The Great GWR Sale Con.

[Envoy]

Went to the GWR website to check out the fares in their January sale. I put in for Cardiff to Penzance on 22 March & got the message that nothing was available in the sale - (image 1 below). So, I thought, what would it cost if I just bought an advance one way ticket and the price given on the GWR website is £98 (image 2 below). Goodness knows who would pay that as it is cheaper to fly to the Med? Anyway, I then checked on the Scotrail website and it did indeed tell me that GWR were having a sale and that I could go from CDF > PNZ for £20.95 (image 3).

I did the same thing for Cardiff to Dorchester and again, GWR sale site tells me that nothing is available. Went on Scotrail and it offered me loads of trains priced at £10.

So, I could have paid £77.05 more had I booked direct with GWR rather than Scotrail for using the same GWR through train from CDF > PNZ. How do you explain that GWR and the fact that Scotrail website can show the reductions but your site can’t for your own trains?

 

[Idiotic]

I believe it’s because the GWR site doesn’t support split ticketing / splitsave?

So it’s selling you the £98 advance single ticket as the cheapest ticket available.

Other websites including scotrail offer split ticketing in their results so will show you a split ticket which one of them is in the sale.

It’s done a split ticket Advance Single Cardiff to Pilning then a January Sale Advance Single from Pilning to Penzance.

 

[hexagon789]

Went to the GWR website to check out the fares in their January sale. I put in for Cardiff to Penzance on 22 March & got the message that nothing was available in the sale - (image 1 below). So, I thought, what would it cost if I just bought an advance one way ticket and the price given on the GWR website is £98 (image 2 below). Goodness knows who would pay that as it is cheaper to fly to the Med? Anyway, I then checked on the Scotrail website and it did indeed tell me that GWR were having a sale and that I could go from CDF > PNZ for £20.95 (image 3).

I did the same thing for Cardiff to Dorchester and again, GWR sale site tells me that nothing is available. Went on Scotrail and it offered me loads of trains priced at £10.

So, I could have paid £77.05 more had I booked direct with GWR rather than Scotrail for using the same GWR through train from CDF > PNZ. How do you explain that GWR and the fact that Scotrail website can show the reductions but your site can’t for your own trains?

The GWR ticket is one straight through ticket; the one on the ScotRail website is a split ticket.

 

[Envoy]

I believe it’s because the GWR site doesn’t support split ticketing / splitsave?

So it’s selling you the £98 advance single ticket as the cheapest ticket available.

Other websites including scotrail offer split ticketing in their results so will show you a split ticket which one of them is in the sale.

It’s done a split ticket Advance Single Cardiff to Pilning then a January Sale Advance Single from Pilning to Penzance.

What member of the public would know that to find sale tickets on GWR between Cardiff & Penzance you do a split at Pilning - otherwise you end up paying £77.05 more? It just goes to show how ridiculous the rail industry is and needs urgent reform. The way things are, the high fares charged are just encouraging car travel.

 

[Mark J]

Like others have said, GWR will only sell you a end to end ticket.

If you want greater savings, need to use sites like the forum split ticket site.

RailUK Tickets, powered by Trainsplit

TrainSplit is a free service that makes it easy to find the cheapest train tickets for your journey.

tickets.railforums.co.uk

It is actually better than the parent Ticketsplit app.

Also in some cases, you need to look at your return trip as two single journeys to gain the best price.

I found this on a future booked trip to Worcester. Whereby I had to book as two single journeys, rather than a return - as the booking system refused to give a good return price. It found a good price when I did this as a single journey.

 

[hexagon789]

What member of the public would know that to find sale tickets on GWR between Cardiff & Penzance you do a split at Pilning - otherwise you end up paying £77.05 more? It just goes to show how ridiculous the rail industry is and needs urgent reform. The way things are, the high fares charged are just encouraging car travel.

But it's not like that.

Essentially GWR are saying there are no sale tickets for the through journey, on a simple point-to-point basis they have sold out presumably or were not originally offered.

Third party retailers, or those with limited split functionality (such as ScotRail who use the Trainline system), are selling the journey as two or more sale tickets each covering a segment of the overall journey; those shorter segments still having sale tickets available.

Unless all retailers are made to offer at least basic split ticket functionality, these different are always going to present themselves and frankly no one is forced to buy the tickets at all, if they are unaware of split ticketing on other sites and aren't willing to pay the figure GWR quote, they can always chose to not travel, travel another day when it may be cheaper, travel by coach or travel by car.

GWR aren't obliged to offer suitable Sale tickets for everyone and this whole thing about being unable to find them for a particular journey on a particular day comes up every year like clockwork...

 

[Watershed]

But it's not like that.

Essentially GWR are saying there are no sale tickets for the through journey, on a simple point-to-point basis they have sold out presumably or were not originally offered.

Third party retailers, or those with limited split functionality (such as ScotRail who use the Trainline system), are selling the journey as two or more sale tickets each covering a segment of the overall journey; those shorter segments still having sale tickets available.

Unless all retailers are made to offer at least basic split ticket functionality, these different are always going to present themselves and frankly no one is forced to buy the tickets at all, if they are unaware of split ticketing on other sites and aren't willing to pay the figure GWR quote, they can always chose to not travel, travel another day when it may be cheaper, travel by coach or travel by car.

GWR aren't obliged to offer suitable Sale tickets for everyone and this whole thing about being unable to find them for a particular journey on a particular day comes up every year like clockwork...

I think that @Envoy nevertheless makes a very fair point, in that it's bizarre GWR choose not to offer sale fares throughout. Splitting shouldn't really be necessary. Nevertheless, those are the options which are available and I can't see any prospect of splits disappearing any time soon.

 

[MrJeeves]

It is actually better than the parent Ticketsplit app.

Every TrainSplit/Raileasy site uses the same journey planner and the same split ticketing algorithm. There's no favouritism (or the opposite).

 

[hexagon789]

I think that @Envoy nevertheless makes a very fair point, in that it's bizarre GWR choose not to offer sale fares throughout. Splitting shouldn't really be necessary. Nevertheless, those are the options which are available and I can't see any prospect of splits disappearing any time soon.

It's not that I don't think they make reasonable points, but as is so often the case people present two examples and claim they demonstrate one party is acting unfairly, even outright dishonestly when the examples frequently do not make a like-for-like comparison.

It's this presentation of examples like that as being blatantly dishonest that I object to. I don't see it as any different as buying airline tickets from the airline, from a third-party retailer, from a travel agent or as a package deal - you wouldn't expect to be presented with exactly the same air fares there would you?

Some third party sites will sell the airline equivalent of split tickets, no one seems to complain when a single ticket with an airline costs more than a longer split ticket where you perhaps fly to a third airport in the middle because that works out cheaper overall.

 

[Mark J]

Every TrainSplit/Raileasy site uses the same journey planner and the same split ticketing algorithm. There's no favouritism (or the opposite).

Not quite.

No options for via, avoid and max no of changes in the Trainsplit app. Without these options, some strange (and sometimes expensive) routing options can occur on occasions.

Plus no Plusbus options.

Which is why the forum site is currently better than the parent site's app.

 

[Harratt4]

It's not that I don't think they make reasonable points, but as is so often the case people present two examples and claim they demonstrate one party is acting unfairly, even outright dishonestly when the examples frequently do not make a like-for-like comparison.

It's this presentation of examples like that as being blatantly dishonest that I object to. I don't see it as any different as buying airline tickets from the airline, from a third-party retailer, from a travel agent or as a package deal - you wouldn't expect to be presented with exactly the same air fares there would you?

Some third party sites will sell the airline equivalent of split tickets, no one seems to complain when a single ticket with an airline costs more than a longer split ticket where you perhaps fly to a third airport in the middle because that works out cheaper overall.

I think perhaps why people think differently about airline tickets (though your point is a valid one) is because in most cases the Average Joe would find multiple (or at least two) competing airlines on a route whereas they perceive (rightly or wrongly - but that is a different discussion) that TOCs have a monopoly. Therefore they feel that TOCs should always offer the lowest possible fare. For most people the concept of split tickets is unknown or at least little understood and they don't get that holding two partial tickets for a journey could / should / might be cheaper than holding a single through ticket for the same journey.

Im not saying you're not correct just that most people will perceive things in a different way.

 

[MrJeeves]

Not quite.

No options for via, avoid and max no of changes in the Trainsplit app. Without these options, some strange (and sometimes expensive) routing options can occur on occasions.

Plus no Plusbus options.

Which is why the forum site is currently better than the parent site's app.

It's still the same journey planner, just you don't get all the same advanced controls on the apps versus the websites.

It will be added eventually, but there's no ETA at the moment.

 

[hexagon789]

Im not saying you're not correct just that most people will perceive things in a different way.

No I appreciate that, but differences in perception has a lot to play here and far more than people seem to consider much of the time.

 

[redreni]

It doesn't matter if GWR are acting badly or not, it is still ridiculous from the passenger's point of view that if they turned up at a ticket office or bought from most TOCs they would be charged £77 more for this journey than if they bought split tickets. The fact people aren't held at gunpoint and forced to pay this fare doesn't mean it isn't ridiculous and counterproductive that that's all the train operator's own website will offer. People know they don't have to pay fares like that: they don't, and they drive instead.

Also, £98 for an inflexible single ticket? I know it's a long old way, but really?

The split involving the January Sale Advance, by contrast, looks like terrific value.

 

[Sonic1234]

Also, £98 for an inflexible single ticket? I know it's a long old way, but really?

The days of the cheap Advance are mostly over. Quite a lot of the time a pair of Advances on GWR is only a few pounds less than the Super Off Peak. Still doesn't stop TOCs referring to them as "heavily discounted".

 

[Mark J]

I think that @Envoy nevertheless makes a very fair point, in that it's bizarre GWR choose not to offer sale fares throughout. Splitting shouldn't really be necessary. Nevertheless, those are the options which are available and I can't see any prospect of splits disappearing any time soon.

It is somewhat laughable that there is a 50% sale, for which further savings can be made by splitting those sale tickets. Or combining sale tickets, with other tickets, to have an overall cheaper price than what the sale offers.

For example, some journeys I've done Reading to Didcot with Network discount. Then picked up sale tickets from Didcot to onward destination. This is cheaper than Reading to final destination sale tickets - even with the small commission the forum ticket site charges.

I've also found in one, or two cases, that starting the journey in Wokingham, is cheaper than from Reading!

Example: Reading to Worcester is £6 single. From Wokingham, £5.

Wokingham is around six miles to the east of Reading.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jan 2025 ==

I also can't see how GWR can claim to offer sale tickets with validity until 13th April.

When:

1) The booking engine only runs up to three months in advance.
2) The sale ends tomorrow, with tickets only purchasable up to Wednesday 9th April by then.

 

[StarCrossing]

Splitting at Pilning? Its user numbers are going to go through the roof!

 

[Mark J]

Splitting at Pilning? Its user numbers are going to go through the roof!

Doesn't Pilning get something like two trains a week?

 

[Hophead]

I have to say - I've found this GWR offer extremely disappointing, with fares generally too high to prompt me to make a wholly optional journey. I've booked just one trip when I would have expected to head out west 3 or 4 times over the next few months. And that's with checking fares from/to Paddington, as well as both Guildford & Reading) Saves me money of course, and perhaps the Big Rail Sale will give me some options.

 

[Mark J]

I have to say - I've found this GWR offer extremely disappointing, with fares generally too high to prompt me to make a wholly optional journey. I've booked just one trip when I would have expected to head out west 3 or 4 times over the next few months. And that's with checking fares from/to Paddington, as well as both Guildford & Reading) Saves me money of course, and perhaps the Big Rail Sale will give me some options.

I was looking at Reading to Cardiff.

However, all the journeys I found involved a change a Bristol TM.

After my experience last year, wasn't keen on doing that again.

At Bristol TM, everyone was crush loaded on a three carriage 'Thames Turbo' to Cardiff.

Highly unpleasant experience.

 

[Envoy]

I was looking at Reading to Cardiff.

However, all the journeys I found involved a change a Bristol TM.

After my experience last year, wasn't keen on doing that again.

At Bristol TM, everyone was crush loaded on a three carriage 'Thames Turbo' to Cardiff.

Highly unpleasant experience.

Sounds like you ended up on one of the Thames Turbos on the Portsmouth to Cardiff route which can’t cope with the number of passengers if only 3 car. That being so, I really do wonder why the ticket you purchased from Reading to Cardiff sent you via a change at Temple Meads? If it was because the fare was cheaper than using the direct trains between Reading & Cardiff, then that is appalling as surely the last thing that GWR would want is to encourage people to go via Temple Meads to save money and hence add to the overloading on the Portsmouth to Cardiff route.

 

[Mark J]

Sounds like you ended up on one of the Thames Turbos on the Portsmouth to Cardiff route which can’t cope with the number of passengers if only 3 car. That being so, I really do wonder why the ticket you purchased from Reading to Cardiff sent you via a change at Temple Meads? If it was because the fare was cheaper than using the direct trains between Reading & Cardiff, then that is appalling as surely the last thing that GWR would want is to encourage people to go via Temple Meads to save money and hence add to the overloading on the Portsmouth to Cardiff route.

Ideally I would of preferred the route via Bristol Parkway.

However, when I did searches, all the trains were listed as via Bristol TM.

When I did the journey last year, the three carriage Turbo was already full and standing by the time it reached Bristol TM. A few got off, however many more got on.

Had to sit on one of the luggage rack spaces for the entire journey.

The Turbo also crawled through the northern suburbs of Bristol, towards Pilning and Severn Tunnel. Think I may of had a 15 minute delay repay in the end.

GWR do not seem to run IET trains between Cardiff and Bristol- from what I could tell (I may be wrong). However, that was certainly true on the Saturday I did the journey.

 

[Envoy]

Ideally I would of preferred the route via Bristol Parkway.

However, when I did searches, all the trains were listed as via Bristol TM.

When I did the journey last year, the three carriage Turbo was already full and standing by the time it reached Bristol TM. A few got off, however many more got on.

Had to sit on one of the luggage rack spaces for the entire journey.

The Turbo also crawled through the northern suburbs of Bristol, towards Pilning and Severn Tunnel. Think I may of had a 15 minute delay repay in the end.

GWR do not seem to run IET trains between Cardiff and Bristol- from what I could tell (I may be wrong). However, that was certainly true on the Saturday I did the journey.

Between Cardiff & Bristol Temple Meads, GWR run one train hourly to Portsmouth and this will be a 158 or 165/6. In addition, they run an hourly service from Cardiff to the south-west (via Temple Meads) and it is these trains which are 5 car Hitachi 800’s - so given a choice, these are the ones to go for.