On Tuesday I went to the ticket office at London Euston to request this type of amendment.
I had a London Liverpool Street to Norwich Standard Advance for the next day and requested to amend the ticket to First Advance for the exact same train.
The difference was £14 but I was charged £24-so £ 10 change of journey fee.
Having challenged this at Leeds a few weeks back and receiving an E-mail apology from the Retail Manager there (£10 fee wasn't charged after much deliberation) that included an explanation and extract from the fares process, I showed this to the Retail Manager there, after 15 mins no less than 4 staff were crowding round deliberating this..mainly having none of it.
Eventually they printed off a wider section of the extract, showing that £10 fee is chargeable in this situation-while the extract cited here is contradictory, it seems that may well be aimed to cover upgrading from Standard Advance to First Anytime.
It remains very unclear but I accepted the charge and will be seeking clarification again from the TOCs and ATOC but I doubt it will male much difference to the continuous conflicting rules that set fares processes etc!
I've had a read of the Excess Fares section of iKB because I wanted to be clear what is or is not right.
So, the general principles for "The Excess Fare to charge before travel, or on board the train when there was no opportunity to buy before boarding" says....
General Principles
The Excess fare to charge is the difference between the price of the ticket held and the price of the cheapest ticket(s) available for immediate travel on the chosen service.
The cheapest available ticket(s) suitable for the journey being made may vary, depending on the specific train, time of day or day of week on which customers wish to travel. The cheapest ticket could be an Anytime, Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak ticket. It will never be an Advance ticket.
Normal discounts apply to children (aged 5-15 inclusive) and Railcard holders.
After that we get a small passage that says....
National Rail Conditions of Carriage, Condition 39, allows a customer holding a ticket for travel in Standard accommodation to travel in First Class, on payment of an Excess fare. General principles for Excess fares are:
Single tickets
The difference between the price of the Single ticket held and price of the First Class Single ticket, available for immediate travel, for the journey being made.
Advance = difference to First Class Single plus a £10 administration fee.
When we get to the 'simplifiers'......
Advance (travelling on correct reserved train)
Charge the difference between the fare already paid and the appropriate First Single fare for the journey. No fee is charged.
Advance (not travelling on correct reserved train)
Charge £10 admin fee plus the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate First Class Single fare available for immediate travel on the journey being made (provided the time of the reservable leg has not yet passed).
However, there is a further note at the bottom of the page that reads as follows....
Reference to 'appropriate fare' means the Single or Return fare available for immediate travel on the chosen service. The excess is based on the Standard and First Class fares with a matching route code, e.g. a Standard Class route Any Permitted would be excessed using the First Class route Any Permitted fare. Between Milton Keynes and London Terminals (& vice versa), where First Class travel is to be made on Virgin Trains services, the excess may exceptionally be calculated using the Standard Any Permitted and First Class Virgin Trains Only fares.
So, from my reading of it, and to try to put it simply;
- You should not have been charged an admin fee if you stayed on the same train.
- You should not have been given an Excess Fare to a First Advance fare.
- Any Excess Fare should have been to the First Off-Peak Single (if available/valid) or First Anytime Single fare.
- There are no First Off-Peak Single or First Anytime Single fares with the same route code.
Therefore, trying to make sense of it all, I think the 'most correct' way of issuing the Excess Fare, in your case, would probably have been......a new First Advance Single fare.
I think I preferred the rules before I checked them.......

:roll:
