Breaking an Advance ticket

[London_123]

Hi,

When you buy an advanced ticket with connections is there a way to know what part of the journey is a set train?

I want to travel from Ipswich to Didcot via London which has advanced fares available and spend a couple of hours in London, but only if the Ipswich London leg is treated as the reservation and the London Didcot part as a connection. Does anybody know if this is the case?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[transportphoto]

Hi,

When you buy an advanced ticket with connections is there a way to know what part of the journey is a set train?

I want to travel from Ipswich to Didcot via London which has advanced fares available and spend a couple of hours in London, but only if the Ipswich London leg is treated as the reservation and the London Didcot part as a connection. Does anybody know if this is the case?

Thanks,

Chris

I can not condone the breach of terms and conditions of a ticket despite however untraceable it may be. It may well be that you are reserved on both legs, however, even if it doesn't, you may not break your journey using an Advance ticket.

TP

 

[island]

Break of journey on an advance ticket is not permissible, irrespective of whether you have a reservation tying you to a specific train.

If you have been issued a reservation for your Paddington to Didcot Parkway journey, then it is a mandatory train. If not, you may use any non-reservable train, although I'm not sure if there are any non-reservable trains from Paddington to Didcot Parkway.

 

[yorkie]

You are not allowed to break your journey with an Advance ticket.

Break of journey is defined in the NRCoC, an extract from that and more information about what is & isn't a break of journey is available in our RailUK Fares & Ticketing Guide (Section 3) - see this post.

As for the separate question of which trains you may catch on your 'connection' the terms & conditions state that you must take the booked trains and "appropriate" trains may be used for the connection.

I posted on this subject recently, and another post that contains a link to over a dozen threads asking about & Connections tickets can be found here. You may find these links useful.

 

[MikeWh]

OK, how about this. NRES allows you to add extra time for connections which can result in itineraries with 3-4 hours in London. Unfortunately the online booking sites don't accept these extended connections. However, if you telephone telesales or visit a station with a copy of an itinerary generated by NRES and ask them to book it on those exact trains then they may well be able to. If they can, job done!

Otherwise, you could try booking the two legs separately. As you will be leaving well in excess of the minimum connection time between London terminals you should have some protection in the event of a serious delay on one of your trains.

 

[calc7]

Break of journey on an advance ticket is not permissible, irrespective of whether you have a reservation tying you to a specific train.

If you have been issued a reservation for your Paddington to Didcot Parkway journey, then it is a mandatory train. If not, you may use any non-reservable train, although I'm not sure if there are any non-reservable trains from Paddington to Didcot Parkway.

The Oxford most-stops Turbos are non-reservable, but that would be a pretty painful journey from Paddington.

In any case, as mentioned, BoJ is not permitted on an Advance ticket.