Am I being sold the wrong type ticket?

[Tomp94]

I’m convinced I’m being sold the wrong ticket on both Trainpal and Trainline ...

I’m going from Worthing to Weymouth, on Friday 20th November and returning Sunday 22nd November.

The dates have been added to the journey planner; I am then sold a ticket for £22.15 with my railcard discount.

If I do the same journey from Durrington, a six minute train ride westwards from Worthing, and I’m charged £40.10.

As far as I can tell there’s no cheap advance tickets being sold.

What’s going on?!

 

[yorkie]

You are sold a Worthing to Weymouth Off Peak Return (SVR) for the first one, priced at £22.20, right? This is routed via Barnham and is priced by GTR (Southern).

There is no "via Barnham" option from Durrington; all fares are priced by South West Railway and they charge very high fares.

It's legitimate to buy the cheaper fare and start 'short'. But to answer the question: you are being sold the correct tickets.

 

[Tomp94]

thanks for this! Wow, how odd.
the complicated world of rail ticketing, eh!

edit: wonder why the gtr ticket is only available from Worthing and not durrington?

 

[yorkie]

thanks for this! Wow, how odd.
the complicated world of rail ticketing, eh!

edit: wonder why the gtr ticket is only available from Worthing and not durrington?

I guess because it's deemed to be too close to Barnham, and SWR's territory; the majority of the route is with SWR and it may be deemed inappropriate for GTR to set a fare that is mostly going to be used on another operator's service.

There has to be a cut-off somewhere. If train companies like SWR had their way, I suspect they'd rather GTR had no rights to set the cheaper fare, thus leaving you with only the more expensive options. So I'd see it as fortunate that you have access to a cheaper fare, rather than the other way round.

The fares from Durrington to Weymouth are about as simple, and non-complicated as you get; some people want all fares to be as simple, and costly, as this!