Multiple season tickets

[paul211]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone could confirm my planned season ticket combination is valid. Currently I get a monthly season ticket from Redditch to Cheltenham at £368 per month. Would the following (cheaper) combination be valid -

Bromsgrove to Cheltenham £179.80 (allowing me to travel to CNM from BHM)
and
Redditch to Bromsgrove £61.50 (this ticket can't be used at BHM, but am I right in thinking that from University onwards the BMV-CNM ticket is valid anyway)

Thanks in advance

 

[island]

This seems like it might be OK. Easement 86 allows journeys via Ashchurch for Tewkesbury to Redditch and v/v to double back via Birmingham New Street. You are therefore travelling from CNM to BHM and back to BTG using the CNM-BMV ticket and from BTG (Barnt Green) to RDC on the other ticket (and you can bring the price down to £52.30 per month by just getting BTG to RDC, no need to bring BMV into that one I think). The train you get from BHM to RDC must call at BTG.

The problem that you might run into is that an overly officious inspector might say your journey is from CNM to BTG and therefore you're not allowed to double back (the other applicable easement, 300422, allows journeys from BMV via CNM and v/v to double back through BHM, but your journey is to CNM and not via). But you are allowed to use two tickets for the one journey, so I think your routing works.

PSS (period standard season) tickets allow unlimited break of journey, finishing short, starting early, etc.

My final piece of advice is to buy odd period tickets rather than even months so that you don't include days that you know you won't be travelling, like weekends. For example if you bought that ticket starting from tomorrow for a month, it would end on the Wednesday 16th of February. If instead you got it for a month and two days to that Friday, it would cost £191.90+£55.80 instead of £179.80+£52.30, but you would not be paying for days you aren't using.

 

[yorkie]

I can't see a problem with that.

 

[paul211]

Thanks for your advice seems like it'll save me quite a bit

 

[John @ home]

Would the following (cheaper) combination be valid -

Bromsgrove to Cheltenham £179.80 (allowing me to travel to CNM from BHM)
and
Redditch to Bromsgrove £61.50

Use of these tickets would rely on this Easement:

300422 - Customers travelling from Bromsgrove via Cheltenham Spa may travel via Birmingham New Street. This easement applies in both directions.

http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/File/easements.pdf

This easement applies if and only if customers travelling from Bromsgrove to Cheltenham Spa are included within customers travelling from Bromsgrove via Cheltenham Spa. I think we have debated this issue previously and I don't recall us reaching a consensus.

It may be worth asking ATOC whether this is so. Try enquiry@atoc.org. Do tell us what they say.

If their reply is not favourable, try replacing the Bromsgrove - Cheltenham Spa season (£46.80 weekly, £179.80 monthly) with a Bromsgrove - Cam & Dursley season (£49.20 weekly, £189.00 monthly).

 

[OwlMan]

Don't forget that if you split your journey using season tickets the train has to stop at the station where you split.
Which trains do you catch?

Peter

 

[John @ home]

Don't forget that if you split your journey using season tickets the train has to stop at the station where you split.

The train to/from Redditch has to stop at Bromsgrove. But the Birmingham - Cheltenham train does not need to stop at Bromsgrove because the ticket used for that part of the journey relies on Easement 300422 and does not change as the train passes through Bromsgrove.

 

[island]

John @ home: what about easement 86?

 

[John @ home]

John @ home: what about easement 86?

Agreed. This means none of the trains need to stop at Bromsgrove.

 

[paul211]

Well I've been using the Cheltenham - Bromsgrove ticket all week on the New St to Cheltenham train without any issues (it also seems that the majority of results on the National Rail website give this route from Bromsgrove anyway).

The other ticket I've been using is the Redditch to Bromsgrove (NOT BHM) to get me to University where I then switch and start using the Cheltenham season.

I didn't have my ticket checked at all on this line last week so I haven't tried my BMV-CNM ticket to see if it gets me to Barnt Green, I did try the Cheltenham ticket at the barriers at University which rejected it but the guy let me through.

For the sake of £2.40 I'm going to continue using this combination until I can get confirmation that I can get to BTG on my CNM ticket
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Just had the following response from CrossCountry Customer Support:

Dear XXXX,

Thank you for your email.

We have checked and can confirm that a season ticket from Bromsgrove to Cheltenham is valid on Cross Country services from Birmingham New Street.

We hope this information was helpful. If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards

Nitin

 

[Lukamandog]

Hi, I'm a new member and am sooo confused by the issues around season tickets and easements etc. - any help that you can give would be much appreciated!

I travel Cheltenham to Birmingham and have an annual season ticket.

I see that a new poster has been put on the ticket machine at CNM. It says ATOC have ruled that the route is now owned by CC and the ticket that I have is no longer valid, although they will honour existing season tickets. It goes on to say that CC are developing a 'new' through ticket for this route which will be available in May - can't imagine that given CC's approach it will be cheaper!

Can anyone throw any light on this please? Thanks.

 

[John @ home]

I travel Cheltenham to Birmingham and have an annual season ticket.

I see that a new poster has been put on the ticket machine at CNM. It says ATOC have ruled that the route is now owned by CC and the ticket that I have is no longer valid, although they will honour existing season tickets.

Welcome to the forum, Lukamandog.

I think this is news to us. What ticket do you have? Can you please tell us the words on the poster, and the words printed on your ticket particularly those printed under the word "Route"?

Most season tickets are regulated fares, so we seldom encounter attempts by TOCs to change them significantly.

 

[Lukamandog]

Thanks John

My ticket is Stroud to Kidderminster annual season - route says ANY PERMITTED.

I can't remember the exact wording, but it is along the lines of:

ATOC ruling, as from 1 Feb, ATOC has ruled that this route will be owned by CrossCountry. As from that date, tickets Stroud to Kidderminster will no longer be valid on this route. Existing season tickets will be honoured, but will not be renewed. CC are working on a new ticket for this route, which will be available in May.

Does this help?

 

[barrykas]

Looking at The Manual, Stroud - Kidderminster has been "owned" by CrossCountry since at least 2009, and the same appears to apply to Cheltenham - Birmingham (but not Cheltenham - Kidderminster, which is "owned" by London Midland).

Looking at the National Rail Journey Planner, travel via Birmingham would involve buying tickets from Stroud - Smethwick and Smethwick - Kidderminster, with the through ticket only being valid via Worcester.

A look at the routeing guide confirms this, with "appropriate" routeing points being Cheltenham or Gloucester for Stroud, and Worcester Group for Kidderminster, and the only mapped route between them being the shortest route from Stroud - Gloucester/Cheltenham - Worcester (Map WR), then the shortest route to Kidderminster (i.e. direct).

Similarly, Bromsgrove - Cheltenham is also alleged to only be valid via Worcester, and needs a split at New Street.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[paul211]

Just to let you all know that I've had no issue using the Bromsgrove to Cheltenham season from/to Birmingham New Street. One guy did look a bit bemused as to why I was going that way but didn't question the ticket.
On one of the journeys, the ticket inspector even told the guy in front of me that a BMV-CNM ticket would be cheaper than the BHM-CNM season ticket he had.

I'll still check with Cross Country every month or so, so I at least have the email proof if needed.

 

[Railjet]

Good to know.

Just also noticed that a Bromsgrove-Cheltenham SDR and CDR are the same price! :-?