London to Manchester using priv

[swadbus]

I'm looking at going to Manchester using PRIV from London for a day trip. However I don't want to spend all day doing it. I did it last time London - Birmingham - Stoke - Manchester for £19 with numerous splits but took around 4 hours. I intend to use a direct Virgin train this time.

I'm looking at doing it on a fast Manchester train direct from Euston.

The solution I've come up with is:

London Terminals - Milton Keynes (£6.45) - Virgin trains only (SDR)
East Midlands day ranger (£17.75)- 3 in 7 days
Cheshire day ranger (£4.75)- I can bash some trains in Manchester too.

Total £28.95
(significantly better than the priv return London - Manchester at £69.75)

I know a return from Stoke to Manchester is £2.75 return VWC only but the ranger appealed more to me for the £2 extra I get some extra rides.

Looking at "the manual" it tells me I can buy the rangers using priv. Also section 19 of NRCOC states I can use a leisure pass (the 3 in 7 pass is a leisure pass according to NRCOC) to split tickets and then the train doesn't have to stop there to swap from one ticket to the other.

Would this be a fare interpretation of the rules? Has anybody got any better solutions?

I've had problems using section 19 with a Virgin train manager before (incidentally when I took previous problem to Virgin customer services they found in my favour!), so want to make sure I'm right before I do it.

 

[bnm]

Small correction. You will be purchasing an East Midlands Rover 3 in 7 Days, not an East Midlands Day Ranger as you stated in your OP.

Looks to me like you've covered all bases with that combination of split tickets. Most importantly one of your tickets is, according to NRCoC, a 'leisure travel pass' so there's no requirement for your chosen train to call at the split point(s) provided you adhere to time restrictions and permitted routes.

The time restrictions bit is important. Whilst you are using an Anytime ticket to cover the first part of your journey, you can't continue to travel on your Rover at anytime, you'll have to cross the split point (in this case Milton Keynes Central) after 0900 Mon-Fri. Not easy to work out if you catch a service that doesn't call at MKC!!!

 

[swadbus]

Small correction. You will be purchasing an East Midlands Rover 3 in 7 Days, not an East Midlands Day Ranger as you stated in your OP.

Looks to me like you've covered all bases with that combination of split tickets. Most importantly one of your tickets is, according to NRCoC, a 'leisure travel pass' so there's no requirement for your chosen train to call at the split point(s) provided you adhere to time restrictions and permitted routes.

The time restrictions bit is important. Whilst you are using an Anytime ticket to cover the first part of your journey, you can't continue to travel on your Rover at anytime, you'll have to cross the split point (in this case Milton Keynes Central) after 0900. Not easy to work out if you catch a service that doesn't call at MKC!!!

Ah yes, rover not ranger. I'd forgotten about the time restriction, but looking at the staff LDB it's not too hard to work out the times, besides, nothing like a good excuse for a lie in.