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.