advance + railcard used in conjunction

[truckman060473]

this is yet another situation i may find myself in. let's suppose i buy an advance ticket for use in 2 weeks time. when the time comes to travel, i also have my son with me (age 7). what would he have to pay to travel? half fare, or his portion of the railcard discounted 60% off in conjunction with my advance ticket or is this not permitted?

 

[yorkie]

Are you asking if you can get an Advance ticket just for him? I think so, as you asked before if you could travel one way with a child and the other way alone and still get the child a discounted ticket, and the answer was yes. However you will need to be quick, as Advance tickets at a reasonable price may sell out!

If you are asking if you can buy a walk-on fare for him to combine with your Advance ticket, I do not know if that is possible or not.

See previous topic posts 12-15.

Note that it says "return". AP fares are only available in singles. I do not know if that affects the situation.

If you cannot buy an individual 'CHFAM' ticket, then it may be possible to change your ticket by paying a £10 admin fee, plus the cost of your son's ticket, if that is cheaper than buying a new ticket for your son. I do not know for sure if this is possible or if it will be good value as I do not know the journey.

In any case, the only way your son will be paying 60% off the half fare of the price you paid is if you get him a ticket from the same quota that you got. With every day that passes, the chances of getting a ticket from that quota diminishes. So get yourself to a booking office sooner rather than later.

 

[truckman060473]

sounds too risky to bother with. i was thinking of ordering advance tickets (two singles to get there and back to station X) and on the day of travel, go to the TVM and buy just one return ticket for my boy with 60% discounted (obviously carrying my railcard)

 

[John @ home]

i was thinking of ordering advance tickets (two singles to get there and back to station X) and on the day of travel, go to the TVM and buy just one return ticket for my boy with 60% discounted

That won't work. TVMs will only give Family & Friends Railcard discount for valid groups of 1-4 Adults and 1-4 Children.

 

[mickey]

I assume from your original question that you won't know whether he's going until the day of travel, in which case the answer's simple - he'll have to pay the normal child fare without railcard discount. He can't be added to your ticket, and you can't get the child discount without buying one for yourself too.

If, however, you're talking about buying the ticket in advance, it gets more complicated. Is your booking just for you, or is there another child with you? If it's just you then you wouldn't have got a F+F discount at all, and you would need to see whether it would be cheaper to surrender your tickets and purchase new ones for the two of you together or just buy another non-railcard ticket for him. If its a discounted F+F ticket you've got for another child, there's a chance you might be able to have another child added to it - I don't know for sure but it would definitely be worth asking at a booking office.

 

[yorkie]

I assume from your original question that you won't know whether he's going until the day of travel, in which case the answer's simple - he'll have to pay the normal child fare without railcard discount. He can't be added to your ticket, and you can't get the child discount without buying one for yourself too.

But have you read the posts I referred to above, in the previous topic? You can buy a 'chfam' discount without an adult discounted ticket, the function does exist for it to be issued separately (just not from a TVM).

However what I am unsure about is if he is required to have an identical ticket to the child (but a return instead of a single) as the way it's worded it is assuming that the adult goes both ways and a child goes one way and it assumes that a return is available. The scenario described by the OP was probably not even thought of when this condition was written.