Heathrow Fares on Avanti App

[kevinchoi1997]

When I search for a ticket from Elephant and Castle (EPH) to Heathrow Terminals 2&3 (HXX), for a random Sunday morning, with a 26-30 railcard, using the Avanti app, it's showing me that I can purchase an Anytime Day Single (via any permitted route) for only £4.65. This is much cheaper than using Oyster/PAYG, given that it's valid on the Elizabeth Line (rather than Piccadilly Line to Heathrow)

When I search for the exact same route on any other TOC apps, or the National Rail website, I can't seem to find this fare. Neither can I find it on BR Fares.

Any idea what this ticket is, and whether it is genuinely valid?

 

[yorkie]

Is this with a Railcard? It's an error; Avanti uses an incompetent supplier.

As it's now been posted here, and given the error would be offering cheaper fares than should be offered, it will probably be fixed relatively soon (though given their lack of competence, it may take a few days or maybe weeks).

The forum's ticketing site will offer the correct fares.

 

[kevinchoi1997]

Yes it's with a 26-30 Railcard.

Not that I have a need to go to Heathrow in the short term,
But hypothetically if I did buy the ticket, would it actually be valid? Or would something just error out?

 

[signed]

If you have an itinerary, it would be valid, but pushback will ensue likely if you get checked by a Tfl RPI

 

[Adam Williams]

Any idea what this ticket is,

I have genuinely no idea what it's trying to sell. It shouldn't have passed accreditation because it doesn't seem to display fare origins and destinations anywhere to the customer. This information is also nowhere to be found in any server responses to the browser.

I can tell it's an SDS routed Any Permitted which has been discounted from £7 (so presumably a cash point-to-point TfL SGL tube ticket of some description), but nothing else.

I suspect it's selling something that's only valid on the Piccadilly Line, but for all we know it could be a single from North Wembley to Wembley Central.

Avanti uses an incompetent supplier

IBM, not even once!

People at banks who used to say "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" in the 70s and 80s now have a creaking unmaintainable mess of a legacy system and a user-base who have left to use Monzo instead.

 

[yorkie]

I have genuinely no idea what it's trying to sell. It shouldn't have passed accreditation because it doesn't seem to display fare origins and destinations anywhere to the customer. This information is also nowhere to be found in any server responses to the browser.

I think TOC sites are effectively exempt from accredditation requirements, albeit unofficially

If it was a third party site, it would be subject to far greater scrutiny.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jul 2026 ==

If you have an itinerary, it would be valid, but pushback will ensue likely if you get checked by a Tfl RPI

Agreed; the accompanying itinerary means it's valid, so anyone wanting a cheap journey to Heathrow via the overpriced Elizabeth Line can save a considerable sum of money on each journey, albeit likely not hassle-free.

The view of TfL/RDG is that the Elizabeth Line must be treated as a "tube" mode in the central section, but absolutely not west of Paddington. There is, of course, nothing in the data to say this is the case. So journey planners have to impelement custom 'hacks', which are very time consuming and convoluted.

Given the huge number of bugs Avanti's supplier has, I suspect they underestimated the huge amount of custom work that any journey planner has to implement. I wonder if the supplier will foot the bill, or pass it on to Avanti (i.e. effectively taxpayers, ultimately)...

 

[greatkingrat]

Another oddity is that for this journey, it suggests Thameslink to Farringdon, then Elizabeth Line one stop to Tottenham Court Road, then change to a different Elizabeth Line train to Heathrow.

 

[signed]

If someone can collect the ticket, I'd be up to buy it just as a joke and to see what the hell is Avanti selling

 

[walkingsophie]

If someone can collect the ticket, I'd be up to buy it just as a joke and to see what the hell is Avanti selling

I can collect it from my local TVM

 

[signed]

I can collect it from my local TVM

Have sent you a private message with the collection ref

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jul 2026 ==

I can tell it's an SDS routed Any Permitted which has been discounted from £7 (so presumably a cash point-to-point TfL SGL tube ticket of some description), but nothing else.

I suspect it's selling something that's only valid on the Piccadilly Line, but for all we know it could be a single from North Wembley to Wembley Central.

Probably just a borked tube ticket yes, we’ll soon see

If it ends up actually being one, I don’t expect someone, even with a solid itinerary to end up unscathed from an RPI and that’s if they can get through the barriers for EL or TL.

 

[SargeNpton]

I suspect it's selling something that's only valid on the Piccadilly Line, but for all we know it could be a single from North Wembley to Wembley Central.

As the CRS code for the destination is HXX, a journey via the Piccadilly Line will definitely not be involved.

Fares to/from the airport are split into Heathrow Rail, Heathrow Underground and Heathrow by Bus. The way those fares are set up in the fares data means that itineraries via the wrong mode are not possible.

 

[mmh]

If someone can collect the ticket, I'd be up to buy it just as a joke and to see what the hell is Avanti selling

Almost certainly just a "normal" anytime single but at an incorrect fare. The fare being charged is the underground only fare (with a third railcard discount applied).

It wouldn't surprise me if the ticket just worked, barriers don't know what the cost of a ticket is or should be and the same will go for most ticket checking staff - after all many journeys have many different prices.

 

[signed]

Almost certainly just a "normal" anytime single but at an incorrect fare. The fare being charged is the underground only fare (with a third railcard discount applied).

It wouldn't surprise me if the ticket just worked, barriers don't know what the cost of a ticket is or should be and the same will go for most ticket checking staff - after all many journeys have many different prices.

How can that happen? A retailer is able to just make fares up for an itinerary and sell them?

 

[yorkie]

If someone can collect the ticket, I'd be up to buy it just as a joke and to see what the hell is Avanti selling

It will be a ticket to or from Zone U123456 London; the price of this is £7 for any station wholly within Zones 1-6 without the special fares that apply on the Heathrow branch.

Almost certainly just a "normal" anytime single but at an incorrect fare. The fare being charged is the underground only fare (with a third railcard discount applied).

Yes, confusingly there was no mention of the Railcard in the opening post, but I was able to guess that was what it was.

It wouldn't surprise me if the ticket just worked, barriers don't know what the cost of a ticket is or should be and the same will go for most ticket checking staff - after all many journeys have many different prices.

It won't work barriers at Heathrow, however for journeys from Heathrow that wouldn't be a blocker, due to the existence of the free terminal transfer tickets.

How can that happen? A retailer is able to just make fares up and sell them?

It's a real fare. A retailer is expected to purchase a license for a journey planner that includes all the complex custom rules that aren't in the fares data. However not all retailers/journey planners have any idea of the complexities this involves (at least not when they first start out!)

The concept that the Elizabeth Line must be treated as a tube line for part of the route, and absolutely not as a tube line with no validity for tube tickets for another part of the route, is not in the fares data and requires a lot of custom work. The custom work requires specialist knowledge. Not all journey planning software is up to the task.

But this is nothing compared to Silverrail allowing tube tickets for journeys all the way up to Edinburgh and back; I know of several people who made such journeys with itineraries in the past week.

 

[mmh]

How can that happen? A retailer is able to just make fares up for an itinerary and sell them?

Well, sort of. A retailer could decide to give me a discount, so then I'll be charged a price which doesn't appear in e.g. the BRFares site.

Most of my travel is done on discounted tickets, so most of the time I'll be travelling on a ticket with a different price to someone else making the same journey.

 

[yorkie]

Well, sort of. A retailer could decide to give me a discount, so then I'll be charged a price which doesn't appear in e.g. the BRFares site.

Most of my travel is done on discounted tickets, so most of the time I'll be travelling on a ticket with a different price to someone else making the same journey.

That's not making up a fare, though.

 

[Haywain]

A retailer could decide to give me a discount, so then I'll be charged a price which doesn't appear in e.g. the BRFares site.

They would be getting a 'chargeback' if they sell at the incorrect fare, so that the TOCs should receive the correct amounts.

 

[Adam Williams]

As the CRS code for the destination is HXX

No, the search destination was HXX.

As you will know, that tells you very little about what the journey planner has actually decided to do afterwards and what it's actually proposing to ticket.

Try a search to LNE and see what Avanti tries to sell (hint: it's not a fare to LNE!)

 

[signed]

As you will know, that tells you very little about what the journey planner has actually decided to do afterwards and what it's actually proposing to ticket.

Yorkie appears to be right, the confirmation email says:

Elephant & Castle
to London Undergrnd Zones 1-6 / Single

 

[Adam Williams]

Yorkie appears to be right, the confirmation email says:

Elephant & Castle
to London Undergrnd Zones 1-6 / Single

Cool - good to have confirmed for definite!

 

[SargeNpton]

No, the search destination was HXX.

As you will know, that tells you very little about what the journey planner has actually decided to do afterwards and what it's actually proposing to ticket.

Try a search to LNE and see what Avanti tries to sell (hint: it's not a fare to LNE!)

Well, if the search destination was HXX and the journey planner returned a fare to Heathrow Underground then the journey planner is not following the data standards.

 

[signed]

Thanks so much @walkingsophie for having taken my curiosity up, that is indeed what got dispensed

But this is nothing compared to Silverrail allowing tube tickets for journeys all the way up to Edinburgh and back; I know of several people who made such journeys with itineraries in the past week.

Now that's crazy, how?

 

[OscarH]

It will be a ticket to or from Zone U123456 London; the price of this is £7 for any station wholly within Zones 1-6 without the special fares that apply on the Heathrow branch.

Someone has forgotten Heathrow is in zone 6 for a travelcard and not a U-zone!

 

[redreni]

Someone has forgotten Heathrow is in zone 6 for a travelcard and not a U-zone!

It's not to do with zoning, it's that U zone tickets aren't valid at all west of Paddington on Crossrail / the Great Western Mainline.

This ticket isn't valid to West Drayton either, for instance.

 

[OscarH]

It's not to do with zoning, it's that U zone tickets aren't valid at all west of Paddington on Crossrail / the Great Western Mainline.

This ticket isn't valid to West Drayton either, for instance.

You're right, the old wording I had in my head made it seem like a special case but it's actually just the usual London fare pain