Railcard minimum fares

[ehemia]

Question is specific to journeys from 04.30 and 10.00 Monday to Friday.
I have checked the railcard t&cs and it says the minimum fare is not needed for advanced tickets.
If i book an anytime ticket for Edinburgh to Glasgow with a railcard the ticket costs £10 but is this ticket valid?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@ehemia. Welcome to the forum. For the avoidance of doubt, what type of railcard are we talking about here?

 

[MrJeeves]

An anytime ticket is not an advance ticket, so no you'd only be able to use this after 10:00am Mon-Fri, excl bank holidays, provided the railcard you're using has these time restrictions.

I can't see any Anytime railcard-discounted tickets between Edinburgh and Glasgow for £10, though? Could you maybe share a screenshot or link to what you're seeing?

 

[Krokodil]

I can't see any Anytime railcard-discounted tickets between Edinburgh and Glasgow for £10, though?

Presumably the £9.80 day returns. Minimum fares would definitely apply pre-10am

 

[Fawkes Cat]

An anytime ticket is not an advance ticket

Indeed. To clarify further, 'an advance ticket' doesn't mean any ticket which you have bought some time before you travel: it's a particular type of ticket. From where you sit as a Railcard user, the good news is that you can get the Railcard discount on an advance ticket (as the railway uses the term): the bad news is that you can only use the ticket on the particular train that you booked it for.

 

[30907]

Presumably the £9.80 day returns. Minimum fares would definitely apply pre-10am

...and what you must not do is book one in advance at that price, choosing a train after 10am, and use it earlier, or you will be travelling without a valid ticket.

 

[Krokodil]

...and what you must not do is book one in advance at that price, choosing a train after 10am, and use it earlier, or you will be travelling without a valid ticket.

Indeed, I've caught a fair few who thought that they'd be clever and try that little wheeze.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

...and what you must not do is book one in advance at that price, choosing a train after 10am, and use it earlier, or you will be travelling without a valid ticket.

Indeed, I've caught a fair few who thought that they'd be clever and try that little wheeze.

Indeed, been a few newbies, from time-to-time, needing help in the 'Disputes & Prosecutions' sub-forum having being caught doing similar.

Not sure if the OP has since come back clarifying which railcard they actually hold, but, notwithstanding, which railcards (if any) do allow valid discounts on walk-up Anytime or Off Peak tickets for journeys commencing between 04.30 and 10.00 Monday to Friday, albeit possibly subject to a minimum fare, and which don't?

 

[swt_passenger]

Indeed, been a few newbies, from time-to-time, needing help in the 'Disputes & Prosecutions' sub-forum having done similar.

A few forum members jump in each time to suggest it’s the fault of the industry for issuing tickets that still use Anytime in their description, although the railcard restriction overrides it. Then they suggest an App is confusing, or take an “I never read the T&Cs anyway” sort of approach…

 

[Starmill]

There did used to be a bit of an issue where some ticket machines, including Avantix machines, didn't actually know what to do with the minimum fare because they weren't given logic for it. As such if you needed a ticket with the minimum fare as this was cheaper than the ticket without the railcard it was often not done wrongly. With Avantix it was almost always done wrongly because finding the button to apply the minimum fare wasn't easy.

However, of course Avantix is now gone and has been for long years. As far as I'm aware, its replacements have the correct logic to apply the minimum fare by default if the train the customer has joined is at such a time as the minimum fare applies, and the minimum fare is cheaper than the ticket without a railcard. For ticket machines I think in general it's also working as it should, although I don't know what happens if a train leaves at 1000 on say an EMR or ScotRail machine, in respect of offering the correct ticket with a few minutes allowance to get to the platform before departure time.

 

[ehemia]

@ehemia. Welcome to the forum. For the avoidance of doubt, what type of railcard are we talking about here?

16-25?apologies

 

[Mcr Warrior]

16-25?apologies

£12.00 minimum fare applies if travelling on a journey commencing between 04.30 and 10.00 Monday to Friday. That's still a saving on the undiscounted £14.90 Edinburgh to Glasgow Central / Queen Street (walk up) day return fare.

 

[CyrusWuff]

However, of course Avantix is now gone and has been for long years. As far as I'm aware, its replacements have the correct logic to apply the minimum fare by default if the train the customer has joined is at such a time as the minimum fare applies, and the minimum fare is cheaper than the ticket without a railcard.

Sadly not the case with Worldline Envoy/MTiS/TOMTIS/@station/Tribute X (depending on which TOC is using it and whether it's on board or at a Ticket Office.)

In its default state Timetable enquiry mode is decoupled from Fares enquiry mode, just like Avantix, so staff generally have to apply it manually. (The alternative being to apply it all the time, in which case they'd need to remove it manually.)