Megabus/trains getting off early??

Have relatives in Guildford, and would like to visit more often. A
cheap day return is £11.50. But looking at megabus.com I can get a
train ticket for Portsmouth which stops at Guildford on the way. Is
there anything stopping me from booking with megabus far in advance
and getting the ticket for £2 return and using it to get to Guildford
and back again? Also how would I explain it to the guide at the ticket
barrier? Many thanks,

John B wrote:
> On 9 Jan, 23:14, Dave <s.f.osw...@> wrote:
>> Have relatives in Guildford, and would like to visit more often. A
>> cheap day return is £11.50. But looking at megabus.com I can get a
>> train ticket for Portsmouth which stops at Guildford on the way. Is
>> there anything stopping me from booking with megabus far in advance
>> and getting the ticket for £2 return and using it to get to Guildford
>> and back again?

It's disallowed under the rules.

> However, it would be perfectly legitimate for you to also purchase a
> £3.30 CDR from Woking to Guildford before boarding the train at
> Waterloo (all London -> Guildford -> Portsmouth trains stop at Woking,
> barring weird engineering chaos), and use that to escape the
> station... this way, there is no part of your journey that isn't
> covered by a valid ticket, just some parts that are double-covered.

I wouldn't recommend trying this. The railways regularly manage to catch
people who do things like buy Woking-Guildford tickets when they started
at London. If you get caught in one of those stings, then they'd want to
see that you have a valid ticket London-Woking. You don't.
--
Michael Hoffman

John B wrote:
> On 10 Jan, 00:17, Michael Hoffman <cam.ac...@mh391.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Have relatives in Guildford, and would like to visit more often. A
>>>> cheap day return is £11.50. But looking at megabus.com I can get a
>>>> train ticket for Portsmouth which stops at Guildford on the way. Is
>>>> there anything stopping me from booking with megabus far in advance
>>>> and getting the ticket for £2 return and using it to get to Guildford
>>>> and back again?
>> It's disallowed under the rules.
>>
>>> However, it would be perfectly legitimate for you to also purchase a
>>> £3.30 CDR from Woking to Guildford before boarding the train at
>>> Waterloo (all London -> Guildford -> Portsmouth trains stop at Woking,
>>> barring weird engineering chaos), and use that to escape the
>>> station... this way, there is no part of your journey that isn't
>>> covered by a valid ticket, just some parts that are double-covered.
>> I wouldn't recommend trying this. The railways regularly manage to catch
>> people who do things like buy Woking-Guildford tickets when they started
>> at London. If you get caught in one of those stings, then they'd want to
>> see that you have a valid ticket London-Woking. You don't.
>
> The railways catch people who buy Woking-Guildford tickets when they
> started at London by carrying out ticket checks between London and
> Woking. At which point, our man has a perfectly valid Megatrain
> ticket.

That's not what I'm talking about.
--
Michael Hoffman

John B wrote:

> Hmm. I understand the /kind/ of operations you're talking about, but
> they're extremely unlikely to be relevant here: SWT Portsmouth
> services always have a ticket check between London and Woking, so
> there's absolutely no point in carrying out the kind of raids that it /
> is/ worth doing between barriered stations on OPO trains.

Except to catch this kind of thing.

> (in any case, the problem for the OP in this case isn't being caught
> in a raid, because there is no point on the journey when he doesn't
> have a valid ticket.

He doesn't have a valid ticket London-Woking. It just won't be possible
to prove that until after-the-fact.
--
Michael Hoffman

"Michael Hoffman" <cam.ac.uk@mh391.invalid> wrote in message
news:fm3o70$hhm$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> John B wrote:
>> On 9 Jan, 23:14, Dave <s.f.osw...@> wrote:
>>> Have relatives in Guildford, and would like to visit more often. A
>>> cheap day return is £11.50. But looking at megabus.com I can get a
>>> train ticket for Portsmouth which stops at Guildford on the way. Is
>>> there anything stopping me from booking with megabus far in advance
>>> and getting the ticket for £2 return and using it to get to Guildford
>>> and back again?
>
> It's disallowed under the rules.
>
>> However, it would be perfectly legitimate for you to also purchase a
>> £3.30 CDR from Woking to Guildford before boarding the train at
>> Waterloo (all London -> Guildford -> Portsmouth trains stop at Woking,
>> barring weird engineering chaos), and use that to escape the
>> station... this way, there is no part of your journey that isn't
>> covered by a valid ticket, just some parts that are double-covered.
>
> I wouldn't recommend trying this. The railways regularly manage to catch
> people who do things like buy Woking-Guildford tickets when they started
> at London. If you get caught in one of those stings, then they'd want to
> see that you have a valid ticket London-Woking. You don't.

I don't think anyone has mentioned that the 'Megatrain' ticket holders on
the mainline services have a dedicated coach. It makes it easier for the
guard to watch the comings and goings at intermediate stations...

Paul

John B wrote:

> If Megatrain's condition A had the second sentence "break of journey
> is prohibited", then it would. Presumably it's oversight rather than
> any deliberate desire to create a loophole.

It also says on their web site on the "Travel by Train" page:

"""
My reservation states the main terminus; can I board elsewhere?
Please note that the departure and arrival times displayed are for the
main terminus points you selected. You must board and alight at these
points, and it is a condition of travel on megatrain that you may not
board or alight at other points on the route. If travelling on services
operated by East Midlands Trains, you will be charged the full single
fare for the actual journey made. On services operated by South West
trains Penalty fares will apply if passengers alight or board at other
points along the route.

Why can't I get on or off the train at intermediate stations?
megatrain is a simple low-cost inter-city fare like the successful
megabus which has been run by Stagecoach for over two years. It is not
expected to be highly profitable and must attract a good number of new
customers to justify itself. In order to do that, it needs to be kept
simple for passengers booking and simple for our staff to implement and
monitor. Therefore, megatrain is only being offered on lightly loaded
trains and between certain origins and destinations only. Should the
extension of the initial megatrain routes prove popular with our
passengers, we may extend to offer to more places.
"""

I think it's pretty clear that they intend that you shouldn't be able to
break your journey, and they've publicized this in their notices. If you
think otherwise, see if you can convince the magistrates.
--
Michael Hoffman

John B wrote:

> Instead, it achieves the opposite. Which makes me think that it's not
> complex discrimination, but just a way of filling a few empty seats
> very very cheaply to the company (and to the passengers, of course).

That's exactly what price discrimination does, it allows them to fill
empty seats with cheaper tickets without abstracting away revenue they
already have. It's designed specifically to keep people like the OP from
doing what he wants to do.
--
Michael Hoffman

John B wrote:

> But Guildford -> Portsmouth is not covered - and indeed, the list of
> stations you *can* travel between is almost the opposite of the list
> of stations you would find if their primary aim was purely to fill
> empty seats with cheap tickets and not abstract revenue.
>
> Rather, their aim is to do that as much as they can /without imposing
> any additional costs on the business/, and that is what determines the
> stations they're serving.

Agreed. But I think the price discrimination rationale explains why they
would be annoyed if someone followed the advice you gave upthread.
--
Michael Hoffman

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

> Michael is reading too much into NCoC 16. It makes three separate
> statements:
> (1) There exist tickets that don't allow stopping short/starting late.
> (2) All such tickets also prohibit Break of Journey.
> (3) It will be made clear if you have such a ticket.
>
> I'm not commenting on (3) with respect to Megatrain, but statement (2)
> is *not* what Michael says it is. In particular, there are tickets where
> BoJ is forbidden but stopping short or starting late is not.

I take your point. The use of the word "may" is key.

In any case, break of journey is still prohibited on these tickets, and
Megatrain isn't authorizing stopping short or starting late.
--
Michael Hoffman