GWR email just received - mistake fare?

[andylikestrain]

Hi
Please see attached screenshot of a GWR email which I just received.
i can’t find any Bristol TM to Paddington fares for £12.50. Is it an error?
thanks

 

[Benjwri]

Yes I think that might be. The cheapest fare defined is £15.40, and thats on SWR. GWR the cheapest is £22, a fact supported by their cheapest fare finder!

 

[Kite159]

Unless they are being a bit cheeky and using the price of a Railcard discounted advance

 

[AlterEgo]

Hi
Please see attached screenshot of a GWR email which I just received.
i can’t find any Bristol TM to Paddington fares for £12.50. Is it an error?
thanks
View attachment 197017

Do you use a railcard?

 

[andylikestrain]

Only network card.
£22 reduced by one third is still more than £12.50 though?

 

[yorkie]

I suggest you email GWR and ask how you can find this fare.

Unfortunately, GWR seem to have gone massively downhill recently; there seem to be all sorts of problems at the company, so I wouldn't hold out much hope of a sensible reply.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[andylikestrain]

I suggest you email GWR and ask how you can find this fare.

Unfortunately, GWR seem to have gone massively downhill recently; there seem to be all sorts of problems at the company, so I wouldn't hold out much hope of a sensible reply.

Let us know how you get on.

Email sent to GWR. Will let you know what they say.

 

[cjohnson]

A suggestion to GWR that a complaint to the ASA may also be forthcoming might nudge them into replying…

 

[andylikestrain]

I suggest you email GWR and ask how you can find this fare.

Unfortunately, GWR seem to have gone massively downhill recently; there seem to be all sorts of problems at the company, so I wouldn't hold out much hope of a sensible reply.

Let us know how you get on.

Hi Yorkie & everyone
Here is the email reply from GWR:


Thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.

I have taken a look at the evidence you have provided and it shows our cheapest fare price. Sadly, these ticket prices are sold out.

As you can probably tell, our Advance Purchase tickets are very popular. They're a great deal if you can book early, but that does mean they can sell out quickly as well.

We only offer a limited number of Advance Purchase tickets. We plan how many we offer based on how many customers we expect to travel on each train. For example, if a specific train usually has lots of empty seats, we offer more Advance Purchase tickets for it. This means more popular trains don't get too crowded. And if we expect a train to be busy, we offer fewer tickets - or sometimes none at all - because there just wouldn't be room for the extra customers the tickets would attract.

We release the Advance Purchase tickets up to 12 weeks before you can use them. When they're sold out, we don't release any more. So if you know when you're travelling, it's always a good idea to buy them as early as you can. That way you have more chance of getting the tickets you want at a low price.

Thanks again for getting in touch. I'm sorry you missed out on the cheaper tickets this time and I hope you can book early next time for a better deal.

Yours sincerely

 

[Benjwri]

Absolute rubbish. They don’t have a fare defined that is that cheap. Regardless the ASA very recently ruled against EasyJet that a reasonable amount of the advertised price must be available. 0 fares at the time of advertising, according to their own website, is not that.

 

[AlterEgo]

I knew they'd come back with that. Stock paragraphs. You should ask for.this to be escalated to a manager, and be very clear they have no fare defined that cheap in the fares database.

 

[yorkie]

Hi Yorkie & everyone
Here is the email reply from GWR:


Thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.

I have taken a look at the evidence you have provided and it shows our cheapest fare price. Sadly, these ticket prices are sold out.

As you can probably tell, our Advance Purchase tickets are very popular. They're a great deal if you can book early, but that does mean they can sell out quickly as well.

We only offer a limited number of Advance Purchase tickets. We plan how many we offer based on how many customers we expect to travel on each train. For example, if a specific train usually has lots of empty seats, we offer more Advance Purchase tickets for it. This means more popular trains don't get too crowded. And if we expect a train to be busy, we offer fewer tickets - or sometimes none at all - because there just wouldn't be room for the extra customers the tickets would attract.

We release the Advance Purchase tickets up to 12 weeks before you can use them. When they're sold out, we don't release any more. So if you know when you're travelling, it's always a good idea to buy them as early as you can. That way you have more chance of getting the tickets you want at a low price.

Thanks again for getting in touch. I'm sorry you missed out on the cheaper tickets this time and I hope you can book early next time for a better deal.

Yours sincerely

This is absolute nonsense.

Sadly, GWR is one of those TOCs where the people running it are entirely detached from the reality of what some of their incredibly badly trained, incompetent staff are getting up to.

But whenever Mark Hopwood is interviewed, no-one ever challenges him on such issues. If I could ever have a word with him, I'd have a few choice words to say.

You could report it to the ASA, but they probably won't care. The Rail Ombudsman isn't a real ombudsman and has no actual knowledge or powers, so there's no point contacting them. You could mention it to TransportFocus, but they have no powers, and only exist so the Government can pretend that an ostensibly genuine passenger watchdog exists.

Huge reforms are needed at out-of-control TOCs such as GWR, but there is no-one with any knowledge of what's going on, who actually cares about what is going on, and has the powers or inclination to do anything.

So they will continue to behave like this, sadly!

 

[sot]

What is the asterisk? The price of a JCP discount for some advances for GWR is 12.50, assuming that is also on 16-17 or a child ticket price also?

A bit shady unless the asterisk is "* this is for a child"

 

[andylikestrain]

What is the asterisk? The price of a JCP discount for some advances for GWR is 12.50, assuming that is also on 16-17 or a child ticket price also?

A bit shady unless the asterisk is "* this is for a child"

I wondered about the asterisk too, but it’s there for the other 2 fares advertised as well and they look ‘normal’.

 

[JB_B]

I wondered about the asterisk too, but it’s there for the other 2 fares advertised as well and they look ‘normal’.

Does the screenshot show the whole of the email?

 

[andylikestrain]

Does the screenshot show the whole of the email?

No, but it does have small print at the bottom, which explains the asterisk:

 

[sot]

Is it saying that is the prospective saving? Again a pretty poor campaign but usual advertising chaff

 

[JB_B]

No, but it does have small print at the bottom, which explains the asterisk:

Thanks - in that case I would have thought a complaint to the ASA could be justified. (See section 3 of the The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing - "misleading advertising" - https://www.asa.org.uk/static/c6be0...c-8a53-4733-998819db22553715/The-CAP-Code.pdf ) Also, another complaint to GWR for their useless fob-off response first time.

 

[Segedunum]

Hi Yorkie & everyone
Here is the email reply from GWR:


Thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.

I have taken a look at the evidence you have provided and it shows our cheapest fare price. Sadly, these ticket prices are sold out.

As you can probably tell, our Advance Purchase tickets are very popular. They're a great deal if you can book early, but that does mean they can sell out quickly as well.

We only offer a limited number of Advance Purchase tickets. We plan how many we offer based on how many customers we expect to travel on each train. For example, if a specific train usually has lots of empty seats, we offer more Advance Purchase tickets for it. This means more popular trains don't get too crowded. And if we expect a train to be busy, we offer fewer tickets - or sometimes none at all - because there just wouldn't be room for the extra customers the tickets would attract.

We release the Advance Purchase tickets up to 12 weeks before you can use them. When they're sold out, we don't release any more. So if you know when you're travelling, it's always a good idea to buy them as early as you can. That way you have more chance of getting the tickets you want at a low price.

Thanks again for getting in touch. I'm sorry you missed out on the cheaper tickets this time and I hope you can book early next time for a better deal.

Yours sincerely

This is a template sent by an agent who's trying to clear the queue of Customer Relations cases allocated to them. Not a single word of that has been manually typed. GWR Customer Relations isn't in-house (though it is contained within First).

If you reply to the email, it'll go back into their queue as "escalated" and will hopefully go to a more senior agent or manager who will take the time to read it.

 

[andylikestrain]

Evening all
I went back to GWR as suggested and here is their new reply:

Thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.

We have investigated into this and have found that the £12.50 fare referenced in your email - relates to a child Advance ticket. This is why you were unable to locate a ticket at this price. I apologise for the error on the email.

When referencing ticket prices, we try our hardest to clearly state the Terms and Conditions of the ticket (in this instance - a childs ticket) however, this was missed sadly.

This has been fedback to the relevant team who have said they will ensure additional information is included for future promotion emails - including if this is a childs ticket.

Once again, we apologise for the confusion this has caused.


At least I’ve an answer, is still a bit annoying though.
Thanks again everyone

 

[sot]

Tut tut, as we expected it was child price very poor form.

 

[AlterEgo]

Evening all
I went back to GWR as suggested and here is their new reply:

Thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.

We have investigated into this and have found that the £12.50 fare referenced in your email - relates to a child Advance ticket. This is why you were unable to locate a ticket at this price. I apologise for the error on the email.

When referencing ticket prices, we try our hardest to clearly state the Terms and Conditions of the ticket (in this instance - a childs ticket) however, this was missed sadly.

This has been fedback to the relevant team who have said they will ensure additional information is included for future promotion emails - including if this is a childs ticket.

Once again, we apologise for the confusion this has caused.


At least I’ve an answer, is still a bit annoying though.
Thanks again everyone

Dishonest response. The email clearly never intended to include child prices.

They included the wrong fare because they're sloppy. This is not a case of "oh yeah we definitely meant to send you an email with one child price among a load of comparative adult prices, sorry for not making it clear".

They just made an elementary error. As everyone can see.