Excess process advice for a more distant destination

[james-martin]

Evening all,

I have a flexible return ticket that I would like to excess to a destination beyond the original one? I see that this should be possible, but was told "you can't" at the ticket office. Is it still possible to excess flexible tickets to go a longer distance and should I do it before starting, or failing that is it possible on train (many years ago I did this extending from Southampton Airport Parkway to Southampton Central southbound which was a zero fare happily issued on XC).

Knowing what to ask, for and pushing for the manager no doubt would help if what I want to do is possible.

Cheers,

James.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Evening all,

I have a flexible return ticket that I would like to excess to a destination beyond the original one? I see that this should be possible, but was told "you can't" at the ticket office. Is it still possible to excess flexible tickets to go a longer distance and should I do it before starting, or failing that is it possible on train (many years ago I did this extending from Southampton Airport Parkway to Southampton Central southbound which was a zero fare happily issued on XC).

Knowing what to ask, for and pushing for the manager no doubt would help if what I want to do is possible.

Cheers,

James.

It is certainly possible - and in most cases you would only pay the difference in fares. But it is not an automatic contractual right and, as such, there is no entitlement to it. It is one of those excesses that, unfortunately, you may have to 'shop around' to get. Not many ticket offices have enough competent and well trained staff to do even things like this, which I have to say are really not stretching it.

 

[Haywain]

To add to what is written above, asking for a manager will often find them agreeing with the ticket office staff so getting such an excess is a matter of luck.

 

[LowLevel]

The only way to change an origin now is to fudge the machine, which is obviously not permitted. We can't do it anymore on board since the move away from Avantix which for better or for worse would let you do pretty much anything.

Over distance excessing the destination is easy enough though.

 

[scrapy]

Can the OP just clarify whether they want to excess beyond the destination or the origin of the ticket? For example on a Manchester to Milton Keynes return you can get an over distance excess to extend it to and back from London Terminals. However you can't excess the ticket beyond its origin e.g to go back to Rochdale on return leg.

As lowlevel said It was unofficially possible on old Advantix machines. Why the rail industry lets you excess beyond a destination but not an origin is not clear but as it is no longer even possible on ticketing systems I doubt you'll get it even by speaking to a manager.

 

[james-martin]

Can the OP just clarify whether they want to excess beyond the destination or the origin of the ticket?

It is to go beyond the destination.

 

[mmh]

That's interesting to know - I tried to excess the origin of the return half of a Llandudno Junction to London Terminals off-peak return at the weekend to return from East Croydon instead, with no luck. I wasn't really expecting it to work, but that fits with what the ticket clerk told me - it would have needed to have been done "from the other end".

 

[krus_aragon]

Excessing the return leg of a ticket to start at an earlier station (SVR Cardiff to Llandudno Jn, excess to return from Llandudno) was similarly unavailable at the station. I queried it with ATW and the ticketing experts here, who agreed that it wasn't allowed.

The only alternative suggested by ATW was to have excessed the ticket to a CDF-LLD ticket before leaving Cardiff, but as I pointed out to them I would then fall foul of their '8A' ticket restriction not letting me break my journey at LLJ on the outbound leg.

 

[james-martin]

Thanks for the info, wish me luck!

 

[mmh]

Excessing the return leg of a ticket to start at an earlier station (SVR Cardiff to Llandudno Jn, excess to return from Llandudno) was similarly unavailable at the station. I queried it with ATW and the ticketing experts here, who agreed that it wasn't allowed.

The only alternative suggested by ATW was to have excessed the ticket to a CDF-LLD ticket before leaving Cardiff, but as I pointed out to them I would then fall foul of their '8A' ticket restriction not letting me break my journey at LLJ on the outbound leg.

I knew that the fares to London were the same from all stations between Llandudno and Tal-y-Cafn and Llanfairfechan and Colwyn Bay, just looking the fares to Cardiff are too. It'd be "unfair" to not be just to allowed to travel from Llandudno, although what happens in practice of course might be "unfair"! (I've quite often travelled to/from Deganwy on a ticket to Llandudno Jn, of course the probability of being ticket checked between the two is approximately zero, and I doubt any guard would care)

(I'm really surprised by how expensive the SVR to Cardiff is, 98 pounds, good lord!)

 

[james-martin]

I successfully overdistanced my outbound destination and return so it's still possible .

I Think it was an avantix bases machine and involved getting a calculator out but I am very happy and can quiz the original station operator about it if I get chance.

 

[Wallsendmag]

X/S overdistance is now the full difference or a single ticket for the extra journey whichever is cheaper.