Change of route excess policy

[LexyBoy]

We all know that the "correct" procedure for change of route excess for a return ticket is half the difference for each direction. I think I know the answer already, but what is this information made public anywhere? FGW claim that they were correct to charge the full difference (at Paddington FWIW).

Obviously NRCoC 13 implies the full difference, but the generally-accepted calculation is well known and IME usually applied.

(I suspect the usual "shop around" advice applies, but it's not such an option when you only have 3 minutes before departure!).

 

[maniacmartin]

I think the closest you're going to get is this quote from the Routeing Guide

DUAL ROUTE AVAILABILITY

Where two or more permitted routes are available for a specific journey, customers may wish to travel out by one route and return by another. If a higher fare applies for the return leg of thejourney the customer should be issued with a ticket for the more direct route and an excess fare issued to cover the difference in fare for the return routeing. This option should be made available to customers who wish to pre-book a dual routed ticket prior to travel.

The alternative journey MUST relate to the same routeing points for the origin and destination stations.

This option may not apply to customers holding advance purchase tickets, or tickets which are available by specified trains or endorsed for travel only by the services of a particular train operator.

 

[LexyBoy]

Update:

Following a request for a copy of FGW's excess fares procedure, I have received a second email stating again that the clerk was correct in charging the full difference, and referring to Condition 13, but also offering a goodwill gesture (of half the excess).

Does anyone have access to FGW's actual policy? I'd be interested to know if this is in fact correct or if customer services just don't want to say they were wrong.

Secondly, there was talk a while ago about making The Manual public - is this still planned? I'm not sure whether it would be A Good Thing or not, but it would have clarified here at least.

maniacmartin, I considered that part of the RG too, but I'm not convinced it proves the excess should not be the full difference - it could refer to mutually exclusive routes (as an alternative to a zero-fare excess from the more expensive fare). I agree that the reason for this paragraph is that an excess should be cheaper than buying the more expensive fare though.

 

[Tetchytyke]

FGW are wrong, but the only procedure relating to this is in the Manual.

ETA: assuming your ticket was a walk up fare, and not an advance fare.

 

[furlong]

As usual, it's difficult to comment without knowing the details of the ticket held and the actual journeys being undertaken.

 

[LexyBoy]

Ticket was Reading-London Via Staines SDR, excess to Any Permitted on return leg. Outward to Waterloo, return from Paddington, where the excess was obtained (at around 2100).

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Can't help with FGW policy, but the following was taken from 'The Manual' earlier this year (I don't think it has changed).

 

[furlong]

I have received a second email stating again that the clerk was correct in charging the full difference, and referring to Condition 13, but also offering a goodwill gesture (of half the excess).

Considering only the Ticket and Settlement Agreement 9.7 section 6.10 (2):

(2) Excess Fares
(a) Subject to paragraph (b) below, an Excess Fare may only be Sold for an amount equal to the difference between:-
(i) the Price of the Fare whose Rights and Restrictions are the same as those to which the Purchaser is entitled following the Sale of the Excess Fare, less any discount to which he would have been entitled by virtue of being a Child or presenting a Discount Card if he had Purchased that Fare; and
(ii) the amount (including any VAT) which was paid for the Fare that the Purchaser has already Purchased.
(b) An Excess Fare for travel in one direction only may be Sold even if the Fare that the Purchaser already holds is a return Fare. In this event, the amount that must be charged for the Excess Fare is:-
(i) calculated in accordance with paragraph (a) above, but using 50 per cent. of the amounts determined in accordance with paragraphs (a)(i) and (ii) above; or
(ii) as the case may be, any higher amount (not exceeding the amount calculated in accordance with paragraph (a) above) specified by the Operator which Created the Fare which the Purchaser of the Excess Fare has already Purchased

If the claim in the email from FGW amounts to a claim that (b)(i) does not apply, then where precisely has South West Trains specified this higher amount in accordance with (b)(ii)?

 

[bnm]

Hopefully the attachment will work. Better than the photos uploaded up thread.

Attached is the Excess Fares Procedure as provided to a friend by ATOC. Dated 2010, but still the current procedure as far as I'm aware. I've had no issue getting CoR excesses for one direction at half the difference on the numerous occasions I have asked for one at Bristol Temple Meads. I'll look through my tickets later and see if I can find an example. May take a while though, at last count I had approx 1400 pieces of orange card and I haven't got round to sorting/cataloguing them yet!

What FGW Customer Services are telling you is hogwash. Keep on at them.

 

[bnm]

I've had a trawl and found an example from earlier this year.

Original fare: Shirehampton-London Terminals (Route: Warmster-Salsbry) Off Peak Day Return (CDR) £21.10 (DSB Railcard)

RTN portion excessed to: London Terminals-Shirehampton (Route: Any Permitted) Super Off Peak Return (SSR) £7.10.

The full price for the SSR for Shirehampton-London Terminals is £35.30 (with Railcard).

As you can see the difference has been correctly calculated at half. (£35.30-£21.10)/2 = £7.10

As I said in my previous post I get this excess fairly often - 5+ times a year, when I wish to spend a full day in London. I do so because it allows me to arrive at London Waterloo at 1019 and return from Paddington after the evening peak. Latest return from Waterloo would be 1920. From Paddington it's 2000 if I want to go back to Shirehampton or 2330 as far as Bristol TM.

I nearly always get this Excess at Bristol TM, either after I've purchased the CDR via Avantix on my first train off the Severn Beach Line, or at the same time from Bristol TM if I've come in by bus and I'm collecting/buying the CDR there.

There have been occasions where I've purchased this Change of Route Excess at either Waterloo or Paddington. Always been sold to me, admittedly sometimes after a bit of head-scratching and/or supervisor input.

LexyBoy. Feel free to use the attached pic if you are taking your complaint further. Goodwill is all well and good, but it won't see the issued being properly addressed, and the clerk at Paddington who served you will continue to get such Excesses wrong and Customer Services will continue to give out incorrect replies to similar queries.

 

[FGWman]

How much were you charged. The way I read it the excess fare should have been zero. A Reading to London route Staines Anytime Day Return is £30.70. When you get a change of route excess you should be charged

The difference between the price already paid and price of the cheapest Return ticket, available for immediate travel, that allows the customer to travel on the route and Train Company of their choice.

The Cheapest Return for immediate travel at 2100 is an off peak day return route any permitted which is priced at £17.20 so the excess should have been zero weather charged one way or both ways.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

. . . . the following was taken from 'The Manual' earlier this year (I don't think it has changed).

It has not.
Last update to that procedure was 8th Aug 2012.

I see that the relevant instruction is printed in capital letters to ensure that it is made prominent : "Charge HALF the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate Return fare for the journey being made."

The list of exceptions to those procedures includes these 3 :-
•In areas where Penalty Fares rules apply these take precedence over Excess Fares rules.
•If your Train Company enforces Byelaw 18.
•Where your Train Company has issued any local instructions in respect of excess fares that supersede the rules in this section.

 

[yorkie]

I find those 'exceptions' worrying, as I believe they are in contravention of the NRCoC, as well as against principles such as Train Companies claiming to adopt the same policies so that "you know where you stand". Can any Company manager simply disregard the NRCoC simply by issuing a "local instruction"?

As for the Penalty Fare change, when did that happen, and was this both approved by DfT and considered by Passenger Focus?

Back in 2008, a knowledgeable and experienced RPI wrote..

You will no longer be charged a penalty fare if your ticket is not valid due to being off route or holding a ticket which is not valid simply because of the ticket type...

...These days the rules have been changed to "protect" the travelling public when it comes to the bewildering range of tickets and routes on offer, basically saying the system is flawed and it is easy for Joe Public to buy the wrong ticket.....

...so if someone is undermining that, I want to know who, where, when, so the battle can commence!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

As for the Penalty Fare change, when did that happen, . . . . .

I don't know when, but the 'exception' I quoted has been in force for more than 5 years - perhaps since the Penalty Fares Rules were adopted in 2002.

I understand the phrase "In areas where Penalty Fares rules apply" to refer to the designated places (trains and 'compulsory ticket areas') in which Penalty Fares are applicable. I do not understand that phrase to apply to an enquiry at the Ticket Office of Paddington station, which was where LexyBoy was told that the cost would be the WHOLE difference between the return fare paid and the return fare via Paddington.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The list of exceptions is not specific to off-route excess fares Yorkie, so it could easily be that penalty fares rules do not allow a penalty fare to be issued for being off-route but do for over-riding or change of accommodation. This would mean the 'knowledgeable and experienced RPI' was correct (for his company) at the time he wrote that, he may still be correct.

 

[LexyBoy]

Thanks for all the responses. I will respond with a request that steps are taken to ensure such excesses are done correctly in future (after all, they must be reasonably common after change of time), using the extract quoted by furlong, and a few other bits of information as evidence that they were wrong.

It's a shame that FGW are being difficult here - in my experience their ticket offices are usually very competent and I have had few issues with excesses or complicated requests in the past.

LexyBoy. Feel free to use the attached pic if you are taking your complaint further. Goodwill is all well and good, but it won't see the issued being properly addressed, and the clerk at Paddington who served you will continue to get such Excesses wrong and Customer Services will continue to give out incorrect replies to similar queries.

Thanks for the info. I don't think the picture would help: I have a recently issued overdistance excess charged at half the difference - this doesn't prove that it's correct, just that it is possible to issue it.

The Cheapest Return for immediate travel at 2100 is an off peak day return route any permitted which is priced at £17.20 so the excess should have been zero weather charged one way or both ways.

Interesting - I can't see anything against this in the extracts quoted above. In fact, Condition 13 might back this up too, as it refers to "...price of the lowest priced ticket(s) available for immediate travel that would have entitled you to travel by that route.". By my reading "that route" refers to the new route, in which case the CDR would be the appropriate fare. The CDR would not have been valid on the outward.

I didn't mention the time of travel in my original email, I shall do.

I understand the phrase "In areas where Penalty Fares rules apply" to refer to the designated places (trains and 'compulsory ticket areas') in which Penalty Fares are applicable. I do not understand that phrase to apply to an enquiry at the Ticket Office of Paddington station, which was where LexyBoy was told that the cost would be the WHOLE difference between the return fare paid and the return fare via Paddington.

Clearly it would be ridiculous for Penalty Fares rules to apply at ticket offices! I agree with yorkie that it is worrying if TOCs can arbitrarily decide to Penalty Fare or prosecute passengers who travel on the wrong route or at the wrong time. It may well be that that was never the intention, but it's dangerous to have something in writing whatever the original intentions.

 

[Tetchytyke]

As for the Penalty Fare change, when did that happen, and was this both approved by DfT and considered by Passenger Focus?

The excess fares rules also cover travel beyond the destination on the ticket, or travelling in first class accommodation with a standard class ticket, which is (has always been?) liable to a penalty fare.

The penalty fare rules still say this:

An authorised collector must not charge a Penalty Fare to a passenger whose ticket is not valid only because of a published restriction (time of day or day of week) as described in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage. This is dealt with under normal excess fare rules.

Travelling off-route isn't specifically covered in the rules, which I would take to mean that a PF can be charged as no valid ticket is held. Travelling at the wrong time means that an excess fare would be charged.

 

[CyrusWuff]

How much were you charged. The way I read it the excess fare should have been zero. A Reading to London route Staines Anytime Day Return is £30.70. When you get a change of route excess you should be charged

The difference between the price already paid and price of the cheapest Return ticket, available for immediate travel, that allows the customer to travel on the route and Train Company of their choice.

The Cheapest Return for immediate travel at 2100 is an off peak day return route any permitted which is priced at £17.20 so the excess should have been zero weather charged one way or both ways.

Except the "Cheapest Return ticket" has to take the outward journey into account, otherwise you could get people taking zero fare excesses from Anytime to Super Off-Peak tickets all over the shop.

 

[furlong]

Except the "Cheapest Return ticket" has to take the outward journey into account, otherwise you could get people taking zero fare excesses from Anytime to Super Off-Peak tickets all over the shop.

Well the precise wording in these documents looks deficient to me and has perhaps not been updated to take proper account of the various changes to ticketing in recent years.

 

[LexyBoy]

Except the "Cheapest Return ticket" has to take the outward journey into account, otherwise you could get people taking zero fare excesses from Anytime to Super Off-Peak tickets all over the shop.

That was what I thought before carefully reading C.13.

I might be missing something but I can't see it being "abusable" - there's no way you'd pay less for your return journey than if you'd travelled out via the more expensive route at a time the Off Peak ticket was valid. Imagine the scenario where a passenger held a CDR for the more expensive route but wished to travel in the peak using the cheaper route. The excess would be the difference between the CDR held and the Via Cheapsville SDR. This means the total paid is equal to the Via Cheapsville SDR.

 

[LexyBoy]

Conclusion in case anyone cares:

Thank you for your further email of 18 December 2013. I am sorry that you weren't happy with the way we handled your recent complaint. I am grateful that you've taken the time to let us know how you feel.

We take excellent customer service very seriously, and having looked again at your comments and our reply, I believe you are right and I do apologise. Our responses were not up to the usual standard we set ourselves. What I found when I reviewed the situation was that the information we provided was not correct and that if you are changing the route that you travel on for one portion of your journey and do so before boarding your train, you should be charged half of the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate Return fare for the journey being made.

I have brought this matter to the attention of the relevant line managers so that it can be addressed with the advisors concerned and I have also recorded your comments for the attention of the Station Manager at London Paddington station so that they can be investigated further and appropriate action taken to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident concerned.

 

[yorkie]

The same procedure applies whether you " do so before boarding your train" or on the train, not that it matters in this case.

A satisfactory response, but I doubt all their staff have been adequately trained, so I suspect other people will be overcharged in future.

 

[globetrotter]

Some related questions here:

1) If I had purchased (for example) a standard class SVR ticket from the south coast to say Feltham or Staines "not via London" could I then excess it to first class on the return leg? The equivalent off peak first class FSR fare offered is only route "any permitted" so it's a change of route.
2) If instead I'd purchased the standard class SVR at the higher "any permitted" fare (also available) could I equally excess to first class FSR on the return journey, bearing in mind this is not a change of route?
3) I hold a senior railcard. To benefit from the reduced fares and pay only 50% of the difference in the return fares, I'm thinking I must pay in all cases the excess for the upgrade in class/route in either case before boarding the train - is that correct? Or am I fully entitled in all cases to receive the 50% reduction if I pay on the train, as Yorkie seems to imply?

Time restrictions are the same on all of the above tickets (4B).

 

[yorkie]

Some related questions here:

1) If I had purchased (for example) a standard class SVR ticket from the south coast to say Feltham or Staines "not via London" could I then excess it to first class on the return leg? The equivalent off peak first class FSR fare offered is only route "any permitted" so it's a change of route.

You can do a Std to 1st upgrade, but the cost of that does vary by Train Company. See Excess: upgrade to 1st for the official rules, though some Companies are more generous than this.

The change of route procedure does not apply to Std to 1st excesses.

2) If instead I'd purchased the standard class SVR at the higher "any permitted" fare (also available) could I equally excess to first class FSR on the return journey, bearing in mind this is not a change of route?

If you are changing the class of travel, then the class of travel procedure applies irrespective of any other necessary changes applicable to the ticket.

3) I hold a senior railcard. To benefit from the reduced fares and pay only 50% of the difference in the return fares, I'm thinking I must pay in all cases the excess for the upgrade in class/route in either case before boarding the train - is that correct? Or am I fully entitled in all cases to receive the 50% reduction if I pay on the train, as Yorkie seems to imply?

Time restrictions are the same on all of the above tickets (4B).

See Excess: change of route

The procedure is the same for any Train Company and is the same whether bought on board or not. Note that in some cases you may not be allowed access to the train if you do not already have the excess (e.g. if a ticket check is occuring at Euston if on a Not London ticket, they may insist that the excess is done before boarding).

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Just to add to Yorkie's response....

Some related questions here:

1) If I had purchased (for example) a standard class SVR ticket from the south coast to say Feltham or Staines "not via London" could I then excess it to first class on the return leg? The equivalent off peak first class FSR fare offered is only route "any permitted" so it's a change of route....

The change of route excess applies to the route you actually take, rather than the route on the ticket. If the ticket remains valid for the route taken, then the correct excess fare is 'Change of Accommodation' (STD to 1ST). If the ticket you hold is not valid for the route taken and you change to First Class, you may have to get two excess fares, though some clerks/guards may change it in one excess, the price should be the same either way. NOTE: If the 'route' field names a specific train company (e.g. "Southern Only"), you cannot change the ticket for use on another train company.

3) I hold a senior railcard. To benefit from the reduced fares and pay only 50% of the difference in the return fares, I'm thinking I must pay in all cases the excess for the upgrade in class/route in either case before boarding the train - is that correct? Or am I fully entitled in all cases to receive the 50% reduction if I pay on the train, as Yorkie seems to imply?

Time restrictions are the same on all of the above tickets (4B).

To be safe you should buy before you board, but with some train companies you can get the excess fare on the train.

It is important to note that if you travel from a Penalty Fares Scheme station you may be liable for a Penalty fare if you travel in First Class with a Standard Class ticket, regardless of your intention to change it. The relevant train company should be able to provide details of any Penalty Fare Schemes they operate.

 

[globetrotter]

Thanks so much for all the very useful information. It shows that it's dangerous to assume anything and that one must check carefully before travelling / buying a ticket where subsequent changes might be contemplated.

 

[JonathanH]

That was what I thought before carefully reading C.13.

I might be missing something but I can't see it being "abusable" - there's no way you'd pay less for your return journey than if you'd travelled out via the more expensive route at a time the Off Peak ticket was valid. Imagine the scenario where a passenger held a CDR for the more expensive route but wished to travel in the peak using the cheaper route. The excess would be the difference between the CDR held and the Via Cheapsville SDR. This means the total paid is equal to the Via Cheapsville SDR.

However, because of the way single fares are set relative to returns excess fares are abusable. For example, consider single and off-peak day return fares from Reading to Gatwick.

Reading to Gatwick via Gomshall = £17.40 single, £17.50 return
Reading to Gatwick Any Permitted = £30.40 single, £30.50 return

Is the cheapest single via London priced at £30.40 or is the suggestion that this journey via London can be made for £24? You can see where the person setting the proceedures in the original post is coming from.

 

[LexyBoy]

Fair point, in a very limited set of circumstances.

 

[John @ home]

because of the way single fares are set relative to returns excess fares are abusable. For example, consider single and off-peak day return fares from Reading to Gatwick.

Reading to Gatwick via Gomshall = £17.40 single, £17.50 return
Reading to Gatwick Any Permitted = £30.40 single, £30.50 return

Is the cheapest single via London priced at £30.40 or is the suggestion that this journey via London can be made for £24?

I don't think that using the excess fare rights in NRCoC Condition 13 to travel from Reading to Gatwick via London for £24 is abuse by the passenger.

Instead, I think that a train company setting an unregulated Off-Peak Day Return fare at £30.50 and then setting the corresponding Off-Peak Day Single at £30.40, or indeed any other price in excess of £24, is the train company attempting to rip off the passenger.

 

[jkdd77]

Deleted