Advance Purchase Rover Problem - GWR

[John Luxton]

I have just tried to buy a 3 in 7 day Devon and Cornwall Rover.

This is a ticket I have bought before online from the GWR website. Most recent one was purchased on April 24th, 2023 with a start date of May 8th.

However, the system now appears to only allow booking on the day and up to five days in advance - latest start date offered is September 5th and I want September 9th.

Given that it has to be posted out and allowing for vagaries of the Post Office I want to ensure it is delivered on time.

Previous GWR on line ticket purchases have usually arrived 24/48 hours from date of purchase - but I prefer to allow a few extra days

Seems a strange thing to do given the proposals to close ticket offices.

Reason for advance purchase is that neither station I will be using Okehampton or Bere Alston have staffed ticket offices.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Suspect it's to do with them being sold for strike days.

 

[John Luxton]

Suspect it's to do with them being sold for strike days.

1st and 2nd September are the strike days I checked before booking.

 

[Bletchleyite]

1st and 2nd September are the strike days I checked before booking.

I mean that they're limiting the horizon so people aren't sold them for as-yet unknown strike days in future.

 

[John Luxton]

I mean that they're limiting the horizon so people aren't sold them for as-yet unknown strike days in future.

Could be, but they were not doing that back in April when I bought the last one for May. I will probably head for Liverpool Lime Street on Monday to see if I can get one. However, when I tried to get an Explore Wales Pass from them in June the lady on the ticket desk didn't know what I was talking about as she had never issued one before and it was only my insistence that they were available that she went looking on the computer and Wales is only a few miles away. Cornwall and Devon well .....

 

[Bletchleyite]

You should be able to get one from a Northern TVM, though I'm not sure if they do them in advance.

 

[ainsworth74]

You should be able to get one from a Northern TVM, though I'm not sure if they do them in advance.

At present I believe it's still on the day only. But I'm sure it's been mentioned as being a feature they hope to incorporate in due course.

 

[John Luxton]

At present I believe it's still on the day only. But I'm sure it's been mentioned as being a feature they hope to incorporate in due course.

On the day isn't any good as I want to be at either Okehampton or Bere Alston by around 09:00 on Saturday morning, not at Lime Street trying to buy the ticket! I have to go into Liverpool on Saturday I will go to Lime Street and see. Fall back would be to drive over to Liskeard and buy on the day there. But I have been at Liskeard before when the ticket office wasn't open when it should have been. I can't see what the issue is with advance purchase of Rovers and why the situation has changed since buying the same ticket via the GWR web site in April.

 

[Class800]

I've never had an issue with on train rover purchases when offices closed in the south west

 

[ainsworth74]

On the day isn't any good as I want to be at either Okehampton or Bere Alston by around 09:00 on Saturday morning, not at Lime Street trying to buy the ticket! I have to go into Liverpool on Saturday I will go to Lime Street and see.

To be fair to Northern I imagine they're mostly thinking about people using Rovers or Rangers that are valid on their own services so not being able to buy them in advance isn't quite such an issue in that case

 

[mangyiscute]

Ive personally never had any issues with buying rangers/rovers from ticket offices even when in the wrong area (buying a Cumbria ticket in Reading) so just go to liverpool, and worst case if they cant find it, you can see the ticket codes here: http://www.railrover.org/pages/freedom-of-devon-and-cornwall-rover.html

 

[Cliveblackpool]

I found it can sometimes be worth considering buying Freedom of Southwest rover, buying a ticket to Cheltenham Spa (or Worcester if you have spare extra time!) visiting Cornwall etc.

GB RAIL ROVER GUIDE - Freedom of the South West Rover

How to find rail rover and ranger tickets on the national rail network. Rover and ranger tickets are cheap tickets for rail travel

www.railrover.org

 

[Rover]

Is the SWR website any better?
https://tickets.southwesternrailway.com/sw/en/journeyplanning/roversandrangers

 

[John Luxton]

I found it can sometimes be worth considering buying Freedom of Southwest rover, buying a ticket to Cheltenham Spa (or Worcester if you have spare extra time!) visiting Cornwall etc.

GB RAIL ROVER GUIDE - Freedom of the South West Rover

How to find rail rover and ranger tickets on the national rail network. Rover and ranger tickets are cheap tickets for rail travel

www.railrover.org

I can see the logic of that if I was travelling to west country by train - but I am going in the car. I stay near Tavistock and just drive to either Okehampton or Bere Alston or Gunnislake. I am aware of the railrover web site just miffed that GWR web site doesn't appear to want to sell me a rover ticket more than 5 days in advance which for postal delivery is cutting it fine, yet there was no problem when I bought one in April for use in May this year.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Sep 2023 ==

Is the SWR website any better?
https://tickets.southwesternrailway.com/sw/en/journeyplanning/roversandrangers

Thanks- didn't think of trying that.

YES!! - It worked no restriction, ticket ordered.

The question is then why are GWR preventing rovers from being bought 5 days before validity date?

The SWR booking engine appears to be the same set up, with the same options as on the GWR site

 

[317362]

Have never been able to get a GWR advance Rover purchase to work, there is an online loop via website.

 

[John Luxton]

My ticket ordered from SWR yesterday arrived today. I will email GWR and try and find out what is going on.

 

[Starmill]

My ticket ordered from SWR yesterday arrived today. I will email GWR and try and find out what is going on.

I imagine they'll just say you buy the ticket on the train and that's that. There's no need to visit a ticket office.