Advance Ticket more than Super Off Peak Single?!

[eroded]

Looking at Paddington to Truro dep 1304 1 June.

Advance Single is £93.60
Super Off-Peak Single is £74.60!

Why would GWR load advance fares that are more expensive than a flexible refundable ticket?!

 

[Watershed]

Looking at Paddington to Truro dep 1304 1 June.

Advance Single is £93.60
Super Off-Peak Single is £74.60!

Why would GWR load advance fares that are more expensive than a flexible refundable ticket?!

Advance fares are available in numerous tiers, which are often priced based on the cost of walk-up fares (e.g. the most expensive Advance is 50p less than an Anytime Single).

In this case GWR evidently don't feel the need to offer a cheaper Advance than the cost of the Super Off-Peak Single (which sets an effective 'cap' on the fare that can be charged - hence why the industry has so often campaigned for regulated fares to be abolished!). So passengers would simply be offered and sold the latter fare, unless they manually force their booking engine to sell something else.

Theoretically they could close the sale of any Advances that are more expensive than the cheapest walk-up ticket that would be valid. But this would be a complex exercise given the rather rudimentary revenue management systems still in use across the industry. It's simplest to just let the journey planners do the hard work

 

[eroded]

Thanks.

I see there are also buckets at £76.20, £77.60, £81.60, £82.10, ... etc - does this mean that people have purchased these buckets at a more expensive price than the SSS?

Some booking engines such as LNER will only show the (more expensive) Advance on the first search page, and you have to click the 'flexible fares' tab to see the cheaper SSS.

 

[Haywain]

Some booking engines such as LNER will only show the (more expensive) Advance on the first search page, and you have to click the 'flexible fares' tab to see the cheaper SSS.

This is not true. For a one way journey all fares are shown on the same page.