Taking strike-affected journey a day earlier with split tickets

[gpmartin]

I am planning to travel from Burton on Trent to Euston via Birmingham New Street on Sunday 3 December, using split tickets (advances on Cross Country and Avanti, with a valid itinerary in terms of minimum interchange time at BHM). Both tickets were purchased from Cross Country, though I can't remember if it was in a single transaction.

Avanti are saying now that all trains on the 3rd will be cancelled due to the ASLEF strike, and that passengers may travel the day before. Am I likely to have any difficulties making the BUT to BHM leg on Saturday 2nd, given that it is on a separate ticket and Cross Country are not affected by the strike action? Do I need to obtain any advance approval to use this ticket a day early?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[yorkie]

I am planning to travel from Burton on Trent to Euston via Birmingham New Street on Sunday 3 December, using split tickets (advances on Cross Country and Avanti, with a valid itinerary in terms of minimum interchange time at BHM). Both tickets were purchased from Cross Country, though I can't remember if it was in a single transaction.

Avanti are saying now that all trains on the 3rd will be cancelled due to the ASLEF strike, and that passengers may travel the day before. Am I likely to have any difficulties making the BUT to BHM leg on Saturday 2nd, given that it is on a separate ticket and Cross Country are not affected by the strike action? Do I need to obtain any advance approval to use this ticket a day early?

Thanks for any advice.

Did you ask XC? They certainly should be allowing it, as it's all one journey.

As an aside, an advantage to booking this through (for example) our website (others are available) as a single journey would be that you would get an itinerary, clearly showing the through journey, which is strong evidence of a contract for the journey as a whole. Also, if you were mistreated by a train company, we'd be willing to assist you in any resulting dispute (hopefully that won't happen).

 

[gpmartin]

Thank you Yorkie. I tend to use Cross Country for advance tickets because they allow fee-free changes. If the forum's website offered the same facility I would certainly use it, but I realise that that would probably have significant cost implications.

It seems from Cross Country's website that they are allowing all tickets booked for the whole period of industrial action (not just the days when strikes affect their services) to be used on any day between 1 and 12 December:

"Customers with Advance, Anytime or Off-Peak tickets for travel between Saturday 2 December to Friday 8 December can instead use their tickets any time between Friday 1 December up until Tuesday 12 December." (https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.u...tion/changes-to-train-times/industrial-action)

Therefore it looks like I should be fine.