EXCLUSIVE: ABC presents…The Great Gibb Giveaway! What’s your Magic Loophole Station?!

The Gibb report has given us a wealth of material about the failures of ‘system resilience’ on the Southern Rail network – and we’ll be looking into all of these over the next few weeks. However, we wanted to start with an exclusive tip-off that will benefit commuters right here, right now. And so we present the first Magic Loophole Station; a technique inspired by section 3.2 of the Gibb Report, and from which several of our commuter campaigners are already enjoying great savings.

Before proceeding, please note: this is still a work in progress that we invite you to try, and investigate further. We do not guarantee success and all of these methods are to be used at the individual’s sole discretion and responsibility.

How to use the Camden Road Magic Loophole:

Inspired by the “fare anomalies and split-ticketing opportunities” highlighted by Chris Gibb in section 3.2 of his report, members of ABC have been looking at other routes and trying to identify similar “Magic Loophole Stations” to the Eastbourne – Aldershot example that Gibb describes.

We have since discovered that Camden Road Station is the “Magic Loophole Station” for South Coast – London Victoria routes, and now invite all our supporters to join the investigation and find similar loopholes for other routes.

The Camden Road “Magic Loophole” works for:

Passengers on the South Coast going to London Victoria
All peak day tickets
Some off-peak tickets
Some walk up fares, e.g. 7 day return tickets (peak and off peak)

The Camden Road “Magic Loophole” won’t work for:

Season ticket holders (7 days and upwards) – unfortunately it turns into the same ‘travelcard’ ticket type for both scenarios at that point
Anyone travelling from Haywards Heath or further north

The best thing about this technique is that the saving on day return peak tickets will really help whose who are self-employed or part-time – i.e. those who are already penalised most by the current fare system.

These types of passengers will be able to save money on every journey using the “Magic Loophole” technique. ABC members have explicitly asked Southern Rail ticket staff if Victoria is a valid route for Camden Road, and it has been confirmed that it is (i.e. one can take all usual direct peak/off-peak trains and there is no need for this to be specified on the ticket.)

Examples of how much you could save on a peak day ticket:

Worthing: £41.70 instead of £56.70 saving £15 or 26% discount

Eastbourne: £44.20 instead of £60.40 saving £16.20 or 26% discount

Brighton: £43.60 instead of 50.10 saving £6.50 or 13% discount

Lewes: £39.30 instead of £51.10 saving £11.80 or 23% discount

Shoreham: £40.50 instead of £54.20 saving £14.70 or 27% discount

How you can help our investigation:

Write and tell us about your success and any further “Magic Loophole Stations” you uncover. You can email us at contact@abcommuters.com, or contact us through Twitter. Please note that we are volunteer-run and extremely busy, so Twitter is always best for a quick response.
Donate to our legal crowdfunder – we need your help more than ever if we are to pay our lawyers for their work on our recent high court decision and keep ABC alive!
Keep following our campaign and thinking outside the box! We must all join together to insist upon a better quality of investigative journalism; and much more action from MPs/Ministers, if we are to ever bring the Southern Rail crisis to a end!