Advanced tickets 23rd or 24th Dec

[ajdunlop]

Hello all,
I have been finding problems trying to find cheap tickets between Basingstoke and Lancaster lately. In the past it has been quite easy to find advanced tickets of some sort, even if they where at the expensive end of Advanced, or at least find some by doing a bit of ticket splitting.

My current attempt is for either the evening of the 23rd of December or anytime (within reason) on the 24th. It is for 2 YPs.
Tickets appear to be available now on both VT and XC but there aren't many ADV so it may be that they just have't been released yet and I might be best waiting to see.

Something else that I am confused about that I have spotted a couple of times are Advanced tickets on VT which are more expensive than the walk up fares on the same day. What's with that?

 

[Broken Viking]

I hate to say it, but I don't think there'd be any Advance tickets made available so close to Yule...Not with all of those last minute shoppers and people dashing up to family gatherings! hock:

If there were any Advance fares going on those days - Assuming they've already been released - It's likely they sold out very quickly. Yule is always a busy time for the railways...And if 100,000 Glastonbury tickets sold out in four hours yesterday, I can't see any reason why Yuletide Advance fares wouldn't do the same.

 

[ajdunlop]

Well I did think that might be a problem but it seams to be the same for nearly all the fridays before that in December and November.

 

[Broken Viking]

Well I did think that might be a problem but it seams to be the same for nearly all the fridays before that in December and November.

Friday - Sunday is a very bad time to try and find decent Advance fares for in my experience, not least because those three days are the busiest of the week for recreational and personal travel. The same rule generally applies to all forms of coaches, airlines, and any other passenger services that offer "Advance" or "Economy" fares. hock:

Although TOCs love to advertise things like "Seats from £5.00 one way", in 95% of cases there'll only be one £5.00 Advance seat ("Band E" seats I call them) available on the whole train - Placed so that TOCs can lawfully advertise their "£5 fares" - And the other Advance seats will be in higher price bands, normally costing £25.00 or more each (Band C/B or higher) to rake in those customers still looking for a "Cheaper than usual" deal.

Personally, my advice - If ye need to get an Advance - Would be to try and travel on a different day (Tuesday to Thursday as a general rule of thumb) to stand a better chance of getting cheap Advance fares. If that's not possible, someone might be able to find ye a cheap split fare on Avantix if ye ask nicely.

 

[John @ home]

This National Rail page shows that Virgin's Advance tickets are currently available until:

Mondays to Fridays - 23 December
Saturdays - 11 December
Sundays - 5 December

But SWT's Advance tickets are available only until 17 December. It may be that both are needed to book a Basingstoke - Lancaster route VT & Connections ticket.

Have you tried Basingstoke - London and London - Lancaster? Or Basingstoke - Birmingham and Birmingham - Lancaster?

 

[Broken Viking]

To be honest, I'm thinking that a split fare made of walk-up off peak tickets might be easier for his journey, given the scramble that must happen for any available Advance seats over Yule time! hock:

A.J. Dunlop: Ye obviously need to travel Basingstoke to Lancaster as mentioned in thy OP. Are there any specific places that ye need to travel through/avoid, and what times are ye willing to travel? Would ye consider a slower journey via a longer route if it'd get the fare down?

(P.S: Don't forget that the whole Reading "panel" (Signalling area) is being closed around Yule/New Year for resignalling and realignment, so routes running from Basingstoke via Reading might be out.)

 

[jopsuk]

another consideration- with more and more people being aware of booking horizons, maybe Virgin have already sold out of Advance fares for those dates?

 

[wibble]

Although TOCs love to advertise things like "Seats from £5.00 one way", in 95% of cases there'll only be one £5.00 Advance seat ("Band E" seats I call them) available on the whole train - Placed so that TOCs can lawfully advertise their "£5 fares" - And the other Advance seats will be in higher price bands, normally costing £25.00 or more each (Band C/B or higher) to rake in those customers still looking for a "Cheaper than usual" deal.

If they advertise "seats from £5" they are legally obliged to offer a minimum of 10% of all their Advance fares at this rate.

In reality, they may occur on shorter distance journeys or at times of day with lowest demand.

 

[cuccir]

You can currently get two tickets for Basingstoke - Manchester for £26.40 (total, ie £13.20 each)) on the 08:44 or 11:17 out from Basingstoke, or £49.50 on the 09:17, 10:17, 10:57, all on 24th December.

£49.50 tickets on the 23rd December are still available at 15:17 and 16:17, and you can do it for £26.40 on the 19:43, getting you into Manchester at 23:40, which I suspect may be too late for connections to Lancaster.

I expect these will sell quickly.

An off peak-day single Picadilly>Lancaster is £9.20 each; there may be some advance fares available when TPE launch their advacnes for this period, but you might be best getting the more flexible ticket for the second leg anyway to allow for delays.

 

[swt_passenger]

But SWT's Advance tickets are available only until 17 December. It may be that both are needed to book a Basingstoke - Lancaster route VT & Connections ticket.

Have you tried Basingstoke - London and London - Lancaster? Or Basingstoke - Birmingham and Birmingham - Lancaster?

Shouldn't be a problem with SWT as they don't do Advance on that leg - it would be the '+connections' part of a via London Advance. It'll just be the lack of availability as they have a captive market in the run up to Christmas. 'Jopsuk' has already inferred the probable reason.

 

[wibble]

Shouldn't be a problem with SWT as they don't do Advance on that leg - it would be the '+connections' part of a via London Advance. It'll just be the lack of availability as they have a captive market in the run up to Christmas. 'Jopsuk' has already inferred the probable reason.

It will only be a problem if the timetabled connection from Basingstoke to London is a West of England or Weymouth service as these are quota controlled for all Advance fares. (Poole and Basingstoke stopping services or Portsmouth - Waterloo via Basingstoke services are not restricted in this way).

 

[philjo]

According to the advance ticket availability on the Virgin Trains website, they are only booking advance tickets up to 23 December at the moment. I would expect the ones on the 24th to sell very quickly when they do become available.

http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/tickets-offers/

you don't say if you will be returning at a later date - if you are able to book an advance single for your return trip you could always book the flexible off-peak single ticket (at half-price of the return) for the outward journey - but you must book through VT website at the same time as booking the advanced ticket to be able to get this. though I think the ticket has to be priced by VT to get this fare so you may have to book from London as I suspect the through ticket to Lancaster from Basingstoke is priced by XC ? (can't check NFM at the moment)

 

[mickey]

It may also be worth noting that VT have for the past few years removed peak time restrictions over Christmas and New Year, and if they do it again it'll make a SVR even more attractive.

 

[shinkansen1966]

East Coast advanced purchase tickets now on sale for Christmas. Bought mine already for Kings X-> Leeds on Christmas Eve.

Why can't we have a uniform national bookings horizon date ?

 

[Deerfold]

East Coast advanced purchase tickets now on sale for Christmas. Bought mine already for Kings X-> Leeds on Christmas Eve.

Why can't we have a uniform national bookings horizon date ?

Presumably if we did we'd have to wait until timetables were finalised on all routes - so whichever was slowest would hold up everyone else (possibly for several weeks).

 

[philjo]

Yes, East coast are booking until 3 January.


I think peak restrictions are usually dropped on 24 Dec & for the following week but you need to check as it varies. (FCC still had peak restrictions last year between Christmas & new year even though it was a Saturday timetable running)

 

[shinkansen1966]

Presumably if we did we'd have to wait until timetables were finalised on all routes - so whichever was slowest would hold up everyone else (possibly for several weeks).

That's a pitful. At least we'd all have a common date to work to. Say two months ahead...

 

[cuccir]

That's a pitful. At least we'd all have a common date to work to. Say two months ahead...

But is there any point in making a customer wait for her Inverness to Edinburgh advance because there are some delays in organising engineering works between Waterloo and Weymouth?

 

[shinkansen1966]

But is there any point in making a customer wait for her Inverness to Edinburgh advance because there are some delays in organising engineering works between Waterloo and Weymouth?

But the customer wouldn't know that. There'd be just a common booking horizons date: 60 days beforehand. And when it gets to 60 days beforehand, specific exceptions listed.

 

[mickey]

...specific exceptions listed.

And isn't that what we've got now?

 

[shinkansen1966]

And isn't that what we've got now?

Kind of. But think it could be better organised. Along the lines of daily update:

National Rail Enquiries: 5 October 2010
All rail tickets for all operators go on sale 60 days before travel. You can buy all tickets for travel upto and including 3 December 2010. With the following exceptions:
trains from London Euston / Birmingham / Manchester
Looe Valley line etc, etc.

This standard notice can appear identicially in every TOCs web site.

At the moment, there seems to be a bit of guess work...

 

[wibble]

It may also be worth noting that VT have for the past few years removed peak time restrictions over Christmas and New Year, and if they do it again it'll make a SVR even more attractive.

Not an exhaustive list for Off Peak period Returns, restrictions are lifted:

Virgin: from 1200 on 23 Dec - 3 Jan 2011
East Coast, NXEA, TransPennine, CrossCountry, FGW, FCC: all day from 24 Dec - 3 Jan 2011
EMT: from St Pancras, Luton, Luton Airport from 1200 24 Dec - 3 Jan 2011. Other routes are all day from 24 Dec - 3 Jan 2011
ScotRail: 25 Dec - 4 Jan 2011

 

[ajdunlop]

You can currently get two tickets for Basingstoke - Manchester for £26.40 (total, ie £13.20 each)) on the 08:44 or 11:17 out from Basingstoke, or £49.50 on the 09:17, 10:17, 10:57, all on 24th December.

£49.50 tickets on the 23rd December are still available at 15:17 and 16:17, and you can do it for £26.40 on the 19:43, getting you into Manchester at 23:40, which I suspect may be too late for connections to Lancaster.

I expect these will sell quickly.

An off peak-day single Picadilly>Lancaster is £9.20 each; there may be some advance fares available when TPE launch their advacnes for this period, but you might be best getting the more flexible ticket for the second leg anyway to allow for delays.

Thanks cuccir, exactly what I was looking for. Have booked one a little earlier for £26.20. That is quite a saving on the £97.20 direct fare even with the Picc to Lancaster part.

Another thing I have never been able to work out, if you are using two trains on separate advanced tickets and the first one is late so you miss the second are you completely liable for a new ticket? It just doesn't seem right that it wouldn't be the same as for someone with one ticket for the same route.

 

[Flamingo]

Another thing I have never been able to work out, if you are using two trains on separate advanced tickets and the first one is late so you miss the second are you completely liable for a new ticket? It just doesn't seem right that it wouldn't be the same as for someone with one ticket for the same route.

Well, in theory you are making two separate journeys as you have two separate tickets, so it's not a missed connection as part of the same journey. It would be an interesting one for a court to work out - let us know what the RPI says if it happens...

 

[swt_passenger]

Yes, East coast are booking until 3 January.


I think peak restrictions are usually dropped on 24 Dec & for the following week but you need to check as it varies. (FCC still had peak restrictions last year between Christmas & new year even though it was a Saturday timetable running)

IIRC it has only ever been the 'Intercity' TOCs that have relaxed peak restrictions between Christmas and New Year. Don't remember a 'southern region' TOC ever doing it. I'd be pretty sure FCC were just doing what had always been done.

 

[John @ home]

Well, in theory you are making two separate journeys as you have two separate tickets,

No, you're not!

19. Using a combination of tickets
You may use two or more tickets for one journey as long as together they cover the entire journey and one of the following applies:
(a) they are both Zonal Tickets (unless special conditions prohibit their use);
(b) the train you are in calls at a station where you change from one ticket to another; or
(c) one of the tickets is a Season Ticket (which for this purpose does not include Season Tickets or travel passes issued on behalf of a passenger transport executive or local authority) or a leisure travel pass, and the other ticket(s) is/are not.

You must comply with any restriction shown on the tickets relating to travel in the trains of a particular Train Company or Train Companies (see Condition 10).

 

[ainsworth74]

Well, in theory you are making two separate journeys as you have two separate tickets, so it's not a missed connection as part of the same journey.

No, you're not!

Oh no, not this again

 

[Flamingo]

John @ home - did you read the last line of your own post?

You must comply with any restriction shown on the tickets relating to travel in the trains of a particular Train Company or Train Companies

Advanced tickets say "Booked Train Only" - that's good enough for me!

 

[transportphoto]

John @ home - did you read the last line of your own post?


Advanced tickets say "Booked Train Only" - that's good enough for me!

That doesn't matter if you missed your train due to a previous late running (on the rail network), I have previously had about 4-5 AP ticket for a journey, 1 hour delay on train one, our tickets were accepted all the way through (not travelling on the booked train) because of this & the fact we had left the min connection time between trains.

 

[John @ home]

John @ home - did you read the last line of your own post?

Of course. The last paragraph I quote does not change the position on whether the passenger is making one journey.