When the routing engines won't give you a fare...

[Julia]

Puzzled over this one. I want to travel from Milton Keynes to Glasgow next Saturday. There appears to be a convenient connection 1313 MKC->Edinburgh, with a leisurely change into a Glasgow train at Preston or Carlisle. However, Avanti's booking engine insists I take the 1250 Manchester, and then a local Northern to Wigan, to pick up the same Glasgow train. Is it simply not possible to do what I want, or could sense prevail if I went to my local station and booked there?

(Context - I actually want to travel St Neots - Glasgow, but LNER is on strike, Lumo is sold out, EMR are bustituted north of Nottingham, so the best option appears to be the X5 bus across to MKC. And reading the Avanti weekend cancellations thread is worrying me somewhat. Does anyone have any better ideas that don't involve driving?!)


Edit - it looks like Avanti haven't finalised the timetable for that weekend, but in that case how can one sensibly book anything?!

 

[Merseysider]

Not necessarily a “better” idea, but an alternative - Avanti are truly abysmal at the moment - Luton Airport has easyjet flights for £125 though it’ll take you 2 hours to get there on the buses via Bedford if you don’t have a car.

That said, it’d probably still be quicker than the train when you factor in waiting around at the station when 3 consecutive Avanti trains get cancelled...

 

[hexagon789]

National Rail will offer the itinerary, with a 12 min change at Lancaster. Don't know why Avanti won't as the ticket purchasing redirect from NR goes to Avanti!

 

[alistairlees]

Puzzled over this one. I want to travel from Milton Keynes to Glasgow next Saturday. There appears to be a convenient connection 1313 MKC->Edinburgh, with a leisurely change into a Glasgow train at Preston or Carlisle. However, Avanti's booking engine insists I take the 1250 Manchester, and then a local Northern to Wigan, to pick up the same Glasgow train. Is it simply not possible to do what I want, or could sense prevail if I went to my local station and booked there?

(Context - I actually want to travel St Neots - Glasgow, but LNER is on strike, Lumo is sold out, EMR are bustituted north of Nottingham, so the best option appears to be the X5 bus across to MKC. And reading the Avanti weekend cancellations thread is worrying me somewhat. Does anyone have any better ideas that don't involve driving?!)


Edit - it looks like Avanti haven't finalised the timetable for that weekend, but in that case how can one sensibly book anything?!

Avanti's IBM-based "PICO4UK" booking engine is, indeed, rubbish, though I can't get it to do that. It does only offer a 13.19 departure from MKC to GLC arr. 18.39 (with changes at Crewe and Lancaster), and not also the 13.13 departure from MKC (with one change at Carlisle), also arriving at 18.39. It should offer both.

 

[miklcct]

Avanti's IBM-based "PICO4UK" booking engine is, indeed, rubbish, though I can't get it to do that. It does only offer a 13.19 departure from MKC to GLC arr. 18.39 (with changes at Crewe and Lancaster), and not also the 13.13 departure from MKC (with one change at Carlisle), also arriving at 18.39. It should offer both.

As the 13:13 - 18:39 itinerary is inferior in terms of time compared to 13:19 - 18:39 itinerary, normal journey planners won't show them by default.

Some journey planners allow you to specify the number of changes, force or exclude passing stations / interchange stations, or to specify additional interchange time as well. If you want such an inferior itinerary you can use them to make it.

 

[Julia]

Seems odd that they don't all use the same engine!

I haven't seen one that lets you specify "fewest changes" (sometimes "direct only", but that's no help here), and 6 minutes extra to save one change - i.e. one fewer point of hassle and potential failure - seems such a good trade I can't imagine anyone not wanting to see it?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not necessarily a “better” idea, but an alternative - Avanti are truly abysmal at the moment - Luton Airport has easyjet flights for £125 though it’ll take you 2 hours to get there on the buses via Bedford if you don’t have a car.

From MK to Luton Airport use the hourly 99 direct, no need to be faffing with connections. Or a taxi, which can be quite cheap with the local operators, if out of hours of bus operation.

Edit: Oh...St Neots? Flights from Stansted, if there are any, and a taxi? Avanti are dross at the moment, I'd not trust them as far as I could throw them.

 

[AlterEgo]

Just use Trainsplit, it is much better for forcing changes using the advanced tools.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just use Trainsplit, it is much better for forcing changes using the advanced tools.

And the seat selector!

 

[Haywain]

Or a taxi, which can be quite cheap with the local operators, if out of hours of bus operation.

‘Cheap’ is, of course, relative and in my experience the price tends to be higher for going to Luton because of the airport.

 

[SickyNicky]

As the 13:13 - 18:39 itinerary is inferior in terms of time compared to 13:19 - 18:39 itinerary, normal journey planners won't show them by default.

They don't have to. But I think they should. Especially less changes with the same fare, or more changes with a cheaper fare. A quick check of ours shows the following options, without checking fares and applying interchange preferences:

Key: MKC - Milton Keynes Central, LAN - Lancaster, CAR - Carlisle, GLC - Glasgow Central, PNR - Penrith, PRE - Preston, CRE - Crewe

13:13-18:39 MKC to PRE (VT 13:13-15:50) S I 6 PRE to GLC (TP 16:04-18:39) S I
13:13-18:39 MKC to LAN (VT 13:13-16:08) S I 6 LAN to GLC (TP 16:20-18:39) S I
13:13-18:39 MKC to PNR (VT 13:13-16:43) S I 11 PNR to GLC (TP 16:59-18:39) S I
13:13-18:39 MKC to CAR (VT 13:13-16:59) S I 9 CAR to GLC (TP 17:16-18:39) S I
FAST 13:19-18:39 MKC to CRE (LM 13:19-14:54) S I 4 CRE to PRE (VT 15:08-15:50) S I 6 PRE to GLC (TP 16:04-18:39) S I
FAST 13:19-18:39 MKC to CRE (LM 13:19-14:54) S I 4 CRE to LAN (VT 15:08-16:08) S I 6 LAN to GLC (TP 16:20-18:39) S I
FAST 13:19-18:39 MKC to CRE (LM 13:19-14:54) S I 4 CRE to PNR (VT 15:08-16:43) S I 11 PNR to GLC (TP 16:59-18:39) S I
FAST 13:19-18:39 MKC to CRE (LM 13:19-14:54) S I 4 CRE to CAR (VT 15:08-16:59) S I 9 CAR to GLC (TP 17:16-18:39) S I

 

[Julia]

From MK to Luton Airport use the hourly 99 direct, no need to be faffing with connections. Or a taxi, which can be quite cheap with the local operators, if out of hours of bus operation.

Edit: Oh...St Neots? Flights from Stansted, if there are any, and a taxi? Avanti are dross at the moment, I'd not trust them as far as I could throw them.

Thanks to all... managed to get the LNER website to do what I wanted in the end, and left some colourful feedback on the Avanti one...

All the suggestions are appreciated, but flying is an absolute no for us. (And driving all the way, last time I did that I ended up with the most appalling backache for a week after, so that's a no too)

 

[yorkie]

Thanks to all... managed to get the LNER website to do what I wanted in the end, and left some colourful feedback on the Avanti one...

The downside of that is you won't have been able to use the seat selector; if you want to be able to choose decent seats, LNER do it but only for their own trains, Avanti/XC are the same; only Trainsplit does them all. You can refer to seating plan PDFs to see a proper seating plan. Of course you may not mind what your allocated seat is, but it's worth bearing that in mind.

I don't think Avanti will be interested in the feedback; they've had plenty of feedback on twitter and here and largely ignore it. There's no real reason to use the Avanti website anyway.