LNER direct booking savings

[johntea]

Since when has LNER offered a (rather significant) discount for purchasing tickets for their services direct via their website? (Presumably just advance tickets)

E.g. a Wakefield - London advance yesterday should have cost £59 but booking it via the LNER website it was offered at £43.40!

 

[westv]

What makes you say it should be £59?

 

[hexagon789]

What makes you say it should be £59?

Especially given there are advances for tomorrow at £30!

 

[johntea]

What makes you say it should be £59?

I needed to make a last minute booking yesterday for the 09:29 Wakefield - London service and actually was looking on the National Rail site to begin with which showed £59.00, but when I went to book it I used the LNER site which popped up with a 'direct booking saver' discount (I can't remember the exact wording but you can see in the booking confirmation below)

Advance Single x 1 £59.00

Total Price £43.40

 

[Haywain]

I suspect you may have benefitted from LNER's own brand of split ticket saving.

 

[Wallsendmag]

The combined PDF tickets indicates that it's a split ticket

 

[Vespa]

If that's the case, good on them for being proactive in saving customers money.

 

[bakerstreet]

Is LNER the first (and only) TOC to do this?
Anyone know how successful it is at finding splits when compared with - say - Trainline and TrainSplit?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Is LNER the first (and only) TOC to do this?
Anyone know how successful it is at finding splits when compared with - say - Trainline and TrainSplit?

The Arriva Customer Engine (as used by Chiltern and Grand Central, but not CrossCountry - they're still using Trainline for some reason) can handle some simple splits, though doesn't communicate that it's done them in a clear manner.

One example being York to Cross Gates. That's generally faster via Leeds, which technically involves doubling back, so it will sell a York to Leeds ticket alongside a Leeds to Cross Gates one.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I think the unique selling point for ours offering is that you only get one ticket.

 

[bakerstreet]

I think the unique selling point for ours offering is that you only get one ticket.

That is impressive. Presumably only on e-tickets? Is this walk and advances?

 

[Wallsendmag]

That is impressive. Presumably only on e-tickets? Is this walk and advances?

It’s limited, Advance only and only on our Advance and eTickets and I also think just the one split

 

[Adam Williams]

I was unable to get it to do any splits at all in my limited testing (One-way WKF -> KGX, TrainSplit will split at PBO and combine two advances - LNER just sells a more expensive single advance).
Rather disappointing show, though it's possible I was missing something.

 

[yorkie]

Is LNER the first (and only) TOC to do this?
Anyone know how successful it is at finding splits when compared with - say - Trainline and TrainSplit?

I think the unique selling point for ours offering is that you only get one ticket.

It’s limited, Advance only and only on our Advance and eTickets and I also think just the one split

Trainsplit will issue one PDF with multiple tickets, which is surely just as convenient as having one ticket.

Trainsplit also looks at the whole journey including any connections, i.e. not just LNER only, and also looks at walk-ups, as well as looking for the optimal splits, not just limited to one ticket.

 

[adrock1976]

It’s limited, Advance only and only on our Advance and eTickets and I also think just the one split

Would the LNER website split an Advance Croy - Scarborough/Filey journey as this is priced by LNER, or would I have to do it manually/use the Trainsplit website as the Croy - Edinburgh is Scotrail and the York - Scarborough/Filey is TPE+Northern?

 

[yorkie]

Would the LNER website split an Advance Croy - Scarborough/Filey journey as this is priced by LNER, or would I have to do it manually/use the Trainsplit website as the Croy - Edinburgh is Scotrail and the York - Scarborough/Filey is TPE+Northern?

There can be a premium of over £20 to book with LNER for this journey:



LNER are really just doing gimmicks to try to stem the loss of custom to websites such as Trainsplit and try to encourage people to think it's better to book "direct".

To be fair, their marketing actually works with most people (including the original poster of this thread).

 

[johntea]

Yes, it certainly 'fooled' me into thinking it was a LNER discount rather than some fancy split ticket action in the background that would encourage repeat booking via the LNER website

Oddly I consider myself to be actually fairly switched on in terms of using tools such as split ticketing but have never really looked for something like a Wakefield - London journey and now I'm thinking why not, perhaps because usually I'm not so last minute and I suspect booking early enough there wouldn't be much of a saving on the 'lower tier' of advance fares

Still at least I will give credit to LNER for encouraging it as a 26% discount is a 26% discount, a shame the National Rail website for example doesn't seem so keen on doing so!

 

[thejuggler]

Last time I was planning a London trip from Leeds I searched split tickets and the variety was quite something.

Depending on time I had splits at combinations of Wakefield, Doncaster, Peterborough and Stevenage.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Yes, it certainly 'fooled' me into thinking it was a LNER discount rather than some fancy split ticket action in the background that would encourage repeat booking via the LNER website

Oddly I consider myself to be actually fairly switched on in terms of using tools such as split ticketing but have never really looked for something like a Wakefield - London journey and now I'm thinking why not, perhaps because usually I'm not so last minute and I suspect booking early enough there wouldn't be much of a saving on the 'lower tier' of advance fares

Still at least I will give credit to LNER for encouraging it as a 26% discount is a 26% discount, a shame the National Rail website for example doesn't seem so keen on doing so!

It certainly wouldn't encourage website traffic as it's only on the App

 

[Adam Williams]

Oh dear, it really does feel like x-platform feature parity is an increasingly difficult concept for product managers to grasp nowadays.

 

[johntea]

Interesting as I'm pretty sure I booked it by just visiting lner.co.uk on my phone rather than actually using the specific LNER app!