trent, and then use a West Midlands Trains only ticket from there to London (whether Advance or not). And if time is a primary concern there are some loophole tickets out there (well, loophole in terms of their restrictions), but I'm not sure that it's a great idea to go around using these for one-off journeys.

 

[_toommm_]

If you could delay your journey until Friday (I'm going out on a whim here) Virgin have permanently derestricted the peak time on Fridays, so off peaks are valid from the first train after the morning peak until the end of service Sunday.

https://www.virgintrains.co.uk/tickets/friday-off-peak

 

[47550]

Thanks very much everyone for your replies. It's certainly a minefield out there !