Unfortunately, I cannot get reservations as it says 'Reservation not possible'. The ticket type in question is an Off-Peak Day Return and the route I am taking involves two changes. I think I may get questioned by a guard as for example, the Off-Peak Day Return between the two stations on the first train of my intended route is over twice the cost of my full route.
My route does in all due fairness look like a rather long route to get between the origin and destination on the ticket. However, as break of journey is permitted, I am planning to stop off at a few places on route. I initially had in my mind that I may have to get separate tickets for what I want to do, but then noticing that the journey planners were offering the said ticket via my intended route.
Thanks
Kel
You don't
need to have reservations - however it may be helpful, if you can't get reservations, to instead print off the itinerary you were provided with. The collection reference code on the itinerary will then match that printed on the tickets, so it can be verified (well, not 100%, but pretty well) that this itinerary is the same one that you were given when booking.
It is slightly harder to make a claim for breach of contract if you are not on the exact trains your itinerary provides - however if you wish to make a short-ish break of journey whilst still following a given itinerary then it may be worthwhile booking through a site like
www.trainscanbecheaper.info, which is the non-splitting version of
www.trainsplit.com (useful here so that you will only be sold through tickets and not suggested split tickets). The advanced options on the search there enable you to enter an (unnecessary) additional wait of up to 99 minutes, in addition to the minimum connection time, at up to three selected interchange stations. That will, in practice, often mean a "connection" time of two hours or so, given the fact that not all lines have Underground-like frequency!
Furthermore, if you are to travel via an unusual route then it is probably worthwhile purchasing the ticket through a good retailer such as TrainSplit/TrainsCanBeCheaper as you can be sure they will render you knowledgeable assistance if it came to any dispute regarding the route taken. Other retailers' customer services simply wouldn't know what to do with a difficult case such as this and almost certainly wouldn't help you properly. Of course it may be that the route is not accepted by TrainSplit/TCBC - and that you can therefore, as a matter of practicality, only book through another given retailer!
Ultimately most anomalies such as this are able to be quickly fixed if the relevant fare-setting TOC (or RDG, if it's a Routeing Guide/appropriate Routeing Point/easement issue) gets wind of the problem. Hence, even if you are travelling on a valid route, it may be worthwhile trying to minimise the number of times the ticket is likely to be inspected, simply to minimise the risk that the anomaly is discovered and reported. That might for example mean using an unbarriered station instead of a larger station, or using a train which you know does not normally have a guard/ticket examiner (though of course there may be RPIs).
