Exchanging Seated Advance to Berth Advance - Night Riveria

[marcouk2]

I purchased an advance ticket for the Sleeper from London to Penzance shortly after they became available for my travel date in June.

Its only when I've come to collect the tickets this week that I've realised i've only purchased a seated advance ticket and not one of the Sleeper Advance Solo Packages which includes a berth.

There are still higher priced quotas of the Berth Advances on the train I am booked to travel on so I thought I would just be able to head down to my local station and exchange my advance for the one I wanted with a cost of the upgrade to advance berth ticket available (£64 - ticket already held) + £10 admin charge = £74

Instead all they were able to offer me was an upgrade to the Super Off Peak Single (£62 - ticket already held) + Sleeper solo supplement £50 + admin charge £10 = £122

This would cost me more in total than just simply buying the berth advance available currently and writing off the original ticket so obviously I said no thanks.

My next step was to send an email off to FGW to check that what I was being offered was correct, FGW have replied to my query stating that the ticket office was correct and I can't exchange to an berth advance.

Does anyone know if it is possible to exchange to a berth advance from a seated advance ticket or if a workaround would be if I exchanged to a different nights berth advance and then exchanged back to my desired service?

 

[gray1404]

I think you should have been able to upgrade from a seated advance to a sleeper verth advance subject to a £10 fee per ticket and and different in fare. I shall let one of the other guys here correct me if I am wrong.

If it turns out that FGW have got it wrong then you can write to them again. Ask for your complaint to be reviewed and state your reasons why.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I believe they're correct, albeit on a technicality, as one of the rules when it comes to changing Advance tickets is that the origin, destination and route have to stay the same, so you can't change a St Pancras - Sheffield Advance (routed EMIDSTRAINS.ONLY) to a King's Cross - Doncaster - Sheffield one (routed VTEC & CONNECTNS), for example.

Similar applies to the Sleepers (both the Night Riviera and Caledonian). The Seated Advance tickets are presumably route Great Western Only (Cal Sleeper Seat for the Caledonian), whereas the Berth-inclusive ones are routed FGW Sleeper & Connections (Caledonian Sleeper on the Caledonian).

Having said that, you may be able to find a clerk willing to process it as a change of journey, but I can't say whether you'd have trouble trying to use it afterwards or not!

 

[marcouk2]

Cheers guys, rather not risk any issues using a fudged ticket and getting stranded at Paddington just before midnight! Hadn't realised the implications of the route being different for berth tickets on the sleeper.

I'm just going to write off the original ticket and buy the advance berth ticket, taking the original cost as a reminder to double check when buying tickets in a rush in future.

 

[First class]

99% sure if you just turn up on the day, and there's a spare berth, the guard will happily just sell you the solo berth supplement and nothing else if you ask.

 

[najaB]

99% sure if you just turn up on the day, and there's a spare berth, the guard will happily just sell you the solo berth supplement and nothing else if you ask.

That is certainly the case for the Caledonian Sleeper (having done it on more than one occasion), I can't imagine the Night Rivera would be significantly different.

 

[34D]

99% sure if you just turn up on the day, and there's a spare berth, the guard will happily just sell you the solo berth supplement and nothing else if you ask.

I remember the last time I turned up for the Riviera: all berths full

 

[yorkie]

I wouldn't give in and pay the sky high prices, as if people do this they will think it's acceptable and continue the practice.

A supplement is only £50! Admittedly they are not supposed issued to holders of Advance tickets, but in practice, if there is availability on the day, the Guard is probably unlikely to turn away £50 of revenue if you approach them. Obviously it depends on what day of the week you're traveling, e.g. that probably wouldn't be feasible on Fridays.

 

[Sleepy]

Note the berth supplement on Night Riveria is now £60 for a Solo cabin.

 

[yorkie]

Looks like the definitive source of information is wrong!

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations_destinations/44869.aspx

 

[cool110]

I've said before that the prices on that page are several years out of date.

 

[DEE-DE]

The solo supplement only increased last weekend. Source: I was looking at prices before bookings for July became available.