Unpublished restrictions

[andythebrave]

I've booked, and collected, an off peak day return for my wife (with disabled railcard) from Lidlington to Wimbledon for travel tomorrow (Friday).
She wishes to leave at 08:43 and change at Bedford, St. Pancras and Vauxhall and I have advised her to take any Thameslink service from Bedford after 09:10 as per the published restrictions.
However, there are unpublished restrictions used by journey planners that state travel from Lidlington must be after 08:50.
Am I right in thinking that this has no bearing on the ticket's validity and that, as long as she doesn't take a train from Bedford before 09:10 (or the 09:16 East Midlands Trains service) she shouldn't have any problems?

 

[bb21]

I think your interpretation is correct.

 

[andythebrave]

I think your interpretation is correct.

Thanks very much for that.
It's also a little odd that none of the other intermediate stations on the Marston Vale line have any unpublished restrictions, so, for example, I could purchase the same type of ticket from Stewartby and get an itinerary for travel on the same train.
Something to do with the inordinately large number of tickets originating here that I book online, some of them a little, shall we say, creative? End of cynical moment!

 

[SickyNicky]

End of cynical moment!

I have exactly the same cynicism about the recent changing of advance quotas on a certain (and somewhat obscure) journey that I used quite a lot :-x

But if you can show that the published restrictions don't disallow your journey, you should be fine. If there's a problem, we'd love to hear about it.

 

[CyrusWuff]

A quick look at the NRT gives a minimum connection time of 7 minutes for Bedford, hence why the Off-Peak isn't shown as being valid on the 08:43 from Lidlington, as the "official" connection would be into the 09:14 EMT service, which Off-Peak tickets aren't valid on.

Having said that, even forcing it to use Thameslink for the connecting service (specifically the 09:20 from Bedford) doesn't show it as valid, but will allow it on the 08:51 from Lidlington via Bletchley!

 

[andythebrave]

All went well. At least, I suffered no grief!

 

[yorkie]

I doubt any rail staff would attempt to enforce unpublished restrictions. Even the notorious 'PS' probably wouldn't do that.

If they did, the Company would be in breach of their contract. I'd pay the excess and complain to the DfT, ORR, Passenger Focus/London Travelwatch and my MP. I'd expect most of them would say "nothing to do with us" as hardly anyone cares if TOCs rip us off and don't honour their contracts, so you'd have to go down the relevant disputes procedure. I'd also consider using the online money claim facility. I'd ask for a refund of the fare, plus an admin fee.