Great Western Coffee Shop

Been made aware of this massive anomaly on 'Mixing Deck' based booking engines:

London Terminals to Finsbury Park via Inverness.

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/INV.jpg)(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/INV2.jpg)

That's ^4.30 for an Anytime Day Single.

Please note that I'm just posting to highlight the funny side of this error. I do not suggest anyone tries to buy and use such a ticket.  ;D

Having a look you can go from Swansea to Neath via London for ^2.40 or first class for ^4.60. How much complimentary coffee can be drank in the 6 1/2 hours it takes the to complete the journey I wonder?  :D

WebTIS (Mixing Deck) based booking engines appear to be having some problems at the moment when you specify a well off route 'via' station....

Please folks, don't be tempted to purchase.

It is, of course, possible to travel from England to Scotland entirely legitimately for less than a fiver. Carlisle to Gretna Green CDR is GBP 4.90. Or you can buy a single for GBP 4.20.  :P

if you do purchase just do not try and use it

Latest information I have is that London Midland have reported the error to ATOS, so I'd expect it to be fixed very soon.  Red Spotted Hanky (owned by ATOS) are also aware.

On a serious note, the websites may actually be selling journeys that seem reasonably priced but are in fact invalid routes.  Especially if someone believes they are purchasing an advance ticket when they are in fact buying a SDS.

How did it even get discovered :-/

Hadn't thought of that but you may well be on to something - obviously the examples quoted above are pretty egregiously silly, but I can see someone could have being tripped up if they entered a "via" that might be geographically plausible but doesn't form part of a permitted route.

Surely if you buy and print off the documentation, rail staff can't argue?

They can, if it's clearly an online ticketing software error - and an invalid route!  ;)

The ticket will probably just say the same as the normal direct one would or any permitted? I believe the sites also state you should check the tickets validity before travel?

Would anyone notice?

If presented with a ticket from King's Cross to Finsbury Park by a passenger attempting to travel via Inverness I have a sneaking suspicion they might, yes.

If it said advance fair or something other than anytime then possibly.... But this Would raise eyebrows

If it showed 'advance fair' it would indeed raise eyebrows, relex109!  ::)

I actually know what's happening on this now... I'm posting from my iPhone, autocorrect! I wouldn't do the same mistake twice in two days  ;D

Ahh, if it's the iPhone's autocorrect, then you have a little sympathy from me. At least you're not posting something totally inappropriate as can often happen with autocorrect (http://damnyouautocorrect.com/).

 ;D

 :o one of them is really bad lol

I love that site but I can't help thinking that some of them may have been staged...  :-\

You've been sending fair vice fare for weeks, if not months, hence my please please stop post a few days ago...

Paul

Fare enough  ;D

Of course 'fair' and 'fare' come from a family of words called Homonyms and are examples of homophones: namely words which sound the same but are written differently for different reasons.  Within the English National Curriculum they are done at Year 4 (8-9 year olds) but sadly mobile phone predictatext don't study in the English education system. :D     ....well I thought some people might like to know this! 

It's also worth pointing out that I am slightly simple  :D

Would the ticket be printed via Inverness?

What it does highlight is the point often made on coffee shop how on earth does Joe Public know if they've purchased the right tickets even when you buy them from manned booking offices the system is so complicated.

No, it would just be a London Terminals to Finsbury Park ticket.  However, reservations would be provided, if requested.

Therein lies a problem though as if a passanger aware of the T&C's of advance fares may think they have an advance fare and as such have to be on booked services, even if quicker alternatives exists. If problems are known, maybe a notice on home page would be useful to make people booking aware problems exist

There was a long thread on uk.railway in the late 1990s on this very subject. The correspondence between Clive Feather and ATOC can be found here (http://www.rossrail.co.uk/central/routeqn1.html).

That's interesting to read.   I note that the ATOC spokesman, talking of the then-upcoming online routing engine suggests "You will be pleased to hear that, as part of this automation process, the NRG is being scrutinised to discover and correct any anomalies. Once the Journey Information System is in operation, you will be able to obtain appropriate routeing information for any rail journey that you are planning" which reads to me to put an official stamp of approval on the online system, and if it offers you a Kings Cross to Finsbury Park fare via Inverness, then that is going to be "appropriate routeing".    :D

Presumably the Kings Cross to Finsbury Park ticket would be endorsed as "Route: Any Permitted", which would probably cover the TOCs against anyone who tried the "via Inverness" stunt!

With respect, you or I or anyone else has no right to issue such an instruction.
They shouldn't argue, because the tickets must be honoured and their Company has been compensated.

The ticket will be printed with the appropriate route e.g. "Any Permitted" however a ticket is always valid by the itinerary/reservations provided, so if a passenger presented an itineary and/or reservations that were obtained as part of the original purchase that is clear evidence of a Contract that must be honoured (and ATOC have confirmed will be honoured)
You would have an itinerary via Inverness, and provided you ticked the box to obtain reservations you would be issued reservations via Inverness.
If someone buys a ticket that a guard does not like and travels exactly according to the itinerary and/or reservataions supplied at the time the ticket was purchased, the guard can either accept the ticket, or withdraw it for investigation (so the issuing office/website can get a telling off if it's wrong and be asked to fix it in future!!) but if they do withdraw it they must issue a free of charge zero-fare replacement ticket allowing the customer to complete their journey as per their itinerary.

I do not know what you mean by "cover the TOCs" but if you are asking about compensation then I have it on good authority that TOCs have been compensated, a deal was reached by ATOC. TOC managers have been told to honour such tickets and have been told they have been compensated but have not been told of exact figures (revenue is distributed through ORCATS).

The tickets must be honoured, as the Contract was agreed by the relevant parties when the sale was made.

So far I am aware of one UPFN which is being appealed and will be successful (the head of revenue at the TOC concerned has already agreed such tickets are of course valid and will be honoured) and one FGW guard asked for money up front (an appeal is being sent next week). These appeals will be successful because a debt the same civil debt cannot be pursued from two separate parties.

Wow!  :o

That was something of a storming first post, ECML!  ;D

A very warm welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, anyway.  ;)

Chris.

Thanks :)

FGW HQ should of course have been informed of this fiasco; can anyone confirm if this is indeed the case? I have contacts at several TOCs but not FGW (unless you count guards, but then they don't get told everything!)

That is very true! During the disruption of the derailment at Westbury some time ago, A guard who's train was on to Frome had no idea what was going on! However I was able to help him out and show him a picture of the said 150/1 that decided to misbehave! ::)

.

Forgive me for not making myself clear, however after reading the whole of this thread, would it not be slightly unethical for someone to exploit what is clearly a mistake, if someone was to buy the ticket without reading this forum then they would be none the wiser....and as you have now pointed out has every right to use a service paid for in good faith,as for deciding to buy after reading that the issue existed on here, well I guess it depends how ready people are to exploit others mistakes, it was not an instruction more of an 'I wouldn't '

Just a thought on this intriguing thread. As KX to Finsbury Park is frimly in both ex NSE trerritory and London Farezones, aren't single tickets issued for use on the day only. If it's a farezone ticket don't you have to make the whole journey in 2 hours, that's the case with Oyster

Would it be legitimate for someone North of say Newcastle to say you can't make this journey in a day going via Inverness, therefore ticket not valid.

Who's going to be brave enogh to try it!

What it does show, once again, is that the current fare system is "Not Fit for Purpoose"

The point that ecml is quite correctly making is that in this case the fare that was being advertised is valid due to it being advertised, this is a trading standards issue which would override the routing guide in this case

relex109  - Penalty Fares and excess fares to Anytime tickets exist for customers who make mistakes. Some companies do seem to enjoy extracting revenue out of customers who make a mistake. If a TOC makes a mistake and lets you take a 'scenic route' then if you want to think that is 'unethical' that's your choice, but I don't see anything wrong in forming a contract if the other party agrees to the contract. Up until the time the money is taken they can decline the sale. Once the money is taken, they could still cancel it and refund you, but if they let you collect the ticket then that is binding in my opinion, and it's clear that ATOC don't disagree with that. Ethical or not? That is up to the individual to decide.

I'm not aware of a "Farezone" nor a "Farezone ticket".
If you did not have an itinerary and/or reservations it would not be valid on the basis that "but the website said..." it would only be valid if reservations and/or an itinerary were produced, which would over-rule the normal routeing restrictions.
People have already done things like Wigan-Oxenholme via London, Swindon to Three Bridges via Looe, etc.
Agreed, but we can't change the system. We could however change certain aspects of it, but my concern is that there would have to be guarantees in place to protect passengers. If you let the TOCs do anything they would severely restrict the routes we could take and bump up prices massively.

 ::)