network daytripper plus

[david_g]

Earlier today I tried to buy a West Midlands network Daytripper Plus ticket at Leamington Spa which should offer useful saving on the return fare to Witton where I was go regularly for the "football". (We won today so maybe I should remove the inverted commas).

I have read somewhere on the forum that this ticket can be issued on normal ticket stock by stations outside the West Midlands area and then exchanged at a station inside the area for one printed on the special ticket stock.
The booking clerk insisted he could not issue the ticket even when I told him he should be able to issue it as an exchange voucher. In the end I paid the day return fare and got him to write a note explaining what had happened.

Before I write to Chiltern Railways could anyone confirm I am correct and that they should be able to issue the Daytripper at Leamington.

If this is incorrect it seems crazy that a ticket which is valid for use at a station cannot be issued by that station!

ps. First post so please be gentle.

 

[brompton rail]

Network West Midlands state that the ticket can be purchased from any Network WM station (I.e. in the Centro area). Leamington isn't. The ticket description reads as it is for WM customers to go outside the WM, and not for customers outside the WM to travel into the area.

 

[dvboy]

The Daytripper Plus is valid to Leamington Spa so I'd have thought they'd have the stock at that station for the Daytripper and the Daytripper Plus add-on.

http://tickets.networkwestmidlands....icketID=39&TicketOptionID=52032&resultsPage=0

 

[barrykas]

Daytripper Exchange (and T/Card Exchange) is a historical thing dating back to the days when on-train staff used SPORTIS. The idea being they sold you the ticket at the appropriate price and you then took it to a Ticket Office to exchange it for the one on the correct stock.

The NWM site explicitly states that Daytripper tickets can only be bought from stations in their area (presumably due to the use of custom stock), on buses, Midland Metro, and at the travel information centres at New Street and Wolverhampton.

Daytripper Plus add-ons, on the other hand, can be bought at NWM stations or on train, so presumably prints on Common Stock.

 

[dvboy]

The NWM site explicitly states that Daytripper tickets can only be bought from stations in their area (presumably due to the use of custom stock), on buses, Midland Metro, and at the travel information centres at New Street and Wolverhampton.

Of course if you but it on a bus or the tram it won't be on custom stock, it'll be on the company's stock (try putting one of those through a ticket barrier) which causes the same kind of problems as common rail stock does, so what's the point?

 

[barrykas]

Of course if you but it on a bus or the tram it won't be on custom stock, it'll be on the company's stock (try putting one of those through a ticket barrier) which causes the same kind of problems as common rail stock does, so what's the point?

Because Network West Midlands/Centro say so. Their product, their rules! Having said that, I've just had a play with FasTIS and it quite happily issued a Daytripper on Common Stock, so...

 

[david_g]

Thanks for the replies so far. I've done a search of the forum and found the following:
"I have on two occasions in the past year purchased a West Midlands Daytripper from stations (Ely and then Wokingham) way outside the West Midlands Area. On each occasion, I quoted the Rover Code and the clerk was able to call it up reasonably quickly (although they were at first amazed to receive such a request)." from 2012 which is probably where I had seen reference to this before.

So it seems it is possible, as barrykas has found out also. What isn't clear is whether it actually breaks the ticket issuing rules. I can see that Chiltern wouldn't like it as the ticket is £2 less than the off peak day return to Birmingham (and 50p less than the Anytime day return - this gets weirder by the minute!). As someone has said, Centro possibly see it as a way for West Midlands residents to get out into leafy Warwickshire but not the other way round.

Maybe I'll contact Centro and see what they say