Problem with combined train and bus ticket.

[kjsway]

Good evening all,

I am after opinions on whether I am wasting my time with ongoing correspondence with South Western Railway (swr) over a combination train and bus ticket.
The journey was taken a couple of weeks back, between Eastleigh and Gosport, using the eclipse bus from Fareham.
On the Swr website and National rail there is an anytime return fare of £9.70 from Eastleigh to Gosport. I tried to buy this at my local station office (Swaythling) and from a machine at Eastleigh, with no joy. To get to my destination I bought an anytime return from Eastleigh to Fareham for £7 and a return on the Fareham to Gosport bus for £5. So I had to pay £2.30 more than I should for the advertised combined fare.
Swr have conceded (with some arguing on my part)that the combined fare of £9.70 should have been available-they are 'looking into it'.
So on point of principle I asked for my £2.30 back. I didn't expect this to be easy but am finding customer service to be quite difficult.Both the train operator and the bus are First group so I half expected them to pay up just to make me go away.
My main purpose is not to grab my money back from First, but to try to make short combination journeys easier. I'm more inclined towards public transport, but the average punter faced with buying two tickets for a short journey, and being overcharged would just hop in the car next time.
What do you think?

Regards

 

[yorkie]

Poor service at ticket offices is not uncommon, sadly.

The solution, increasingly, is to buy online if the fare is available online.

Anyway you have a message; I may be able to contact someone to look into it for you.

 

[swt_passenger]

Just as a side point, under SWT they were never much good at selling “plus-bus” fares from TVMs either, they sometimes appeared as a selectable destination but didn’t produce any fares.

In the case of the Gosport bus link it is currently mentioned in announcements at Eastleigh, ie “change at Fareham for bus link to Gosport”, however they don’t use the description “Eclipse”.

 

[[.n]]

Poor service at ticket offices is not uncommon, sadly.

The solution, increasingly, is to buy online if the fare is available online.

Anyway you have a message; I may be able to contact someone to look into it for you.

Its almost certainly not available online, I've only ever found two BUS destinations available online (GWR - Lyme Regis and one another that escapes me)

For the ones I use a lot, I've memorised the NLC code, I think the one you need is K989

 

[Iggy12a]

Its almost certainly not available online, I've only ever found two BUS destinations available online (GWR - Lyme Regis and one another that escapes me)

For the ones I use a lot, I've memorised the NLC code, I think the one you need is K989

Although the Eastleigh to "Gosport Bus" fare is not available online, it should be possible to buy an Eastleigh to Fareham day return at £7 and then a Fareham Plusbus (which covers Gosport ) for £2.70. Plusbus tickets where available are usually offered as an add-on when using the Southern online booking site.

 

[kjsway]

Hello Iggy. Thanks for that suggestion. The journey was a one-off, for me anyway. I'm not a ticket novice, but having looked on national rail and swr websites plus bus doesn't seem to leap out, whereas the £9.70 anytime day return (which I tried, but couldn't buy) does.
I've continued with my correspondence with Swr. I don't intend to give up easily.