Greater Anglia offering "impossible" to buy journey options

[trebor79]

Does anyone know what the explanation for this is?

The journey options with no ticket radio buttons are via Ely and Birmingham, the others all via Cambridge and London. There are no single tickets available on the cross country route either.
What's the point in displaying the itinerary for a route option if it can't sell me a ticket for it?
Not that's I'd go for 5 and a half hours on a rammed XC 170, but I'm curious!

 

[yorkie]

If you can provide a bit more info in text format, that would be great!

Not everyone can read text contained within images but I think I found all the info I needed... except the date; I assume this is a normal weekday?

Edit: actually I don't know what the itinerary is either; any clues?
Edit2: Is it the following..?

Attleborough 0652
Ely 0731

Ely 0816
Birmingham New St 1038

Birmingham New St 1130
Cardiff Central 1326
​

If so, it's because the only available through fares are routed via London! This journey requires a combination of tickets, but train companies' websites do not offer combinations of two or more tickets for one journey.

Using 18/12 as the outward date and 19/12 as the return date, I discovered Trainsplit will offer a combination of fares, with "splits" at Stamord, Birmingham and Cheltenham for an overall total of £120.85 (flexible) or £110.65 (fixed) with seat selector available. RailEurope produced an error (bring back Loco2!) Traintickets.com did it for £113.65 (fixed; no flexible option)

 

[trebor79]

If you can provide a bit more info in text format, that would be great!

Not everyone can read text contained within images but I think I found all the info I needed... except the date; I assume this is a normal weekday?

Yes a normal weekday

Edit: actually I don't know what the itinerary is either; any clues?
Edit2: Is it the following..?

Attleborough 0652
Ely 0731

Ely 0816
Birmingham New St 1038

Birmingham New St 1130
Cardiff Central 1326
​

Yep, that's the one!
​

If so, it's because the only available through fares are routed via London! This journey requires a combination of tickets, but train companies' websites do not offer combinations of two or more tickets for one journey.

AHA! That makes sense now, but I'm not sure it ever would to the average punter!
Thank you.

 

[yorkie]

​

AHA! That makes sense now, but I'm not sure it ever would to the average punter!
Thank you.

If it was me, I'd stick to a ticket splitting website or app, which will offer fares for such journeys.

If you want advanced options and a seat selector, the Trainsplit site has these.

If you want a simple app, the Trainsplit app might be a better fit for you (no advanced options or seat selector on the app, but it may be easier to use because it shows the outward & return legs separately)

If you want to minimise changes, and don't mind a slower journey, you may want to give Traintickets.com a try as this tends to offer itineraries that can be slower but keeps changes to a minimum; it uses the same system as RailEurope - formerly Loco2 - provided by Atomised (see https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/raileurope-was-loco2-not-showing-fastest-journey.194973/ for some extreme examples of this phenomenon), but the downsides are no option to force flexible fares, no seat selector, and no advanced options. But it is simple to use!

Again if you like apps, you could try TrainPal but this only does one splitting point, so is rarely cheaper than Trainsplit or Traintickets.com.

 

[Paul Kelly]

but the downsides are no option to force flexible fares

Does unticking the "Advance" box in the left-hand side control panel not work?

 

[yorkie]

I didn't spot that before! Yes that also produces a result of £120.85, with the same splits (except Coleshill Parkway rather than Birmingham)

Edit: just to add if it's in a narrow window, it's a thin "FILTERS" link at the very bottom of the screen you need to click on!