Cheap ticket poll

[JoolsStone]

Hi everyone

I'm a train travel blogger doing a post shortly about the availability of cheap UK tickets. I'd really value your input. It's a very simple poll with just 4 options to choose from.

If you're interested please go to:

http://joolsstone.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/finding-cheap-uk-train-tickets-online/

Thanks a lot
Jools

 

[transportphoto]

Ever found UK rail fares online discounted by 80% or close?

'Have I ever found rail fares online discounted by about 80pc than those available elsewhere?' - that is how I interpret the question.

No, every ticket option is available from any Ticket Issuing agent (be it at a station, from a travel agent or online) with the exception of some online offers from specific TOC's usually around 11pc, these usually apply when booking Advance Purchase tickets (valid for travel on the booked train only), for travel on their services, from their website.

I think I may have interpretted this wrong so I won't vote, but this is the only 'valid' interpretation I can think of.

 

[JoolsStone]

If you read the post in the link it should be perfectly clear, but I'll summarise it ehre for others. All the main national websites (trainline, red spotted hanky, raileasy etc) have large ads on their home pages boasting 80% discounts. I'm asking what luck people have had finding and booking one of these fares.

Hope that clarifies!
Thanks

 

[yorkie]

It's impossible to answer.

For example, if I get a £10 Advance single ticket to London, what is the 'discount'? ie, what is it being compared to? If I get the 0836 train, it could be compared to the Anytime Single fare, but I'd never consider paying for an Anytime Single. If I bought on the day at short notice and had to arrive into London for 1040, I'd get the 0822 GC instead. But is it fair to compare the £10 ticket to the cost of a GC ticket, and call that the discount?

If I get the 0936, am I comparing it to half the Super Off Peak Return fare, or the Super Off Peak Single fare? Again, I'd never consider purchasing the latter. But can I compare singles and returns like that?

I'm going to say nothing is discounted by 80% in my opinion because I'd never consider paying a fare that is 5 times as much in the first place.

 

[transportphoto]

If you read the post in the link it should be perfectly clear, but I'll summarise it ehre for others. All the main national websites (trainline, red spotted hanky, raileasy etc) have large ads on their home pages boasting 80% discounts. I'm asking what luck people have had finding and booking one of these fares.

Hope that clarifies!
Thanks

In my opionion these adverts are advertising that if you book through (insert booking engine) in advance and purchase AP tickets then you may save 80pc on the walk up fare valid for the train you wish to travel on.
This is a con as 99pc of the buisnesses saying this (TTL with their sheep ad comes to mind) charge extra booking fees and card fees (etc...), when if you go down the station (or visit a TOC site) you should get the same ticket price for the price of the ticket.



As I said above the only way to save money on train tickets is when TOC's give a pc off AP ticket prices and don't then charge you a booking fee.
For example East Coast's offer.

The con is that they are tricking you into believeing that they* set the price of the ticket, they don't they are selling it to you at the national rate as set by the relevent bodies. As I said above you can not save money on train tickets, all you are doing is buying a cheaper ticket with a different restriction.

I don't know how to put this so it makes sense, please question if you don't get it and I will try to explan.

* they being the retailer.

 

[wintonian]

When someone sees that a discount of X% is offered then they will generally assume this to be like for like i.e. exactly the same product but with a discount, a bit like in the January sales.

A possible analogy for online ticket sales is Tesco value baked beans being sold at 20p and advertised as having 80% off when in fact they are always this price and are being compared to the Tesco Finest range which sell for £1.00p but which differ in quality and the amount in the tin.

So we arrive back at; what are they comparing the product to? As it is obviously not a like for like comparison and therefore misleads the consumer without stating or making clear that the comparable product is in fact a different product all together.

 

[mickey]

A possible analogy for online ticket sales is Tesco value baked beans being sold at 20p and advertised as having 80% off when in fact they are always this price and are being compared to the Tesco Finest range which sell for £1.00p but which differ in quality and the amount in the tin.

So we arrive back at; what are they comparing the product to? As it is obviously not a like for like comparison and therefore misleads the consumer without stating or making clear that the comparable product is in fact a different product all together.

I like your analogy. Your post, together with Yorkie's above, clearly show why such advertising claims should be banned. AND why they should be forced to include their booking fees in their calculations.

I hope the OP bears all of this in mind when conducting his evidently flawed research.

 

[Deerfold]

I'd have to agree. The ticket I usually buy is £10.50. The walk up fare varies depend on the train I'm getting - it may be as much as £115.50 signle or as low as £85ish return.

You may class that as at least an 80% saving.

Sometimes I buy from eastcoast.co.uk, sometimes from Kings Cross station.

 

[JoolsStone]

Thanks for everyone's comments. Without getting into the semantics of what is and isn't a discount etc, (my poll was worded, clumsily perhaps, with brevity and grabbing enough attention to encourage votes in mind) the point of the resulting post is to point out the needlessly complex system we have and the misleading/unhelpful way that such 'discount fares' are promoted. If there are advance tickets at 80% off the standard walk up fare then why not show your customers when and where they are at a click?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Trainline has a habit of advertising that 'their customers' "saved an average of 43% compared to tickets bought on the day at the station". It is so very close to what Connex got slammed for back in the late 90s when they said something like "Buy a yearly season ticket from us and we will only charge you for 40 weeks". Both statements are almost certainly true (the latter was definately true), but both are equally misleading, the same deal can be made elsewhere.

It is the way of the world though, there was an advert on the radio for car MOTs which said "We promise not to fail your car when it should pass", I should hope so too!

 

[Greenback]

Thanks for everyone's comments. Without getting into the semantics of what is and isn't a discount etc, (my poll was worded, clumsily perhaps, with brevity and grabbing enough attention to encourage votes in mind) the point of the resulting post is to point out the needlessly complex system we have and the misleading/unhelpful way that such 'discount fares' are promoted. If there are advance tickets at 80% off the standard walk up fare then why not show your customers when and where they are at a click?

They can't do that because there aren't any in reality for the reasons mentioned in earlier posts!

It's an advertising ploy, which in my opinion should not be allowed, to try and convince people that they are getting a better deal than they could anywhere else. This is just not true, as any ticket that Trainline or RailEasy or any other online retailer sells can be bought from the TOC's at the same price, or even cheaper if they are offering a 5% online discount for their own tickets.

Then, of course, you have to add on card fees, postage fees, booking fees or whatever, and you usually end up paying more than going to a TOC website in the first place.

 

[mickey]

If there are advance tickets at 80% off the standard walk up fare then why not show your customers when and where they are at a click?

In fairness, some booking websites do this routinely. The LM and EC sites, for example, require you to click on a fare at the top of the page, where the first tab is for an 'Advance' and the lower one is the standard walk-on fare. It doesn't specify a percentage discount (rightly, given how few people ever buy the most expensive tickets, making such a comparison redundant) but it does allow you to see the difference in price - and, crucially, when buying a SVR is cheaper than two advance singles.

 

[Deerfold]

In fairness, some booking websites do this routinely. The LM and EC sites, for example, require you to click on a fare at the top of the page, where the first tab is for an 'Advance' and the lower one is the standard walk-on fare. It doesn't specify a percentage discount (rightly, given how few people ever buy the most expensive tickets, making such a comparison redundant) but it does allow you to see the difference in price - and, crucially, when buying a SVR is cheaper than two advance singles.

There's also East Coast's big box saying "Lowest Fares: Show Me" which highlights what the lowest fares available for the days you're travelling are and for each train - and it does select non-advance tickets if they're cheaper.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Rail fares are steadily resembling air fares with cheaper advance purchase fares. But nowadays, there's a drift towards booking directly with the airline and not an agency.

Yet with trains, there's these distracting ads giving you the impression that booking via an agency is the best. The trouble is, there's no single rail ticket web site. Instead, we face with a clutter of different websites invariably claming a good reason to book with them.

 

[Deerfold]

Rail fares are steadily resembling air fares with cheaper advance purchase fares. But nowadays, there's a drift towards booking directly with the airline and not an agency.

Yet with trains, there's these distracting ads giving you the impression that booking via an agency is the best. The trouble is, there's no single rail ticket web site. Instead, we face with a clutter of different websites invariably claming a good reason to book with them.

And it is annoying if you don't know about an operator-specific discount.

I know EC, VT, EM all offer them - meaning I have to have multiple accounts to get the cheapest fare.

 

[mickey]

And it is annoying if you don't know about an operator-specific discount.

I know EC, VT, EM all offer them - meaning I have to have multiple accounts to get the cheapest fare.

Before VT's thetrainline merged with NX's qjump some tickets and journeys simply weren't available from some operators. Then the companies got together and decided to offer everyone's tickets on all sites, which worked for a while. Then some started offering their own offers, notably GNER, FGW and VT, and everything started slipping away again. Now LM, TPE and CH have joined the list (along with Stagecoach's megatrain and Scotrail for the sleeper, of course) and we're back where we started. Or worse, even, since there are no doubt people who saw the publicity when it wasn't like this and still believe everyone's equal. AND in those days there were no such things as booking fees.

 

[shinkansen1966]

I have to have multiple accounts to get the cheapest fare.

We speak as one. I do the same thing. And similarly advise my non-rail expert friends, too.

 

[JoolsStone]

These are all great tips guys, you're obv more knowledgeable than me on this stuff. Feel free to vote and leave comments on my blog post to benefit others reading it.