XC Advance tickets - no restrictions?

[Goatboy]

As part of the medium term arrangements during the disruption in the South West, XC have this on the website:

Passengers holding Advance tickets to or from stations west of Bristol may travel on earlier or later trains as desired or necessary. CrossCountry tickets may also be used for travel on First Great Western services where necessary.

This reads like until further notice, an XC Advance is effectively an Anytime Single if your journey is to a station west of Bristol.

Is my interpretation correct? i don't want to purchase a lower priced Advance only to find out that you can't pick whatever train you want. The ability to do so goes some way towards making up for XC's refusal to match FGW's walkup discount.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

You might want to check with XC, but from my reading I wouldn't say 'until further notice', but actually 'if you want ("as desired") or need ("as necessary") to travel on another service ("on earlier or later trains") you can do so'. In your quote there does not appear to be a limit as to how long this 'easement' will last, so you might not want to stray too far from your actual journey time, just in case.

 

[Goatboy]

I guess one of the reasons for this is simply that most of the service west of Bristol are buses where tickets are not checked.

I do wish they'd have rail staff to give tickets a coursory glance, currently there must be many people dodging the £50 return fare between Bristol and, say, Plymouth.

 

[TEW]

I think it will be of little use. Travel on FGW is only permitted where necessary, so I'd take that to mean you could use an FGW service if your booked XC service is cancelled. It's only on XC services that you may travel on any service as desired, but XC are operating a very limited service west of Bristol. Around six trains Bristol-Exeter each day and only one Voyager in service between Newton Abbot and Penzance making a limited number of trips each day.

 

[Goatboy]

I think it will be of little use. Travel on FGW is only permitted where necessary, so I'd take that to mean you could use an FGW service if your booked XC service is cancelled. It's only on XC services that you may travel on any service as desired, but XC are operating a very limited service west of Bristol. Around six trains Bristol-Exeter each day and only one Voyager in service between Newton Abbot and Penzance making a limited number of trips each day.

You could use any RRB west of Bristol, though. So lets say you had an Advance from Cheltenham to Exeter (Which is valid West of Exeter as per XC advice) on a 10am train, the advice appears to suggest you could use any XC service you wish 'if desired'. Although the RRB's are FGW operated surely the intention is that XC Advance ticket holders can use them.