Advance Fares from Kings Lynn

[Norfolk25]

There seem to be very few destinations available for advance fares from Kings Lynn (KLN). Fares are therefore disproportionately expensive.

Depending on the destination, sometimes it is cheaper to buy a Anytime ticket to Cambridge (CBG), and then buy an Advance ticket to the final destination.
ie a journey from Kings Lynn to Bournemouth.
Other times it is cheaper to use the X1 bus to Peterborough using Kings Lynn Coach (KLB).
ie a journey from Kings Lynn to Edinburgh.

All the faffing about to try to reduce the cost is annoying, particularly when you know that much reduced Advance fares are available from nearby towns.

On the BR fares website there are a lot more advance ticket destinations listed from Kings Lynn Coach, than from Kings Lynn.
For example from Kings Lynn to Weymouth (WEY).
Although this journey involves travelling from Kings Lynn to Peterborough and then to Kings Cross, there are Advance fares listed so it would be much cheaper than a direct ticket to Weymouth. I would happily take an extra 1.5 hours for the journey to save the money.
The problem is that some of the Advance fares (such as KLB-WEY) are listed by BR Fares but they seemingly cannot be booked on the Virgin East Coast Trains website. "No fares available for this journey".

Why are fares which are calculated and continually updated in the fares manual not available to buy? I thought the whole point of the current set up was that private companies competed for fares, and lower prices applied for slower journeys ( as per Mega-train).

 

[Paul Kelly]

The problem is that some of the Advance fares (such as KLB-WEY) are listed by BR Fares but they seemingly cannot be booked on the Virgin East Coast Trains website. "No fares available for this journey".

What date are you looking at? I can see advances available for £34 on this route on 24th May - see attached. Not many booking websites accept Kings Lynn Bus as a valid station though, that's true.

 

[JonathanH]

One of the other problems with Kings Lynn is that advance fares to through destinations via London could undercut the fare that the operator of that service feels is the market rate from Kings Lynn to London. They could end up with an issue whereby people buy advance tickets from Kings Lynn to a destination beyond London and then don't use the onward portion.

This is a contributory reason to why
a) Advance tickets are not valid in the peaks on South Eastern High Speed services
b) Southern have advanced tickets on their network and don't release quotas in the peak
c) South West Trains services from Waterloo to Reading (eg http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W35378/2017/05/15/advanced) have "reservations available" despite the fact that there are no South West Trains advance purchase tickets on this line. I think this applies to some other routes of theirs as well.

 

[Starmill]

c) South West Trains services from Waterloo to Reading (eg http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W35378/2017/05/15/advanced) have "reservations available" despite the fact that there are no South West Trains advance purchase tickets on this line. I think this applies to some other routes of theirs as well.

That's a strange one, because lots of them are, but also lots of them aren't. Seemingly in random order.

http://www.brtimes.com/#!board?stn=RDG&filt=WAT&date=20170515

At the weekend, none of them are.

 

[Norfolk25]

Thanks for the interest
Indigo2
The date I was looking at was July 29th. It seems in retrospect that a peculiarity of this journey is that if there have been no Advance fares released, then there is not a 'Normal' fare to show instead, so the East Coast Trains website says 'no fares available for this journey'. Normally the screen would default to the Anytime fares but in this case there are none.
JonathanH
The various returns from Kings Lynn to Weymouth are more expensive than the basic return to London.
An off-peak return from Kings Lynn to Kings Cross is £47.60. After 0827.
An off-peak return from Kings Lynn to Weymouth is £94.20.

Alternatively:
An off peak return from Kings Lynn to Cambridge is £19.30 and
Two Advance singles from Cambridge to Weymouth are £24.40 each.
A total fare of £68.10

Two Advance singles from Kings Lynn BUS to Weymouth (but not on July 29th!) are also £68.00.

Kings Lynn and nearby Wisbech have a population of over 100,000. I find it quite frustrating that there are such a limited no. of Advance fare destinations available.

 

[FenMan]

That's a strange one, because lots of them are, but also lots of them aren't. Seemingly in random order.

http://www.brtimes.com/#!board?stn=RDG&filt=WAT&date=20170515

At the weekend, none of them are.

i'm not surprised. Only AGA offer advance fares from King's Lynn, and they only run trains to/from King's Lynn Monday to Friday in the peaks.