National Rail

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 12:23:32 GMT

However, every time I go anyway, I am still horrendously annoyed by buying train tickets. I normally need an off-peak return.

This time I was confused because I tried to find out which trains back from London to Cambridge on Monday my off-peak ticket was valid for, but when I looked up journeys on the website none of the King's Cross trains were listed as offering an off-peak ticket.

I felt it was most likely that my ticket would work as normal, before whatever the rush-hour cut-off was. But I couldn't quite dismiss the nagging doubt that they might have found some loophole and changed the rules so the fast train was never off-peak -- that seemed ludicrous, but not the most ludicrous rules change I'd seen.[1]

In fact, it ended happily, as I decided to just go to King's Cross and try, and I arrived just as a fast Cambridge train was announced, and ran to the platform and got on with about thirty seconds to spare.

Looking at the national rail website now I'm back to a real web browser, it seems my mistake was to look at single fares. There are separate "slightly more off-peak tickets" only valid on Liverpool Street routes, just to make sure to gouge anyone who stupidly buys a ticket before comparing possible different tickets from different train operators, and those do have separate single and return off-peak tickets. So I hadn't realised that the suggested single ticket from King's Cross was "anytime" because the only possible "off-peak" ticket was a day return which cost more than a single anytime.

I should have figured that out if I looked at possible alternative tickets, but my mind stupidly got stuck on the idea that I could look at the website to figure out which trains my off-peak return were valid for, and I didn't consider the alternatives.[2]

And that doesn't even touch on the rules for when a rail ticket "to London Terminals" is valid on a tube ride (it seems "often, but never quite on the one you want to take").

[1] I assumed "peak" meant "peak travel times", but a friend insisted it meant "peak prices", and if it did, "off-peak" would technically be a valid description even if the ticket was only valid on second tuesdays...

[2] I do think it's somewhat deceptive to sell someone a ticket which is supposedly valid on different trains, whilst deliberately obscuring which trains it IS valid on. And yes, I realise if I scrupulously want to travel at a particular time, however expensive or inconvenient, the rail planner works, but that's not automatically the case.

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jack

National Rail