Apologies; I've modified the original now. Hope it's clearer.

Hi all,

I'm travelling to a conference next week, but stopping off at a stag do on the way. I'd like to get as much of the journey in expenses as is reasonable (i.e. at least what the cost of the direct return to the conference would be), so am thinking about breaking a ticket to Southampton so that it can be claimed. (Just me travelling, no railcards.)

Route/schedule:
[18 July: Swansea to Rhoose/Cardiff Airport]
23 July: Rhoose/Cardiff Airport to Waterloo (presumably via Paddington)
24 July: Chiswick to Southampton Airport Parkway (and on foot or bus to Southampton University)
30 July: Southampton Airport Parkway to Swansea

I'm flexible on times, but I always use off-peak rather than advance fares as otherwise sod's law says I'll be two minutes late and miss my train.

AIUI^▸ ('as I understand it'), I could break an Rhoose-Southampton off-peak return on the way out at Reading (and buy my own Reading-Waterloo return), provided I was travelling again by noon the next day. The issue is that I can't leave Chiswick until around 11, so probably wouldn't get back to Reading by noon—and presumably travelling on another ticket doesn't count as "travelling" for the purposes of break of journey. However looking at NRE^▸ (National Rail Enquiries), adding "via Paddington" to the ticket prevents me from getting a return fare. Also, it looks like there are direct services Waterloo-Southampton that would make more sense than going back out to Reading.

If I got a period return to Rhoose, then on the way back I think I'd just need a Cardiff-Bridgend single to plug the gap? (Unless I felt like going the long way around back through Rhoose)

Does this make sense to anyone? Does anyone have a better route suggestion, or a good split that makes the break of journey workable?

Thanks!

Thanks, I fixed the fixing of my link. (Why can't forum software agree on whether url tags need quotes or not?)

As a minor update, the website now claims that planning consent has been granted today, with apparently very little controversy.

You're welcome! I've been stalking this thread for over a year, and I live in Swansea (and have recently browsed planning applications for other reasons), so thought I could finally contribute something back

You mean something like this?