Greater Anglia: flexible with "Advance" tickets?

[gpb_croppers63]

Makes me wonder who he rang.

If you tell Customer Services the date you travelled it is simple enough for them to find out who the conductor was. Not with the intention of getting him into trouble but simply to ensure he is correctly trained and to avoid hassle for others in future. The guys at Norwich who do the training are decent chaps who won't be offended if you word your communication politely.

By the way I wasn't the guard on the 22.30 even though we seem to be saying the same thing !

The guard on the 22:30 suggested he may have rung someone from his course who may have the same information as him. He also texted him to tell him about the easement and said he'd ask his manager to send an e-mail around to all guards to remind them of this. I have to say, he was brilliant and apologised several times even though it wasn't his fault at all.

Thanks again for all of your insight.
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So I've had another reply from Greater Anglia confirming that Advance tickets for the last 3 trains are interchangeable and that all guards will be informed of this fact. I'm glad that they have acknowledged that I was in the right even though that does not help to get the hour that I wasted in Liverpool Street back. Hopefully this will solve this problem once and for all.

Here's a copy of the e-mail. If anyone would like to know the name of the person who responded, please PM me.

Dear gpb_croppers63,

Thank you for your further email.

Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding on my part. I can confirm that an advance ticket for the last three services (21:30, 22:30 and 23:30) from London Liverpool Street can be used on any of these services and therefore your ticket could have been used on the 21.30 service.

I have spoken to the Conductor Management team who are aware of this incident. They have spoken to the guard who is a newly trained member of staff and informed him of our policy regarding these services.

Moving forward the Conductor Managers have assured me that a brief will be sent out to all guards reminding them of this policy and when training new members of staff they will make this clear so that incidents such as this do not occur again.

Once again, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused and thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Greater Anglia

 

[yorkie]

This has been the case for a long time (since NXEA at least!). When you get an advance for any of the last three departures from Liverpool Street (21:30, 22:30, 23:30) you can use the ticket on any of them. I have done this a few times.

Does this still apply, can anyone confirm?

 

[sentry100]

Does this still apply, can anyone confirm?

I've had a problem with this earlier this month. I purchased a ticket from Norwich ticket office for the 22:30 train back from London Liverpool Street to Norwich. I asked if I could still get an earlier one (I've mixed the 21.30, 22.30 and 23.30 before as I was told I could) and was told no, it had changed and that seat numbers are now printed on the tickets which they didn't use to be for the last three trains.

Anyway, I was at the station early and I went to London Liverpool Street customer services and asked if I could get an earlier train. There was a friendly guy there who said I could and he stamped the back of my ticket and signed it in case of confusion. Not wishing to cause any embarrassment I checked with the conductor before getting on in London and he said that passengers could get any of the last three trains still.

I asked in Ipswich, as I was there, about this a week later and then ticket office again said the policy had changed. I asked another conductor and he said it hadn't.

I was going to write to Greater Anglia - but wondered if there was somewhere I could look to see what the exact policy is? I'm really impressed with the friendliness of all the staff I've asked, but I find the policy confusing.