Advance fare confusion

[modernrail]

Hi, I am looking to book a train from Southport to London next Saturday morning. I am looking at the 9.24 from Southport via Wigan into London at 12.12.

The off peak fare is £80.90 single, the advance single is £136.79.

Why is the advance single showing as an option. Am I missing something about the £80.90 fare?

Also, my journey times seem to match with the super off peak times on the Avanti website but I cant see a super off peak ticket option when booking?

 

[jamiearmley]

Hi, I am looking to book a train from Southport to London next Saturday morning. I am looking at the 9.24 from Southport via Wigan into London at 12.12.

The off peak fare is £80.90 single, the advance single is £136.79.

Why is the advance single showing as an option. Am I missing something about the £80.90 fare?

Also, my journey times seem to match with the super off peak times on the Avanti website but I cant see a super off peak ticket option when booking?

Looks like the off peak single is valid all day.
It's available on the day from the station, so don't stress too much.

 

[Watershed]

Hi, I am looking to book a train from Southport to London next Saturday morning. I am looking at the 9.24 from Southport via Wigan into London at 12.12.

The off peak fare is £80.90 single, the advance single is £136.79.

I presume you're looking on Trainline, who add a booking fee. There isn't actually a fare for £136.79, but rather one for £134 and then Trainline are charging you £2.79 for the privilege of buying a ticket that most other websites would sell you without a fee.

The forum's ticket site also identifies cheaper alternative journeys, such as similarly taking the 09:24 from Southport to Wigan but then changing onto a slightly slower Avanti train that runs to Euston via Birmingham - this costs £61.00 for an Advance.

Why is the advance single showing as an option.

Because ticket buying websites generally offer you all of the fares that they're allowed to sell for a given fare. People may have reasons for wanting to buy a more expensive ticket, for example because of corporate/organisational travel policies that require Advance tickets to be bought.

Am I missing something about the £80.90 fare?

Not really. It's valid on all operators along all plausible routes as it's routed "Any Permitted" and it's valid all day as you're travelling on a Saturday.

That said, the Off-Peak Single costs 70% of the Off-Peak Return, so if you're returning at any point within a month it's probably better value buying that instead.

Also, my journey times seem to match with the super off peak times on the Avanti website but I cant see a super off peak ticket option when booking?

I don't know where you're seeing a mention of Super Off-Peak times? Avanti haven't ever offered Super Off-Peak fares for this journey. Avanti's website clearly states that they only offer Super Off-Peak fares between Euston and Milton Keynes.

In terms of long distance journeys, they only ever had Super Off-Peak fares on the London-Birmingham corridor; these were introduced by Virgin Trains but Avanti withdrew them in 2022.

The last time this journey would have had anything equivalent to Super Off-Peak fares was a very long time ago, towards the start of privatisation. The former SuperSaver fares that BR introduced (the successor to the Blue Saver, I believe) were removed by Virgin Trains when they 'simplified' their range of fares to just Off-Peak and Anytime.

 

[modernrail]

I am attaching screenshots of Avanti’s website.

On the super off peak, I think it is bad wording. It suggests they have forgotten to use the word ‘between’.

The advance fare showing on the Avanti site is even more bizzare. More expensive than on Trainline.

I don’t buy the company policy point. It should not be there at all, surely?!?

 

[Watershed]

I am attaching screenshots of Avanti’s website.

On the super off peak, I think it is bad wording. It suggests they have forgotten to use the word ‘between’.

Yes, a fair point. But it is definitely "between". Trains departing Euston between 15:01-16:00 are not valid with most Avanti-priced Off-Peak fares (to stations between Rugby and Preston) for example.

The advance fare showing on the Avanti site is even more bizzare. More expensive than on Trainline.

Possible you saw the last available fare at that price and that it's since gone up because someone has booked - bear in mind that it could be affected by anyone making a booking for any part of either train, not necessarily the same journey as you.

It could also be that RARS (the industry data feed for reservations) or Trainline had 'stale' availability data and updated since you posted, after someone (perhaps when reading this thread) proceeded to the basket stage to see what seats were actually available.

I'd be very surprised if Avanti had any sort of issue that prevented them from offering the £134 Advance. It's a bog standard Avanti Advance tier, with code V2G.

I don’t buy the company policy point.

You would be surprised at the travel policies that some organisations have...

It should not be there at all, surely?!?

You may argue it makes sense to have the Off-Peak fare as the only option here, but what if someone wants an Anytime Single because they want to break their journey over multiple days for example? Should they be prevented from buying that just because it's more expensive then the Off-Peak Single?

Booking sites aren't psychic, they can't know why someone might want to choose a particular fare. If they're presented with the cheapest option, I don't see why they should be prevented from choosing another option if theywant.

 

[modernrail]

Yes, a fair point. But it is definitely "between". Trains departing Euston between 15:01-16:00 are not valid with most Avanti-priced Off-Peak fares (to stations between Rugby and Preston) for example.


Possible you saw the last available fare at that price and that it's since gone up because someone has booked - bear in mind that it could be affected by anyone making a booking for any part of either train, not necessarily the same journey as you.

It could also be that RARS (the industry data feed for reservations) or Trainline had 'stale' availability data and updated since you posted, after someone (perhaps when reading this thread) proceeded to the basket stage to see what seats were actually available.

I'd be very surprised if Avanti had any sort of issue that prevented them from offering the £134 Advance. It's a bog standard Avanti Advance tier, with code V2G.


You would be surprised at the travel policies that some organisations have...


You may argue it makes sense to have the Off-Peak fare as the only option here, but what if someone wants an Anytime Single because they want to break their journey over multiple days for example? Should they be prevented from buying that just because it's more expensive then the Off-Peak Single?

Booking sites aren't psychic, they can't know why someone might want to choose a particular fare. If they're presented with the cheapest option, I don't see why they should be prevented from choosing another option if theywant.

It’s not the Anytime i have a problem, it’s the Advance fare! Why is that being shown when it is obviously a ludicrous option to chose? Why is it even loaded into the system when the service is clearly off peak and so that would never be the best option to chose, the much cheaper off peak single would.

The cheaper advance is still available on Trainline so the last cheaper one being sold doesn’t answer it. Screenshot showing this attached.

 

[Watershed]

It’s not the Anytime i have a problem, it’s the Advance fare! Why is that being shown when it is obviously a ludicrous option to chose?

I've already explained the reasons why someone might want it. It's not for the retailer to second-guess the customer's reasoning; if they present them with the options and the customer chooses a more expensive fare, that's up to them.

Why is it even loaded into the system when the service is clearly off peak and so that would never be the best option to chose, the much cheaper off peak single would.

Advance fares always exist in the fares data - it is purely a question of whether the availability exists for the reservations required to sell them. It would be almost impossibly complex for that availability to be tied to the walk-up fare, such that you never get offered a more expensive Advance ticket.

That's particularly true when you think about all of the Railcards and discounts that are applicable to some ticket types but not others, considering that Advance availability requests are done without passing those details onto the industry reservations system.

The cheaper advance is still available on Trainline so the last cheaper one being sold doesn’t answer it. Screenshot showing this attached.

As mentioned, cached availability may cause either site to show an out of date price.

 

[modernrail]

I've already explained the reasons why someone might want it. It's not for the retailer to second-guess the customer's reasoning; if they present them with the options and the customer chooses a more expensive fare, that's up to them.


Advance fares always exist in the fares data - it is purely a question of whether the availability exists for the reservations required to sell them. It would be almost impossibly complex for that availability to be tied to the walk-up fare, such that you never get offered a more expensive Advance ticket.

That's particularly true when you think about all of the Railcards and discounts that are applicable to some ticket types but not others, considering that Advance availability requests are done without passing those details onto the industry reservations system.


As mentioned, cached availability may cause either site to show an out of date price.

I very much appreciate the replies. However, I remain firmly of the view that it is ridiculous the system has any advance fares in it that are higher than the equivalent off peak fare. Why is V2G loaded against any off peak services in the first place?

I am trying to think of a single example of why you would go for the advance fare. As I said, I don’t buy that its existence is there to help those on weird company travel policies. Even if it was, why is it 50% more expensive. It could just be the same price.

The risk is that somebody is confused into thinking the advance is the real ‘cheapest’ and there is a reason not to buy the off peak. At that price difference, they could confuse if for a child fare or assume it has some other reason you can’t use it.

I find it incredibly annoying the railway can’t get this stuff to work properly when it has a valid charge of complex fare information against it and computers with easily enough power and functionality to solve the problem.