Any permitted route

WatlingA5

Looking to buy Milton Keynes-Euston 'Anytime' tickets (returning five days later). Tickets flagged as 'London Midland only' and 'Virgin only' leave absolutely no doubt. But some come up as "any permitted route". Does that mean that - as long as I do the journey direct - I can use the most convenient train with either train company (i.e. turn up and go)? I'm expecting the answer to be 'no' but just wanted to clarify

I did a search on the phrase and found many answers, but not to that question. Most seemed to be about longer journeys and going from A to D via stations B or C.

wealdroam

WatlingA5 wrote: »

Looking to buy Milton Keynes-Euston 'Anytime' tickets (returning five days later). Tickets flagged as 'London Midland only' and 'Virgin only' leave absolutely no doubt. But some come up as "any permitted route". Does that mean that - as long as I do the journey direct - I can use the most convenient train with either train company (i.e. turn up and go)? I'm expecting the answer to be 'no' but just wanted to clarify

I did a search on the phrase and found many answers, but not to that question. Most seemed to be about longer journeys and going from A to D via stations B or C.

The answer to your question in your specific circumstance is - yes.

However, this is not generally the case.
The determination of what is a permitted route for a particular journey is often extremely complicated and cannot easily be explained in a forum post.

One simple way of working it out is to use the National Rail Enquiries journey planner.
If the journey planner will sell you a ticket and provide an itinerary for your chosen route then that it a 'permitted route' on which that ticket may be used.

WatlingA5

Many thanks for that - button clicked

elverson

There are sometimes more than one possible geographic route - eg for Southampton to London you can go via Woking or via Gatwick.

For MK to London there is essentially only one route, so any direct train is OK for an 'any permitted' ticket. The Virgin services tend to be less busy and more comfortable IMO.