Permitted Routes. London to Maidstone West

[PeterY]

Firstly my trip using the long South Eastern High Speed circular route St Pancras to Margate and returning via Dover, went with out a hitch, so thank you for the advice.

Are the following routes to Maidstone West valid using a return ticket.
Out via St Pancras HS via Strood and returning to London via Tonbridge?

 

[yorkie]

Maidstone West <> St Pancras is valid via Strood under the shortest route rule.

Maidstone West <> London Bridge is valid via Tonbridge as under the 3-mile rule (it's within 3 miles of the shortest route).

You can see whether or not a ticket is valid by putting it through a booking site and seeing if your intended ticket is offered in conjunction with your intended itinerary. (if you want plenty of options such as via points, use trainscanbecheaper.info)

 

[paul1609]

Worth pointing out that St Pancras isn't a valid London Terminal from maidstone Stns unless the ticket is routed "plus hs1"
If you only going in one direction via HS1 it may be cheaper to buy a "not hs1 ticket" and pay the hs supplement but there are then complications getting between City Thameslink and St Pancras Low level.

 

[yorkie]

Worth pointing out that St Pancras isn't a valid London Terminal from maidstone Stns unless the ticket is routed "plus hs1"

It makes no difference in this case, but from a booking engine point of view, I'd argue it's the other way around: HS1 isn't a permitted route on a fare marked "Not valid on HS1" (which is unsurprising!)

There is no requirement for a routeing of "Plus HS1" for HS1 to be a permitted route. Now I know you know this, but some people may not realise that, so I felt the point needed to be made in case of confusion with other tickets.

If you only going in one direction via HS1 it may be cheaper to buy a "not hs1 ticket" and pay the hs supplement but there are then complications getting between City Thameslink and St Pancras Low level.

True; a ticket routed via HS1 is valid via Thameslink, but I am not actually sure if a Not HS1 ticket plus supplement would be (of course these can't be issued by booking engines so it never crops up electronically). Does anyone know?

That said I suspect PeterY will be using an Oyster card (Freedom pass?) to get to the relevant terminals anyway.

 

[kieron]

It makes no difference in this case, but from a booking engine point of view, I'd argue it's the other way around: HS1 isn't a permitted route on a fare marked "Not valid on HS1" (which is unsurprising!)

That's not the same thing, though. According to NRE, a ticket to London with route "plus high speed" is valid through Thameslink, whether or not the passenger uses HS1. A HS Upgrade ticket for a ticket to London is a ticket to London with a route of "plus high speed", so counts here.

How these routes are implemented by any web sites is another matter entirely.

 

[PeterY]

I'll be starting in Hemel Hempstead. Now I have my senior railcard, so having 1/3 off makes a difference. So for this circular trip I'll buy an off peak Any Permitted ticket.

My aim is to try and track bash by going out one way and returning another. That way it works out cheaper because I don't have to visit same line twice. With multiple routes it's knowing were to buy a return to, making it a round trip.