Expansion of LNER 70-min flex trial area ("Simpler Fares")

[stu]

if you're travelling at times when LNER's Super Off-Peak restriction codes 9D/1L limit travel (i.e. arriving into Kings Cross before 11:17 Mon-Thu) then your only flexible option is an Anytime ticket regardless of the station pair toy choose, so the trial doesn't make much difference to you.

Only if you're travelling outside those restricted times does the trial make a difference. In that case a Super Off-Peak Single between Newcastle and Enfield Town is the best alternative, costing £91.90. That's the same as a Newcastle to London Terminals Super Off-Peak Single would cost if it still existed.

Thank you, that off peak tip may still be very useful depending on how the travel works out! Cheers.

 

[voyagerdude220]

if you're travelling at times when LNER's Super Off-Peak restriction codes 9D/1L limit travel (i.e. arriving into Kings Cross before 11:17 Mon-Thu) then your only flexible option is an Anytime ticket regardless of the station pair toy choose, so the trial doesn't make much difference to you.

Only if you're travelling outside those restricted times does the trial make a difference. In that case a Super Off-Peak Single between Newcastle and Enfield Town is the best alternative, costing £91.90. That's the same as a Newcastle to London Terminals Super Off-Peak Single would cost if it still existed.

How on earth are tickets between Newcastle and London £200 single, regardless of whether you're travelling Peak or Off Peak/Super Off Peak etc?

I looked up Carlisle to London for a very rough comparison and noted that journey has a Super Off Peak Single "Via Newcastle" fare which is £95.40- presumably that's something LNER don't want anyone in the Newcastle area to know about?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can I suggest not posting specific workaround fares here? LNER are actively closing loopholes. Better not to help them with this. If you want one it's not hard to find them yourself.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Sep 2025 ==

I looked up Carlisle to London for a very rough comparison

Anytime Return £410, Anytime Single £205. Exactly the same near enough. It's Manchester that's really outrageous, a similar price for a far shorter distance.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There are any number of ‘loophole tickets’ from [place near London] to [place near Newcastle or Edinburgh]. They’re not hard to find.

LNER aren’t stupid, they can look at a map, but I’d agree about being wary of publicising them too much.

 

[D6700]

Anytime Return £410, Anytime Single £205. Exactly the same near enough. It's Manchester that's really outrageous, a similar price for a far shorter distance.

As it happens, last night, I looked at prices from York to London for early on Thursday morning. There are no Advance tickets at all on any train prior to the 08:13, meaning every train is priced at £172.50 single. This is matched northbound at tea time.

Whilst York isn't part of the "trial", if anyone has any doubts as to where it will ultimately lead - this is your answer. This will become the "standard fare" at any busy time, "peak" or "off peak", where Advance tickets, which includes 70 minute flex tickets, simply won't be available.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As it happens, last night, I looked at prices from York to London for early on Thursday morning. There are no Advance tickets at all on any train prior to the 08:13, meaning every train is priced at £172.50 single. This is matched northbound at tea time.

Whilst York isn't part of the "trial", if anyone has any doubts as to where it will ultimately lead - this is your answer. This will become the "standard fare" at any busy time, "peak" or "off peak", where Advance tickets, which includes 70 minute flex tickets, simply won't be available.

I don't think there's much evidence of this. Even during the Fringe you only really saw the Anytime pop up on traditionally off peak trains where it was the last couple of seats and they really wanted to push people onto other quieter ones. There has been a fare increase (roughly 20% for on the day purchases in my observation, suggesting that they think Newcastle* was priced about right but Edinburgh worth a fair bit more than an extra tenner) but not a simple "Anytime for everything" approach - they could do that but they haven't.

The only other time you see it is where it's a connectional XC+TPE/LNER service (involving the York semifast, usually) and the quotas don't line up, though given that almost everyone buys on Trainline these days and that does splits I doubt anyone is paying that on those trains.

What I do think they might call for next, though, is either the abolition of the Anytime or the ability to increase it well above its present level. £200 for London-Edinburgh on a fully flexible ticket valid at peak time is borderline reasonable and would be comparable on distance to a London-Manchester Anytime Return of about £200, which coincidentally is about what I think that fare should actually be rather than the near twice that that it is. If you compare it to London-Manchester and consider that that nearly £400 Anytime is priced about right, they might see Edinburgh as being viable to near double if you look at the distances.

One thing that will be very interesting is what the pricing on 24th Dec is like when looked at on 23rd...

* Newcastle and Edinburgh walk up fares are and were about the same, so either one is overpriced or one is underpriced...

 

[BRX]

borderline reasonable

What's your metric for this - whatever the market will bear?

 

[Bletchleyite]

What's your metric for this - whatever the market will bear?

Just my personal take. I would at a push pay £200 for London-Edinburgh and it is cheaper than BA would want for an on the day peak time flight, whereas I absolutely would not pay that for London-Manchester which is half the distance.

This is why the prospect of this being a GBR approach to fares without reducing the swingeing ex-Virgin Anytime fares significantly (halving them would be about right) is very concerning indeed to me.

 

[johncrossley]

There are effectively no trains between Manchester to London at peak times except on Fridays.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What's your metric for this - whatever the market will bear?

In terms of maximising revenue the market would I expect bear a fair bit more (i.e. charge fewer people a lot more). But that is not how a State Railway should be acting. It's not a profit centre, it's a public service, and that cannot be denied once nationalisation is complete.

 

[redreni]

As it happens, last night, I looked at prices from York to London for early on Thursday morning. There are no Advance tickets at all on any train prior to the 08:13, meaning every train is priced at £172.50 single. This is matched northbound at tea time.

Whilst York isn't part of the "trial", if anyone has any doubts as to where it will ultimately lead - this is your answer. This will become the "standard fare" at any busy time, "peak" or "off peak", where Advance tickets, which includes 70 minute flex tickets, simply won't be available.

They won't routinely set all the Advance quotas at or near zero, I don't think. That would be contrary to the long-term aim of abolishing all walk-up tickets.

The Advance only needs to be 10p less than the flexible walk-up fare in order for most retailers to push the Advance on the customer. It's important for Mr Horne that most people buy the Advance rather than the Anytime, so that will in due course be able to claim the Anytime is irrelevant.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They won't routinely set all the Advance quotas at or near zero, I don't think. That would be contrary to the long-term aim of abolishing all walk-up tickets.

Is that really their aim? There aren't many operations outside of low cost airlines that don't have some sort of "business flex" type of ticket, though they might well want to make it more airline-like than a simple Anytime, and potentially priced a fair way higher or even dynamically priced based on the service you pick to start with.

 

[wilsontown]

As it happens, last night, I looked at prices from York to London for early on Thursday morning. There are no Advance tickets at all on any train prior to the 08:13, meaning every train is priced at £172.50 single. This is matched northbound at tea time.

Whilst York isn't part of the "trial", if anyone has any doubts as to where it will ultimately lead - this is your answer. This will become the "standard fare" at any busy time, "peak" or "off peak", where Advance tickets, which includes 70 minute flex tickets, simply won't be available.

I had this issue last week as I got to St Pancras on the Eurostar having connected from a Deutsche Bahn service, so I had no idea when I would actually arrive (which is another story). Got to King's Cross about 16:30 heading to York, no advance tickets available until the 19:00 departure so paid for an anytime ticket and boarded the 17:00, which was almost completely empty.

 

[nwales58]

I had this issue last week as I got to St Pancras on the Eurostar … so paid for an anytime ticket and boarded the 17:00

Connecting from Eurostar you were entitled to buy a Euro Standard Single from London International for less than half the Anytime. Whether the ticket office would issue it I don’t know.

 

[yorksrob]

Connecting from Eurostar you were entitled to buy a Euro Standard Single from London International for less than half the Anytime. Whether the ticket office would issue it I don’t know.

Yet another example of international travel being given a discount over those of us who actually live here and pay for the railway.

Funny how other countries give their own citizens the discount.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Oct 2025 ==

I had this issue last week as I got to St Pancras on the Eurostar having connected from a Deutsche Bahn service, so I had no idea when I would actually arrive (which is another story). Got to King's Cross about 16:30 heading to York, no advance tickets available until the 19:00 departure so paid for an anytime ticket and boarded the 17:00, which was almost completely empty.

Our railway industry yet again pining for the mythical pre-covid business traveller whose company was prepared to pay any ludicrous amount thrown at them. They're not coming back.

It's about time the industry started accommodating the more savvy passengers it actually has rather than running empty trains around. Those who can't see this within the industry and their handlers at the DfT need to move on.

 

[alistairlees]

Yet another example of international travel being given a discount over those of us who actually live here and pay for the railway.

Funny how other countries give their own citizens the discount.

This ticket is available to people of any nationality.

 

[yorksrob]

This ticket is available to people of any nationality.

Yes, but you have to be travelling from abroad to use it. Its clearly designed to exclude domestic travellers.

 

[voyagerdude220]

This ticket is available to people of any nationality.

Are onboard revenue staff/Station Ticket Office staff instructed to request proof from passengers that they're using the Eurostar when issuing CIV tickets?

 

[Haywain]

Yes, but you have to be travelling from abroad to use it. Its clearly designed to exclude domestic travellers.

It’s designed to compensate for the lack of genuine through ticketing.

 

[Trainbike46]

It’s designed to compensate for the lack of genuine through ticketing.

Exactly.

I think most operators will accept advance tickets on later trains if delayed on the Eurostar too - GA did confirm to me years ago that, as long as I left enough time for the st pancras to Tottenham Hale/Liverpool connection, an advance would be accepted on the next available GA train if a delayed international train caused me to miss my booked train.

I would suspect LNER would take a similar approach, though best to ask customer service in advance to get it in writing

 

[yorksrob]

It’s designed to compensate for the lack of genuine through ticketing.

If LNER get their way, there will be a lack of "genuine" through ticketing from everywhere in this country as well. Try getting an off peak return from West Yorkshire to Cambridge or Cornwall, for example.

 

[Haywain]

If LNER get their way, there will be a lack of "genuine" through ticketing from everywhere in this country as well. Try getting an off peak return from West Yorkshire to Cambridge or Cornwall, for example.

A lack of return tickets is not a lack of through ticketing. And return tickets to Cornwall are available from West Yorkshire.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If LNER get their way, there will be a lack of "genuine" through ticketing from everywhere in this country as well. Try getting an off peak return from West Yorkshire to Cambridge or Cornwall, for example.

Your rights with a split are exactly the same as with a through ticket, and on a journey like that (aside from the trial) it's very likely a split will offer better value because the chance of quotas lining up for a good value through Advance are low. If LNER were seeking to change that I'd have a real problem with it, but for all the bad things about what they are doing there is no evidence that they are doing that.

For Advances I'm genuinely not convinced there is any benefit at all in through ticketing; one ticket per vehicle journey issued as a split in a very large number of cases gives a better value fare (sometimes more than one ticket per vehicle journey ) and they can easily be issued in one transaction and it's much simpler to set up the quotas etc. You occasionally do get a good value through Advance with a change when it's the same TOC (I did last night on Northern, in fact) but for the journey you give as an example splitting will almost certainly be cheaper. Or XC, but that's best avoided anyway

 

[thedbdiboy]

Yet another example of international travel being given a discount over those of us who actually live here and pay for the railway.

Funny how other countries give their own citizens the discount.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Oct 2025 ==

As @Haywain says, it isn't a discount, it's effectively an add-on to an international journey. It's like saying PlusBus is a 'discount' not available to local users because they have to come from somewhere else by train.

If LNER get their way, there will be a lack of "genuine" through ticketing from everywhere in this country as well. Try getting an off peak return from West Yorkshire to Cambridge or Cornwall, for example.

The 1990s concept of through ticketing has been pretty comprehensively dismantled by split ticketing.

 

[DeverseSam]

I had this issue last week as I got to St Pancras on the Eurostar having connected from a Deutsche Bahn service, so I had no idea when I would actually arrive (which is another story). Got to King's Cross about 16:30 heading to York, no advance tickets available until the 19:00 departure so paid for an anytime ticket and boarded the 17:00, which was almost completely empty.

Or pay £238 for the cheapest Interrail ticket. You don’t need to have bought an Eurostar passholder fare, just travelled on Eurostar

 

[redreni]

The 1990s concept of through ticketing has been pretty comprehensively dismantled by split ticketing.

Split ticketing combined with the fact if you ask a TOC to price a through fare that doesn't currently exist, they will invariably do so in a way that costs at least as much as splitting at a place where you would have to change trains anyway, rendering the exercise a bit pointless.

Of course, in an integrated railway that might be prepared to countenance charging a bit less per mile to people who are travelling further, it may be that through tickets wouldn't be priced such that it is cheaper to split. One for speculative discussion, perhaps: what would a government that was prepared to follow the law by taking steps to meet Net Zero targets do with rail fares?

 

[Bletchleyite]

what would a government that was prepared to follow the law by taking steps to meet Net Zero targets do with rail fares?

This would be a very dangerous place to go with the railway given that a few people on a fume belching Sprinter or Voyager would undoubtedly emit more CO2 than if they had instead chosen to drive an EV, even a large SUV. The only logical way to go with it (absent electrification money) would be closure of non-electrified routes, particularly branch lines, in favour of electric buses and coaches.

 

[Haywain]

railway that might be prepared to countenance charging a bit less per mile to people who are travelling further,

You mean in the way that most GB rail fares actually work?

 

[Bletchleyite]

You mean in the way that most GB rail fares actually work?

LNER is actually quite a good example of this - KX-Newcastle is very close to the same price as KX-Edinburgh, though the fare increase trial has increased on the day Edinburgh fares on average I reckon by about 20% but not done much to Newcastle fares so this isn't as clear as it was, though the Anytimes are priced very similarly.

It will be interesting to see if post-Dec the Edinburgh fares come down a bit due to the increased capacity (it's a bit hard to tell this far out as I've only been comparing fares near to the day of travel). My guess would be that the Edinburgh "super fast" will be priced higher than now but the slower train probably lower, however splits involving the York semifast are less likely to be worthwhile as its capacity will be reduced in most hours so there will be less benefit of pricing people onto it. It will be interesting to see if splits involving the Newcastle stopper are cheaper still, but if it's mostly going to be 5 car I doubt it, though they may well seek to price Newcastle passengers onto it to keep seats free for Edinburgh on the through trains so it could well be so.

 

[alistairlees]

The 1990s concept of through ticketing has been pretty comprehensively dismantled by split ticketing.

I think that TOC pricing tactics are actually the root cause here; split ticketing is just an outcome of that.