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New restriction on Southeastern?

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trevmonk

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In the past I have bought period Off Peak Returns from St Albans to Canterbury and travelled back on the 17.25 from Canterbury West.

Under restriction code 4F there was no restriction on return travel but now the 17.25 is showing up as unavailable and looking at he bottom of the text for 4F I can see that codes 7E and 9J also apply if travelling via St Pancras. These additional codes effectively stop any peak time travel through St Pancras.

Is this new, or have I just got away with it in the past by not specifying a particular return train when booking?
 
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Hadders

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I'm certain we had a thread on here a couple of years ago about this. It's a particularly nasty restriction as the root cause is having to refer to 7E and 9J.
 

trevmonk

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I am not that familiar with how excesses work. If I spend £3.20 to excess a St Albans - Canterbury NOT VIA HS1 SVR return to an ANY PERMITTED version to use on HS1 does it retain the original more generous 4J restriction code of the original (which DOES allow peak travel through St Pancras) Or is a complete new ticket issued, which comes with the nastier 4F restriction including the 7E and 9J additional restrictions and leaves me with same problem I had before?
 

furlong

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An excess converts one fare into another - and that includes its rights and restrictions.
 

Hadders

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An excess converts one fare into another - and that includes its rights and restrictions.

But does the use of a HS Upgrade convert the ticket to a different fare? Or do the restrictions related to the original ticket still apply?
 

furlong

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But does the use of a HS Upgrade convert the ticket to a different fare?

No. But I can't find anything that says such a ticket should be sold for use in conjunction with the one you're talking about.

An HS Upgrade is technically a supplement, not an excess.
 
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Hadders

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So could I use the return portion of a St Albans to Canerbury West Off Peak Return route +not hs1 in conjunction with a HS upgrade to travel on the HS line to St Pancras and then onwards to St Albans (leaving STP for SAC in the evening peak?
 

John @ home

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ashworth

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I am not that familiar with how excesses work. If I spend £3.20 to excess a St Albans - Canterbury NOT VIA HS1 SVR return to an ANY PERMITTED version to use on HS1 does it retain the original more generous 4J restriction code of the original (which DOES allow peak travel through St Pancras) Or is a complete new ticket issued, which comes with the nastier 4F restriction including the 7E and 9J additional restrictions and leaves me with same problem I had before?

I have a question related to this.
In 2 weeks time I'm travelling down from Nottingham to Folkestone and returning a few days later. I've already got very good value Advance 1st Class tickets for Nottingham to London and return.
For the London to Folkestone part of my journey I'm intending to use an Off Peak Return costing £34.90 not valid on high speed services because I am spending 2 nights in South London on my return journey and want to return to Victoria. Although I'm travelling off peak I don't want advance tickets for this part of the journey as I want some flexibility.

I've been told in another thread that I could travel from St Pancras to Folkestone on my outward journey by purchasing a change of route excess for one way which would be approx £3 as the Off Peak Return using the high speed route at £40.80 is £5.90 more than the fare I will be paying so half the difference is £2.95. I have been advised to purchase this at Nottingham as Southeastern at St Pancras will try to sell me a high speed upgrade at almost twice the price. The question I am asking is if I do manage to get this change of route excess at Nottingham am I likely to encounter any problems with Southeastern staff at the barrier at St Pancras or on the train by having is rather than their high speed upgrade.
 
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A1

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My interpretation of the information on the Southeastern web pages High speed tickets: Southeastern and High speed tickets - old: Southeastern is that the purchase of a Supplement does not change a fare into a different fare, and therefore any Restriction remains unchanged.

This is their view if you challenge them as well. I'd love to lodge a massive complaint over their refusal to accept z6 boundary tickets with a supplement, but my reasons why I can't have been explained before (original incident was too long ago, if I chose to repeat it technically I'd be liable for deliberate fare evasion as I should already know what their take is on the matter)
 

paul1609

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I think this forum is a bit unfair to southeastern over the HS fares. The current franchise holder Govia is obliged to maximise its revenue to minimise its subsidy.
It must have always been known and agreed that the fares for HS1 were a bodge and largely arranged for politics and to appease other franchises. I don't believe that Southeastern ever received a fair re-distribution of fare income when HS1 opened.
If you think about it when HS1 opened overnight travel from most of Kent plus Hastings to East Anglia was suddenly actually routed via Stratford international and a short walk to Stratford. The fare split should have increased to Southeastern with a slight reduction to Anglia. There should have been a major reduction in the cross london payment to Lul to reflect the change.
journeys to the north using Kings cross, St Pancras and to a large extent suddenly went via St Pancras. There should have been a reduction in allocation to Thameslink and again a big reduction to Lul.
HS1 doesn't accept travel cards freedom cards etc because under the terms of the franchise it doesn't receive any income from them. What should have happened was that Southeastern should have received a large increase in payments from the travel card pot. Of course this would have meant a compensating large decrease to all the other franchise in the scheme. Under their franchise agreements they would have all been required to launch legal challenges to the reductions.
Southeastern is also very dependant on its season ticket holders for its income, considerably more so that the other DC franchises, off peak income is very low. If they had offered the route excess for HS1 that you suggest what would have happened would have the majority of off peak ticket holders would have travelled up to london on the classic routes, bought an excess to return via HS in the evening peak. this would have caused overcrowding and probably lead to evening peak restrictions on HS swings and roundabouts I would say.
 
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