Avanti - changing an Advance price query

[Par]

I’m looking to potentially change two Advances bought direct with Avanti. I understand that there is a £10 per ticket admin fee, but understood that if the new ticket was the same price (or lower) than the original, then that was it, £10 per ticket.

On attempting to make the change they are asking for an extra £5.60 (£2.80 x 2) which has left me confused. They want £25.60 total.

I paid £49.60 originally and the tickets I am now looking at are currently on sale at £48.60

Am I missing something or is this an error in Avanti’s part?

Please see attached images.

Thanks

 

[Adam Williams]

Can you include a screenshot of the booking confirmation, so it's clear exactly what tickets you currently hold? I cannot currently work it out from just this ("I paid £49.60 originally")

 

[Par]

Can you include a screenshot of the booking confirmation, so it's clear exactly what tickets you currently hold? I cannot currently work it out from just this ("I paid £49.60 originally")

Yes, see below. These are 2 x Advance singles, London to Manchester, booked with a Two Together Railcard. These were booked in December. 2 x £24.80 = £49.60. The train I’m looking at would allow a new booking for 2 x Advance singles (with the aforementioned Railcard) for £48.60 as per my original post.

 

[AlterEgo]

I cannot find a fare for £24.80 in the database. That's quite odd - did you use any other discounts?

 

[Adam Williams]

I cannot find a fare for £24.80 in the database

Nor can I! Very confused by this, I checked previous fares rounds as well

 

[Par]

I cannot find a fare for £24.80 in the database. That's quite odd - did you use any other discounts?

No, no additional discounts. Below is the “ticket info” page from the e-ticket in my Apple wallet.

What I do know is that Avanti are asking for an additional £5.60 on top of the £49.60 I’ve already paid for tickets currently retailing at £48.60, which appears to be a bit of an anomaly.

 

[Watershed]

I cannot find a fare for £24.80 in the database. That's quite odd - did you use any other discounts?

The rounding rules or Advance fares may have changed since the purchase was made?

 

[alistairlees]

This looks like a V2R route 00515 (Avanti West Coast only) priced at £41.50, before discount. How Avanti got to the discount amount, I don't know. The correct price should be £27.60 (for each orginal ticket). Perhaps there was an additional 10% off (£2.76 rounded up to £2.80), which would then get to £24.80? Club Avanti, perhaps?

 

[Par]

Irrespective of where the £24.80 (£49.60) came from, surely I shouldn’t be expected to pay an additional £5.60 when the the new tickets are retailing at £48.60.

Any clue as to how why this is being requested and how I might avoid the £5.60?

 

[AlterEgo]

The rounding rules or Advance fares may have changed since the purchase was made?

Mmmmmm - yes, perhaps the former is the most likely explanation. (I did check previous fares rounds too)

This is a bizarre one!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jan 2025 ==

Irrespective of where the £24.80 (£49.60) came from, surely I shouldn’t be expected to pay an additional £5.60 when the the new tickets are retailing at £48.60.

Any clue as to how why this is being requested and how I might avoid the £5.60?

You can't easily avoid it, because it looks like there is some sort of error or anomaly.

Pay it and claim it back, is the best advice I can give you. Or, you can try to call after sales, but I expect they will come across the same problem.

 

[Starmill]

I wouldn't bother trying to claim it back, as I expect you'd just receive multiple copies of the same stock response explaining that advance tickets increase in price, yada yada yada.

Unless you think they've broken the law, in which case you can have the usual recourse to the civil courts, anything you pay should probably be viewed as lost money to you.

 

[yorkie]

Yes, I agree; if you want to dispute it, then pay up for now, and put in a complaint to customer services. However the value of your time is likely to exceed the value of any refund amount, sadly.

Alternatively, you could try at a ticket office. But you may need to shop around, as not all ticket office staff are willing to issue excess fares (or suitably trained to do it correctly).

Your best bet is probably to use another retailer in future; as a general rule the forum's site will charge the same price as Avanti charge, unless we find a cheaper combination, in which case we charge less. Also, a small proportion goes towards supporting the forum

 

[alistairlees]

Irrespective of where the £24.80 (£49.60) came from, surely I shouldn’t be expected to pay an additional £5.60 when the the new tickets are retailing at £48.60.

Any clue as to how why this is being requested and how I might avoid the £5.60?

Did you buy these tickets with the Club Avanti 10% discount?

 

[Par]

Did you buy these tickets with the Club Avanti 10% discount?

Not that I recall, but I can’t rule it out entirely. If I did (and I honestly can’t remember doing so), it surely wouldn’t explain why Avanti are now asking for more, when I’ve already handed over in excess of the cost that the tickets are currently retailing at.

 

[yorkie]

Not that I recall, but I can’t rule it out entirely. If I did (and I honestly can’t remember doing so), it surely wouldn’t explain why Avanti are now asking for more, when I’ve already handed over in excess of the cost that the tickets are currently retailing at.

It could explain it; they could be looking at the price of the actual ticket, ignoring any discount.

Yes, that would be a flawed logic, but that may be how the system is programmed.

When you consider who is behind Avanti's retail systems, and how incompetent they are, I would say I'd be surprised if they got it right

 

[Par]

It could explain it; they could be looking at the price of the actual ticket, ignoring any discount.

Yes, that would be a flawed logic, but that may be how the system is programmed.

When you consider who is behind Avanti's retail systems, and how incompetent they are, I would say I'd be surprised if they got it right

But surely in that scenario “the price of the actual ticket“ would be even higher (£27.60 or thereabouts) so even less of a reason to request more money when they are currently retailing at £24.30.

I think what I‘m going to do is leave it a few days to see how the RMT / Avanti talks progress. If they break down and the strike on the 23rd Feb goes ahead, then there is the real possibility of getting a fee free refund on this ticket anyway.

The reason I’m changing it in the first place is because I’ve already mitigated against the strike (before the talks were called) to use LNER to travel from London that evening.

If peace breaks out between the RMT and Avanti, I’ll change that one to April instead (when I also need to travel north) and use the original Avanti ticket.

 

[dvboy]

I think what I‘m going to do is leave it a few days to see how the RMT / Avanti talks progress. If they break down and the strike on the 23rd Feb goes ahead, then there is the real possibility of getting a fee free refund on this ticket anyway.

I think you can get that now, at least that's how it reads to me at https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/strike

 

[Par]

I think you can get that now, at least that's how it reads to me at https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/strike

Yes, I’ve read that and it isn’t 100% clear to me, perhaps others can comment?

It could be interpreted as refunds on being available for the first 3 days of industrial action that have now passed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2025 ==

Update

Based on dvboy’s advice I put in a refund request using the form (couldn’t do it in the app). Claim received by Avanti at 19.15 tonight, followed 3 minutes later by an email advising the £49.60 had been refunded and a minute later a second one from PayPal advising the refund is on its way.

Gobsmacked by that to be honest - 4 minutes!

 

[dvboy]

Result!