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Unusual Excess Question

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bb21

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Planning to go London-Southampton Central sometime next month for an evening football match. There were some megatrain fares floating about but the last return journey was on the 2155 which if the match goes into extra time is not going to be late enough. Now given that there is no AP fare for the journey and the Any Permitted CDS comes in at a whopping £20.95 (Y-P) / £21.00 CDR, I thought of seeking refuge with the Southern Only fare whose CDR comes in at £15.05. If I happen to end up on the 2300 SWT Waterloo service then all I had to do would be an off-route excess of £3.00 (seeing the industry only works in 5p units).

Problem comes that at the moment Southern is offering 15% off off-peak tickets on purchases from their website which reduces the CDR to £12.80. My questions:

1) Is this ticket excessible seeing that Avantix Traveller defines the ticket as Route 00777 - Southern Only which meant that it is operator specific rather than route specific?
2) If so, how is the excess calculated on the web-discounted ticket?
3) If not, is a ticket from Clapham Junction excessible? They are defined as Route 00947 - Barnham. I can always use Oyster to get there if needed
 
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yorkie

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Sorry but officially an excess is not applicable/available from a TOC specific ticket to an inter-available ticket. That doesn't mean you won't be excessed, as some guards have not been given any instruction not to do this. But do not count on it! And if they say you cannot excess it, a brand new ticket has to be purchased, and there is no way to get the 10 pound admin fee back from the original ticket (the admin fee can be waived under certain circumstances at their discretion but you have to assume you won't get it back)

Route specific tickets CAN be excessed. For a single it's the full difference (obviously) for one way it's half the difference.

A ticket like Southampton - Brighton route Not London would be valid via Clapham Jn.
 

bb21

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Not thought about that ticket. Thanks for the info yorkie. I did suspect it might not be excessible when I checked the details. However I guess (3) would have been excessible as it is only route-specific should I require it?

Think I''ll go for Brighton-Soton Central CDR which is web discounted to £11.50. Only about 2/3 of what SWT wants to ching you for.

Now for arguments' sake, say I want to start at Brighton, go via the south downs one way and come back via Clapham Junction. The web discounted fare for Route Barnham is £9.65 CDR at the mo when it is usually £11.35. The Route Not London is £11.50 CDR discounted and £13.55 normally and I buy the £9.65 ticket from Southern website. On my return leg presumably the SWT guard would calculate the excess using the undiscounted £13.55 rate, so what would the excess then be?

(1) (13.55 - 9.65) / 2 = £1.95
(2) (13.55 - 11.35) / 2 = £1.10 i.e. the usual excess
(3) (11.35 - 9.65) + (2) = £2.80 i.e. First the web discount is added back on to change the ticket back into a 'normal' ticket and then add the usual excess.

Which is correct?
 

John @ home

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On my return leg presumably the SWT guard would calculate the excess using the undiscounted £13.55 rate, so what would the excess then be?

(1) (13.55 - 9.65) / 2 = £1.95
(2) (13.55 - 11.35) / 2 = £1.10 i.e. the usual excess
(3) (11.35 - 9.65) + (2) = £2.80 i.e. First the web discount is added back on to change the ticket back into a 'normal' ticket and then add the usual excess.

Which is correct?
Sorry to say this, but the answer is It depends.

Some TOCs, for example EMT, offer a web discount on some fares and print the discounted fare on the ticket.

Other don't. For example, ScotRail ran a web discount promotion a year or two ago, and printed the undiscounted fare on the ticket while charging my card with the discounted fare.

For an excess fare calculation, the fare already paid is the fare printed on the ticket. Sorry, I don't know what fare Southern are printing during their current promotion.
 

yorkie

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You should be charged the appropriate difference.

In this case the difference in price between whatever ticket you are excessing to MINUS what you have paid. If only excessing one portion for a change of route excess, you only need to pay half this difference.

Excesses are not always charged correctly and some staff refuse to issue them (despite being obliged to do so). I got an excess today at Man Picc and it was absolutely spot on. I was almost surprised!
 
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