I didn't get the chance to tell them. Nice way to try and deflect blame for the inability of the railway industry to provide value for money walk on fares by the way.
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Ideas for more services like Lumo on the UK rail network?
- Thread starter Jorge Da Silva
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I didn't get the chance to tell them. Nice way to try and deflect blame for the inability of the railway industry to provide value for money walk on fares by the way.
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RailUK Forums
You can travel tomorrow for less than £30.
Remember that "Advance Fares" and "Walk on" are no longer mutually exclusive. You can travel on the 2017 departure this very evening for £31.20.
I don't want to travel tomorrow, and if I did, I might want the ability to change my plans.
In which case, pay the premium. Why should other passengers or the taxpayer be subsidising your "flexibility"?
It's an unacceptable premium.
But you buy it. So clearly it is acceptable. As you have accepted it by buying it. As do many other passengers (including myself on occasion)
I've never bought that ticket.
You can pussy-foot around the issue all you like, however we need walk-on fares that are closer to the continental norm.
You can buy a ticket to travel this very evening for between £31.20 and £48.
Paris to Lille right now is flat £55.
Berlin to Hamburg right now is flat €79.
Seems we get the good deal....
And what is the Paris to Lille or Berlin to Hamburg equivalent of a super off-peak single, may I ask ?
Why would anybody buy one, when you can turn up and book a cheap single on the next train there and then?
If you're guaranteed a cheap single whenever you turn up there and then. You're certainly not here.
Nor are you there.
No cheap single? Just book the next train and go get some Currywurst while you wait. Or pay the premium.
In that case, I repeat my previous question:
What is the Paris - Lille or Berlin - Hamburg equivalent of a super off peak single ?
Appears to be €76 for a Flexpries between Berlin and Hamburg (sorry, "fixed" is actually €69, my mistake).
Paris-Lille only appears to be £55 (but is of course compulsory reservation, so not truly equivalent to a super off-peak)
Not that there is much advantage to the flexible fares, given you can just walk up and buy the fixed train versions anyway. Right now, travelling at short notice, Doncaster-London is the better deal if you drop the prejudice against a fare because it is "Advance".
Regarding the Super Off Peak Single between London and Wakefield, hopefully it wasn't the £121.10 version and was actually the £59.90 version as part of a return.
Any customer with the former is effectively paying double what everyone else is.
Any customer with the former is effectively paying double what everyone else is.
Haywain
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Along with higher taxation?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Because the competitor is the car, and the car is flexible?
A Sheffield, Barnsley or Chesterfield to London St Pancras Super Off Peak Return at £84.00 is close to (but not quite) competitive enough on price with driving.
The price from Wakefield to London is a massive outlier at £122.00. It costs £20.60 more than Doncaster to London at £101.40, which is rather a lot for the extra mileage. It even costs £2.30 more than a York to London return!
To fit in with the prices stations around it, Wakefield to London would be better to come down by £5 - 7. LNER must have some particular reason for wanting people from Wakefield to pay more.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That needs sorting out, then. It is not even like the Lancaster issue of restrictions being different, it is prices for the same fare getting higher as you get towards London. Outrageous.
The Paris - Lille fare is certainly competitive, although I admit its limited by the number of seats. I'd still rather rely on that than the vaguaries of some algorithm designed to rinse the public for as much as possible.
The Frankfurt one less so, but then again still a lot better value than here.
It was I'm afraid. The person who purchased it clearly wasn't an expert in train ticketing, but then again should everyone be required to be ?
The outward journey was AP and the note I received third hand was that the return portion had been bought to provide us with some flexibility in case the event ran on.
Maybe, but only once the industries costs have been properly benchmarked against comparable networks and our public spend on railways has been benchmarked against comparable countries.
Outrageous maybe, but also perfectly lawful - and potentially a good way to cash in.
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Oops. So the employer in this case has paid more for one way between Wakefield and London than is charged for a round trip between York and London. Big oops.
Indeed. But train fares aren't exactly transparent.
Personally I think £120 for a 350 mile round trip with decent flexibility, in two hours each way with the ability to work / read / watch a film / sleep / whatever along the way, in reasonable comfort, is pretty good value. And on the basis that you may not have needed full flexibility heading north (given that you were going for a specific reason, presumably with a specific start time), then the trip would easily be less than £100 which starts to look like great value compared to 3-4 hours each way on the M1.
Or am I missing something.
For starters, it wasn't a round trip, it was the single.
Ok, then £59.90 for a 175mile one way trip with decent flexibility (and the rest applies).
The issue is that yorksrob (or rather their employer) has been charged double that.
I also provided a few supplementary details on how Wakefield get a rather worse value for money deal than all of the other Yorkshire towns and cities that surround it in post 138.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
If that were available on its own to Wakefield I'd agree with you. It's alas not.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, that a modern car would easily do it for £60 worth of fuel (with 5 people in it if you want). And is as flexible as an Anytime Return. And nobody, literally nobody, accounts car use as anything other than fuel-ish per journey and the rest as a near-fixed, sunk cost.
I find WCML Off Peaks borderline-reasonable (and they are about 10% lower than other routes for historical reasons). Others not. And other than the few at 50% of return, Off Peak Singles are not reasonable.
With a Railcard, train fares head into reasonable territory. Which is why a National Railcard is sorely needed - it fits into the same market as the sunk costs of running a car.
The Super Off Peak Return between London and Sheffield really is good value as it's a little less again. Especially as the £84 return is also available from Barnsley or Swinton or Dore etc.
Quite.
If I was in a spot, and needed to get there in a hurry, I could see sixty quid as fairly reasonable.
*whisper voice* you can as long as you ask for a single to Leeds. You can then just exit at Wakefield Westgate if you want to.
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