No, no - Chris!

I would not want to be beastly to FGW^▸ (First Great Western) after my outstanding day out on Club 55. I shall cherish the memory until, hopefully, next year's offer.

And I personally can buy FGW tickets at my local station, where the team are both pretty well briefed and tolerant of answering silly questions.

imac

Even more interesting.

Two different firms apparently trading in the same area and under the same name.
I had forgotten about the change of firm's name to First Greater Western in 2006 ; thank you for the reminder.
However the 'Legal Notice' seems also to have forgotten, as First Great Western and First Greater Western seem to be used indiscriminately through the page of small print. Perhaps there is a reason, but it is not immediately obvious?
In the Legal Notice it is "our on line ticket booking service".

What I have also found on exploring the relevant web site is that a warning about Advance Tickets pops up when one hovers over the 'cheapest fare' words, but not when one simply clicks in the purchase box. And, yes, agreed, there is a final warning at the point of purchase.

It all looks a bit of a shifty muddle to me. I don't follow the logic of the contributors who defend this arrangement. A simple fix to the web site would deal with my stupid-consumer issues and resolve any possible legal issues in one.

Interesting.

The strict principle, as suggested by Ollie, must be true and would apply in a commercial contract. However Courts, in dealing with consumer matters, tend nowadays to take a wider view. They don't like 'fine print'. I would have to see a court case before myself coming to firm conclusions on this one. 
 
FGW^▸ (First Great Western) might find it difficult to deny that they know about this problem [ even if because it has now been discussed on this unofficial web site]. The prudent thing would surely be to get the contractors to sort the web site?

Even railway web sites can be sorted quite quickly. I recollect once, myself travelling quite legitimately within open hours, waving  friendly-like in front of the Inspector a fresh printout that showed that cheap tickets did not have a block before 09:30. He turned ashen faced, made an excuse and left in a hurry. By that evening, that part of the web site had been closed, and by the next day had been fixed.

bignosemac

Thankyou for the further information

imac

Bignosemac

Thankyou for your informative reply. I have now checked back on rs 6 and 7 of the Distance Selling Regulations, and, agreed, advance tickets do seem to be among the partial exemptions.

Following your further lead, and in advance of further advice and a more in depth study, I would think at first glance that the particular web page illustrated and used for purchase would be contrary to ss 21 and 22 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and also possibly Reg 2 of the Control of Misleading Advertisments Regulations 1988. There are, of course, tucked away in odd bits of legislation all sorts of other exemptions for Railways, which might make my comments not apply. If they do, however, we might have possible criminal offences on the part of the advertiser, though I'm not sure that they themselves directly lead to a refund.

Whatever, it would seem prudent for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to tidy this particular web site up before an irritated someone, inspired by 'no win - no fee' lawyers, does some more serious work.

Where tickets are bought off the web, is the purchase not subject to the Distance Selling Regulations 2000 ? Its presumably a 'service'?
In which case, where an incorrect ticket is issued or the sale advertsiment does not state any restrictions or you simply change your mind within 7 days, presumably a refund is due [ regardless of the type of ticket]??

Can anyone throw more light on this?

imac

Thankyou for two interesting replies from Vacman and Chris
Perhaps a few further words of explanation might be helpful?

Train Loading
Firstly I accept that other midweek trains going to Cornwall might be considerably fuller than the half-full First 07:57  from Reading that I caught. This early train is businessman's times and, as I said, it did surprise me. However I suppose if I had an appointment in Bristol I would nowadays probably drive down the motorway or train to Parkway.
For the return I caught the 14:41 from Truro. The First Class by the time I got off at Reading was a little bit over half full. Perhaps the later trains were fuller?

Ticket availability
Actually, the leaflet I picked up at the local station on Club 55 was, with hindsight, clear enough - for trains going west in the morning no restriction from Reading was listed. However I am aware of the 09:30 rule, and thought I had better double-check, since I did not want to cut across a rule hidden in a Notice I had not seen.
FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Customer Services seemed a more likely point than 484950, as this was a FGW promotion. The first respondent said quite firmly that trains before 09:30 were not available. I re-read the leaflet, and phoned again. The second respondent said not available, read the leaflet, paused, said he was not sure, and offered to call back once he had contacted the High Official at Paddington. He did, after a week, and confirmed that the early train was available. A responsible action.
Vacman has now kindly confirmed that this train regularly runs half empty in First so the availability of Club 55 seems commercially sensible.

The second confusion concerned a joint journey my wife and myself proposed. The first question concerned the availability and use of a London multizone travelcard - this produced the multiple incorrect answers. The second concerned the correct extension ticket for extending the availability of a London Freedom Pass - this produced the multiple 'don't knows'. They are both pretty common tickets and issues and I was a little surprised.
In making these comments I am not knocking the enquiry and booking office people - they do seem to have a difficult task.

Now, I have a limited experience of reading legal documents, have high speed internet access, am moderately computer-literate, have, acquired through ages, a generalised knowledge of network rail, and have the time [most of the time] to 'suss things out'.
If I can't get correct answers reasonably quickly, what chance has the 'blue-rinse' lady?  Maybe some are 'trying it on' but I dare suggest that others could be simply confused.

Imac

Yes, there have been a lot of negative views about Club 55 on this thread.
As a satisfied passenger, may I comment?

I travellef from Guildford to Truro - a return day trip - to have a brief lunch with a relative I had not been able to meet for 20 years. It was rather wonderful for both of us.

I travelled first class. Both there and back the first class was half empty, and it looked as if a considerable number of the passengers that were there were also on Club 55. I had a quite passable cooked breakfast on the way out and the attention of the wine steward on the way back. All profit to FGW^▸ (First Great Western), as well as pleasure for me.

I would not have gone had I to pay the ^300 or so basic first class fare. For a day out, that is in direct competition with a ride on the steam hauled Orient Express. Nor would I attempt that particular journey second class, as the high density seating blocks out most of the passing view. Ten hours reading [again] 'Pride and Prejudice' is not much of a day out.

My only cavil is, as many above have commented, the difficulty of finding out exactly what the travel restrictions are. It took a week to get a confident answer from Enquiries, involving some High Official at Paddington then on holiday, as to whether the ticket would be valid on the 07:57 going west from Reading - an important criterion if one is to get to Truro for lunch. No commercial reason, it emerged, why it should not be valid - I was surprised to find how empty the first class was on what should be a significant business train.

But difficulty over finding out what travel restrictions apply is pretty general, and I do not pick out FGW for this. A planned journey last week into South London produced a wholly bizarre set of answers from  484950, and subsequently a supervisor who insisted on a telephone response rather than e-mail. It turned out that she simply did not know the answers [ ?not to be put in writing?], and suggested that I ask my local station. However we did agree that the two further answers given by the NatRail web site were both wrong, and she volunteered to have them corrected. My local station said "its a grey area, but this is what we usually sell".

So I am not very sympathetic towards the comments made by some professionals above about 'blue rinses' cheating the system. 

imac