Hail again! 
After getting up today, I decided to have another hack at finding the cheapest ticket combinations and I've made some small progress. Although my art isn't that well practised yet, I have a feeling that I'm getting the general idea of splitting my tickets up!
First of all; To eliminate the number of routes I was checking and to keep things managable, I decided to ignore routes via London and concentrate on going BAW > RDG > LMS > [Any available route through the West Mids] > DBY as that appeared to be the cheapest available route. It also hit me that the fares set by FGW were giving a much better cost-per-mile than fares set by AXC...So then it occurred to me that splitting on TOC boundaries, and trying to cover as long a distance using as few TOCs as possible is probabally a good idea.
A small sub-note is that it's worth looking at all suitable ticket types that are available for the journey, as opposed to automatically assuming that returns are cheaper than singles. Even though it's a pretty long distance, I found that two CDSs between BAW and BAN come to £17.00 in total, a £1.15 saving on the SVR at £18.15.
After poking and prodding around with Avantix for another hour, here's the new table of fares that I came up with. Some of them miss the mark admittedly (Even if they're still cheaper than going via London!) and are the product of simple trial and error, but I don't have to buy the fares that aren't the cheapest!
Code:
[color=#AA0000][b]Route BAW > RDG > OXF > BAN > LMS > [i]BHM|COV|TAM[/i] > DBY:[/b][/color]
BAW > BAN CDS(2) 17.00 B3 GW NOT London
BAN > COV SVR 8.85 2V CC Any permitted
COV > TAM CDS(2) 10.20 BX CC Any permitted (BX = Not Brum?)
TAM > DBY SVR 10.45 2V CC Any permitted (Same fare NOT Brum)
[b]TOTAL: 2R 4S 46.50[/b]
BAW > BAN CDS(2) 17.00 B3 GW NOT London
BAN > TAM SVR 15.20 2V CC Any permitted
TAM > DBY SVR 10.45 2V CC Any permitted (Same fare NOT Brum)
[b]TOTAL: 2R 2S 42.65[/b]
BAW > DBY SVR 42.00 2V CC NOT London
[b]TOTAL: 1R 0S 42.00[/b]
BAW > BAN CDS(2) 17.00 B3 GW NOT London
BAN > LMS SDS(2) 8.30 Any permitted
LMS > COV SDS(2) 4.90 CC Any permitted
COV > DBY SVR 10.05 2V CC Any permitted
[b]TOTAL: 1R 6S 40.25[/b]
BAW > BAN CDS(2) 17.00 B3 GW NOT London
BAN > BHM SVR 10.05 2V CC Any permitted
BHM > DBY SVR 9.10 2V CC Any permitted
[b]TOTAL: 2R 2S 36.15[/b]
BAW > BAN CDS(2) 17.00 B3 GW NOT London
BAN > COV SVR 8.85 2V CC Any permitted
COV > DBY SVR 10.05 2V CC Any permitted
[b]TOTAL: 2R 2S 35.90[/b]
[color=#AA0000][b]Fares list output[/b] (Sorted by price decending):[/color]
Split RDG, OXF, BHM: 47.45
Split BAN, COV, TAM: 46.50
Split OXF only: 43.60
Split RDG and BHM: 43.45
Split RDG only: 43.35
Split BAN and TAM: 42.65
[color=#999999]Direct, NOT London: 42.00 Standard fare without splitting.[/color]
Split OXF and BHM: 41.95
Split BAN only: 40.90
Split BAN, LMS, COV: 40.25
Split BHM only: 39.80
Split BAN and BHM: 36.15
Split BAN and COV: 35.90
So as can be seen from the above, splitting tickets at Banbury and Coventry (As Tony suggested above) saves me £6.10 off of the typical direct fare (Going on fares in NFM 02)...And assuming that I know the NRRG correctly, the tickets via Coventry are all valid for "Any Permitted" route - Meaning that I should still be able to travel LMS > BHM > DBY without even
touching Coventry...Although I don't mind avoiding Brum and running via Coventry if the NRRG requires it on that ticket pattern.
Best of all though is that if I put aside the £6.10 saving from each return journey into a jar or something, then those savings will allow me to take every sixth journey free and effectively get a "6 for 5" deal on accumulated journeys...
Much better than the discount that I found last night (Splitting in Brum only) that worked out to a "20 for 19" equivalent! 8)
Split ticket tend to take advantage of more 'local' operators who usually have subsidised fares, or PTE products. You can't always split a journey, and there is usually very little point splitting a journey were a TOC sets both the split fares.
Not an expert meself, all I know is that you want to be splitting at the boundaries between the TOCs pricing regions, so you get the smallest possible journey on the more expensive region. I don't know of any map or list of such points unfortunately.
Aye, cheers for that Ste and Lexy! That kind of hit me last night when I realised that I was getting charged over the odds for FGW parts of the journey on prices set by AXC, so I tried dividing the load between FGW and AXC fare regions (With BAN > LMS being the only leg charged by different TOCs) and it knocked another £4.00 off of the fares after a bit of experimentation!
Of course, I'll have to recalculate everything once I've got the NFM 03 installed as some fare anomalies (Such as BAW > BAN being cheaper on 2x CDS than a SVR) might've been changed or removed...Hopefully though, I'll still manage an equivalent saving! 8)
Look at using Chiltern etc...
It might be because BAW is an FGW station and the BAW > BAN part of my journey is on FGW administered metals...But I couldn't find any Chiltern set fares on that route.
I'm not too knowlegable about Chiltern as a TOC...But don't they serve stations north and west of Oxford using the Cotswold line?
In the case of BAW>DBY, it's pretty hard to avoid a long stretch on an XC priced ticket. I was looking mainly via Birmingham, and in this case the splitting point seems to be Banbury.
Banbury's a definite splitting point in this case as it allows me to go the furthest possible distance on a single TOC's pricing, and noting that 2x CDS was cheaper than a SVR helped too.
North of Banbury the splitting points are a little more ambiguous as one goes via Leamington (An AXC station, thus the start of AXC set fares) and can then travel via Birmingham, Coventry, and/or Tamworth (Or all three!
hock
to get to Derby...But as outlined above, going via Coventry seems to be the cheapest option at this time.
I had thought the +LONDON route would be reasonably quick but it seems all the trains to Tamworth are slow LM services...
I believe that some VWC services call at Bletchley and a lot call at Milton Keynes Central, so if I was going via London then I should be able to use a Pendo between EUS and MKC/BLE to overtake 2-3 LM trains on the way and keep my journey times down. Indeed, don't some Pendo's call at Tamworth too?
Splitting at Banbury and Coventry is better.
or it would be if the train stopped there!
Have a look at the Banbury to Spring Road thread for splitting at Birmingham
Cheers for the tip, Tony! I just had a look at the thread that ye suggested and I must admit that it really confused me (I don't know the Stratford > Birmingham line that well) but I'll agree with thy suggestion that Banbury and Coventry are the best split points thus far! 8)
On top of that though; After discussing some possible VWC routes above I might try a quick route re-hash to see if I can get a hidden bargain running via Euston and changing at Milton Keynes or Tamworth. It's normally more expensive going via London admittedly...But I have found in the past (Especially with FNB > SOT journeys) that London
can sometimes be a cheaper routing point!
hock:
Farewell for now, and thanks for the advice so far!
>> Death <<
