Oh come on, don't be daft! Mutant Lemming has failed to appreciate, from what has been said, that a given routed ticket is also valid by any permitted route for which there is also a cheaper routed ticket. If you use a Trainline-based web site it says quite clearly: "This ticket is only valid for routes passing through Birmingham." He hasn't been rude in any way and, whether tony_mac is right or not (he is, I know, but that's not relevant), it's not unreasonable for ML to ask a question regarding the difference between what he has seen on the web site that sells the ticket and what someone has said on here.
I agree - especially as folk nowadays are often extra careful as they're afraid of being fined for taking the wrong train/route/time. From the "official source", it appears pretty clear cut that you
must travel via Birmingham (even though this is wrong).
MutantLemming - for an official declaration of the rules, we must turn to the
NRCoC, specifically 13(a)(iii):
13. The route you are entitled to take
(a) You may travel between the stations shown on the ticket you hold in:
(iii)
trains which take the routes shown in the National Routeing Guide.
Then we look at the Routeing Guide...
Routeing Guide Section A said:
Where the fare specifies a particular route, you may choose only those routes listed in the Guide which pass through the station shown in the route description.
Hmm... doesn't sound promising, but then lower down in the same document we find:
CALCULATING EXCESS FARES
On occasions the Routeing Guide will prevent a customer from making their
preferred journey. In such instances and where appropriate, the customer
should be offered the opportunity to purchase an excess fare ticket, prior to
travel, which allows the journey to be made by their preferred route.
Where a journey is undertaken by an alternative route to that for which the
ticket was originally purchased, and for which a higher fare applies,
additional payment is required to enable the customer to make or complete
their revised travel arrangements.
Since the
Via Birmingham ticket is more expensive than the other routes, no additional payment is required.
NRE is and I guess other sites will
not show that the
Via Birmingham is valid on any route except via Birmingham. (Worse, in some cases where there is an
Any Permitted and a (mapped) route-specific fare, it will only offer the route specific fare on services taking that route. This is a problem when the route-specific fare is more expensive!). It would be more accurate, if possibly more confusing to the average passenger, to state "you must travel via X; if you do not travel via X then an excess fare may or may not be charged". Of course, if it were a TOC-Only restriction then it would not be valid at all on other operators - hardly obvious when both operator and geographic restrictions are shown under
Route:.