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Overdistance excess on the return portion of a journey?

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All Line Rover

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I currently hold a London to Canterbury +HS1 (aka Any Permitted) Off-Peak Return. The outward portion has already been used.

Is it possible to excess the return portion to a Birmingham to Canterbury Any Permitted Off-Peak Return? If it is possible, how much will it cost me?

Thank you very much. :)
 
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bb21

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Is it possible to excess the return portion to a Birmingham to Canterbury Any Permitted Off-Peak Return? If it is possible, how much will it cost me?

It is of course possible, whether you can find a member of staff who is willing to do it and can issue it for the price you want is a different matter.
 

hairyhandedfool

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I currently hold a London to Canterbury +HS1 (aka Any Permitted) Off-Peak Return. The outward portion has already been used.

Is it possible to excess the return portion to a Birmingham to Canterbury Any Permitted Off-Peak Return? If it is possible, how much will it cost me?

Thank you very much. :)

Depends entirely on who you ask to do it, but officially an excess would be possible before you board a train, or, where there are no facilities to do so at the origin station, on board the train. If there are facilities, on train staff would, officially, require you to buy a new ticket for the extra bit of journey, provided that Penalty Fares are not in operation.

This may vary if the train you use does not stop at the ticket's destination, for example, a ticket from Sheffield to Flitwick used on a EMT train to St Pancras (which stops at Bedford) would require an extra ticket from Bedford to St Pancras because Bedford would be the last stop on that train where the ticket the traveller held is valid (NRCoC Condition 19).

The value of an excess would largely depend on who you ask to do it. Officially it should be the whole difference between the ticket held and the ticket required. However some staff aren't aware this is the rule now and issue the excess at half the difference, which is how it used to be. Of course you could be unlucky and meet someone who denies all knowledge of excess fares.
 

Solent&Wessex

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Why does Anytime come into it? As I understand it, an overdistance requires the full difference to be paid, even if only extending it in one direction.

It does.

However many TIS, including Avantix Mobile, haven't been updated and still calculate half the difference.
 

wintonian

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I have never had a problem doing this before any interchange point when you are still within the validity of your ticket.

I don't think i have had an issue either if I have made the effort to find the guard and get it done before stopping at the last station it would be valid at.

You should however try and get it done by the ticket office even if I don't always do that my self.

The price on way on a return should be half the difference between the appropriate fares available for immediate travel, if I am correct and my brain shows any sign of functioning today.
 

bb21

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The price on way on a return should be half the difference between the appropriate fares available for immediate travel, if I am correct and my brain shows any sign of functioning today.

Under the old system, yes.

However ATOC changed the rules last year so that it is now the full difference even if you are only excessing one way. Not all machines have been updated.
 

GadgetMan

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Going from a Canterbury to London Saver (£32.30) to a Canterbury to Birmingham Any Permitted saver (£69.10); done officially it would be £69.10 - £32.30 = £36.80

However finding a friendly machine like Avantix which works on the old rule it would be just half the difference making it £18.40.
 

wintonian

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Under the old system, yes.

However ATOC changed the rules last year so that it is now the full difference even if you are only excessing one way. Not all machines have been updated.

Ah yes I knew I wasn't quite with it today.
 

HowMuch?

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Some excesses are still "half" when it's just the return leg, aren't they? Is it OffRoute, rather than OverDistance ones? Or do they all double up now?
 

wintonian

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I think its just over distance ones.

Although a first class excess can also be to the return fare if cheaper then the calculation; the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate standard single for one leg plus the difference between the fare paid and the appropriate first class single for the other.
 

HowMuch?

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I must get to the bottom of it. I've never travelled on an excessed ticket. Never occurred to me before I joined this forum. I always used to resent that out and back was cheaper than singles (when doing a linear hike, say, I felt that not having to get back to a car was the key advantage of public transport) and didn't appreciate the possibilities of creative routeing or excessing the return half.
 

Oscar

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Change of ticket type excess - full difference
Change of route excess - half the difference
Overdistance excess - officially full difference (see hairyhandedfool's post)
 

SickyNicky

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Be aware that many places will not do an overdistance excess on a return portion at all. Virgin's policy is that once any part of a ticket is used, they will not do an overdistance excess. So don't try it at Euston!
 

jkdd77

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Be aware that many places will not do an overdistance excess on a return portion at all. Virgin's policy is that once any part of a ticket is used, they will not do an overdistance excess. So don't try it at Euston!

I wonder if that has anything to do with savvy passengers buying overdistance excesses to Lancaster on return portions of medium distance SVRs in order to circumvent the evening peak restrictions from Euston?
 

All Line Rover

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Although, in the end, I didn't get an excess (it seems far too complicated and hit and miss!), I do find it odd that I am supposed to pay the full difference, which means paying to excess an outward portion that I have already used.

What are overdistance excesses intended for then? I'm not attempting to "play the system" in this case. I'm just wanting to travel further than originally intended on the return leg of my journey, and since I hold an unused return portion of a London to Canterbury ticket, if overdistance excesses didn't exist, it would seem unfair for the TOC to ask me to purchase a London to Birmingham Off-Peak Single. (Wouldn't they be encouraging split-ticketing here!?)

There also seems to be much confusion among TOC's with regard to excesses, with some doing excesses that are particularly favourable to the customer, some less so, and some refusing to do excesses altogether in certain circumstances. NRE doesn't have any helpful information on this, so the average customer is lost as to what should happen. (Including myself to an extent!)
 

Oscar

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The Overdistance Excess is intended for passengers who have already bought a ticket and then find out that they wish to travel further (e.g. someone who buys a London - Birmingham ticket who later decides to travel to Shrewsbury).
 

Oscar

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Sorry, I forgot to mention that it's intended for people who want to change their plans before they've used their ticket at all. As far as I am aware the intention now is also for someone in your position to pay the full difference between the two fares, as the industry has decided to charge almost as much for (Super) Off-Peak (Day) Singles as for the equivalent returns. So the intention would be for you to change your ticket before you set off from Cheshire and pay the full difference between the London - Canterbury and Birmingham - Canterbury fares, even though you could only travel London - Canterbury and Canterbury - Birmingham!

Note this post from hairyhandedfool (http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=65716):
Zero fare excess fares do exist, however, over-distance excess fares apply to the destination printed on the ticket and must be done before travel commences (where possible). This means:

  • The destination of the outward portion can only be changed before boarding a train (where possible).
  • The Origin of the outward portion cannot be changed by over distance excess.
  • The destination of the return portion would have to be changed before boarding a train on the return journey (where possible)
  • The origin of the return portion can only be changed by excessing the destination of the outward portion (see above).

Discretion can be used where there was no opportunity to excess the ticket before departure as noted above. In this case, the clerk is not allowed to excess the ticket for you and the single was the correct course of action.
 
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LexyBoy

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Although, in the end, I didn't get an excess (it seems far too complicated and hit and miss!), I do find it odd that I am supposed to pay the full difference, which means paying to excess an outward portion that I have already used.

If it were only half the difference (as it used to be) then this would provide a method to obtain a single ticket for essentially half the price of a return, which is clearly all wrong!

NRE doesn't have any helpful information on this, so the average customer is lost as to what should happen. (Including myself to an extent!)

The average customer is not supposed to know about excess fares; by making their existence and applications obscure it will make it easier to do away with them when their time comes.

OK, maybe a bit too cynical, but if NRE were to start talking about excess fare procedures then it would only make ticketing seem more complex. It does say that flexible tickets can be amended before travel, and that excess fares are due for travel on-peak with off-peak tickets, which is enough for the normals I think.
 

hairyhandedfool

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I believe it was intended for people going beyond the destination printed on single tickets and the outward portion of return tickets (which accounted for the half fare for one way over distance fares).

Some people got clever and said that the rules applied only to the destination on the ticket and that they did not account for the return portion of a return ticket showing the origin on the outward portion as the destination on the return. It wasn't that long before people started to use it to get around certain time restrictions and to lower fares, and so the rules were changed.

These days people use the rules as they are written to get cheaper fares, rather than the spirit in which they were originally intended. The railway has to operate a 'one size fits all' rule or it will become unworkable and that is why they sometimes seem unfair.
 
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