• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Excess to lower-priced ticket

Status
Not open for further replies.

benk1342

Member
Joined
13 Jul 2011
Messages
367
Location
Welwyn Garden City
My wife is going to Selby for work on Wednesday and for the return leg to Welwyn Garden City has been issued a Super Off-Peak Single (SSS), route Not Via London, priced at £84.40. Her seat reservations have her scheduled to take an East Coast service for the Doncaster to Peterborough leg. She would then change to FCC to get back to Welwyn Garden City.

She has a social engagement in London that evening and would like to continue into London without having to take an FCC train that stops in Welwyn Garden City. I told her to ask to buy an excess to London which would allow her to stay on the East Coast train from Doncaster.

But then I noticed that there is a convenient direct Selby-London First Hull train and that First Hull offers a "Hull Trains Only" SVS to London for just £62.00 which would be valid at her journey time. Can she excess her Not Via London £84.40 SSS to a Hull Trains Only £62.00 SVS and collect the difference? Or will they just issue the excess for £0.00?
 
Last edited:
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,434
Location
Yorkshire
My wife is going to Selby for work on Wednesday and for the return leg to Welwyn Garden City has been issued a Super Off-Peak Single (SSS), route Not Via London, priced at £84.40. Her seat reservations have her scheduled to take an East Coast service for the Doncaster to Peterborough leg. She would then change to FCC to get back to Welwyn Garden City.
That's a very poor value ticket; a return is only £1 more!

Also the East Coast website will sell half-price Off Peak Singles online only providing it is bought at least the day before travel. York to London is one of the flows that this ticket is available for; the price is £46.55.

She has a social engagement in London that evening and would like to continue into London without having to take an FCC train that stops in Welwyn Garden City. I told ask to buy an excess to London which would allow her to stay on the East Coast train from Doncaster.

But then I noticed that there is a convenient direct Hull-London First Hull train and that First Hull offers a "Hull Trains Only" SVS to London for just £62.00 which would be valid at her journey time. Can she excess her Not Via London £84.40 SSS to a Hull Trains Only £62.00 SVS and collect the difference? Or will they just issue the excess for £0.00?
The excess would cost £0.00, there is no refund due on a cheaper excess. It would be cheaper to purchase a new ticket and obtain a refund (minus the £10 admin fee).
 

island

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Messages
15,982
Location
0036
You can't excess to a TOC-specific ticket

I don't think that's correct. You can't excess from a TOC-specific ticket, but I'm not aware of any restrictions on exceeding to one (though I wager it doesn't happen very often).
 

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,434
Location
Yorkshire
I see there has been some confusion about the excess, so I will quote from the EC revenue manual, however this will be the same procedure on Hull Trains.

I will quote the section that assumes there was "no opportunity" before boarding, as this is applicable to services operated by Hull Trains, or from the ticket office.
C7. How to calculate on-board Excess Fares
C7.1.8. Over-Riding – Travel to a destination beyond that on the ticket
Single Tickets
All
No opportunity to buy ticket before boarding

Charge the appropriate Single for the extra journey. If cheaper, charge the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate Single fare for the throughout journey.


GENERAL NOTES
Appropriate fare” means the cheapest Single or Return fare available for immediate travel on the chosen service. This can include TOC-specific tickets if the outward journey is being excessed (the customer must be informed the ticket is now EC-specific) but NOT the return (unless there is proof of outward journey).
In this case the difference is a negative figure, but excesses cannot be a negative figure, so it is £0.00. But it would be cheaper to buy a completely new ticket and obtain a refund.

It would be even cheaper still, to get an online Super Off Peak Single from York to London (available on EC site only), and obtain a refund. If you specify via Selby, you can get a reservation on the Hull Trains service (though there probably won't be an issue finding a spare seat; is this the 1546 from Selby?)
 

Paul Kelly

Verified Rep - BR Fares
Joined
16 Apr 2010
Messages
4,130
Location
Reading
I don't think that's correct. You can't excess from a TOC-specific ticket, but I'm not aware of any restrictions on exceeding to one (though I wager it doesn't happen very often).
Oh that's interesting; I didn't know that. I guess there's not such a big imbalance in revenue allocation when excessing to a cheaper TOC-specific ticket as there is going the other way, or something like that. (In saying that I'm presuming the rule only exists because ATOC doesn't have computer systems capable of properly allocating the revenue from excess fares.)
 

calc7

Established Member
Joined
8 Aug 2011
Messages
2,097
That seems to be the norm with East Coast and also Northern Rail tickets, if you want a single it's only a fraction less than a return.

Indeed with most operators - for a mixture of reasons including promoting return travel and fraud risk mitigation.
 

benk1342

Member
Joined
13 Jul 2011
Messages
367
Location
Welwyn Garden City
That's a very poor value ticket; a return is only £1 more!

Also the East Coast website will sell half-price Off Peak Singles online only providing it is bought at least the day before travel. York to London is one of the flows that this ticket is available for; the price is £46.55.

Her company paid for it. The outbound is during peak hours and is an Anytime single for like £111. The anytime return is about £225 though so it's better to get Anytime up and Super Off Peak back. But it's all academic as her company paid for it internally; they have a Trainline account that she has to book through and a dedicated Trainline ticket issuing machine on site. Joke's on them when they miss out on web-only deals!

She'll only be paying for the excess.

Thanks for all the info everyone.
 
Last edited:

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,434
Location
Yorkshire
See also: Southern.

Before we get tons of replies listing almost all of the TOCs...

as Calc7 says, pricing singles as only pence or a quid less than returns is the policy of nearly all TOCs. The general exceptions to this are: Anytime (without the Day suffix), Hull Trains, Grand Central and many longer distance FGW priced tickets. Obviously Advance tickets are not applicable as they are only available as Singles.
 

benk1342

Member
Joined
13 Jul 2011
Messages
367
Location
Welwyn Garden City
(though there probably won't be an issue finding a spare seat; is this the 1546 from Selby?)

Yes; she has a reservation on that 1546 First Hull service already as far as Doncaster where she is scheduled to change to East Coast. The plan would be to just stay on the First Hull service all the way to King's Cross. Under First Hull's rules can she buy the excess on the train even if the Selby ticket office is open?
 

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,434
Location
Yorkshire
Yes; she has a reservation on that 1546 First Hull service already as far as Doncaster where she is scheduled to change to East Coast. The plan would be to just stay on the First Hull service all the way to King's Cross. Under First Hull's rules can she buy the excess on the train even if the Selby ticket office is open?
Yes, that's right. Worth a try at Selby if she has time though.

Change of route or ticket type excesses are the same on board. 1st class can be the same on board depending on TOC, e.g. First TPE (while on others such as First Capital Connect will see you in court if you do that!). But over-distance (which is the excess applicable here) can carry a big premium on board, on TOCs that have a "buy before you board" policy. Hull Trains advertise the fact that they sell the full range of tickets on board (as opposed to East Coast who only sell full fare tickets on board) so I can't see there being an issue.
 

pemma

Veteran Member
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
31,474
Location
Knutsford
Before we get tons of replies listing almost all of the TOCs...

as Calc7 says, pricing singles as only pence or a quid less than returns is the policy of nearly all TOCs.

The difference being some operators offer off-peak singles while others do not.
 

LexyBoy

Established Member
Fares Advisor
Joined
23 Jan 2009
Messages
4,478
Location
North of the rivers
The difference being some operators offer off-peak singles while others do not.

Those that do generally price them at only slightly less than the equivalent return; those that don't generally price the Off Peak Day return at a similar level to (often a few pence more than) the Anytime single.

 

34D

Established Member
Joined
9 Feb 2011
Messages
6,042
Location
Yorkshire
Her company paid for it. The outbound is during peak hours and is an Anytime single for like £111. The anytime return is about £225 though so it's better to get Anytime up and Super Off Peak back. But it's all academic as her company paid for it internally; they have a Trainline account that she has to book through and a dedicated Trainline ticket issuing machine on site. Joke's on them when they miss out on web-only deals!

She'll only be paying for the excess.

Thanks for all the info everyone.

Erm, for next time, she might be interested to know that she can purchase an off-peak return from Arlesey to Selby (or wherever the ultimate up north destination is) £65ish such an off-peak return being valid any time, along with a WGC-arlesey anytime day return £10ish.

Virtually all WGC-Peterborough trains stop at Arlesey anyway.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top