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Avantix Fares CD-ROM available publicly

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adambro

adambro

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Anyone have any tips or tricks regarding how to research cheap fares?
 
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yorkie

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adambro said:
Anyone have any tips or tricks regarding how to research cheap fares?
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Yes, but you need to do so in combination with the timetable (for combining trains) and the roueting guide (for... routeing).

Here's a few tips:

It's sometimes cheaper to pay to go further at peak time. For example, York-leeds has no Saver fare, so you can't use a railcard (£16 min on SDRs). But buy to somewhere like Bradford, Halifax or Hebden Bridge and suddenly a Saver is available, and you can get that for the £8 minimum.

Check the codes, and the TOC that sets the fare. Some TOCs are "desperate" with regards to peak fares (TPE); others are lenient (Northern). If I want to get to Manchester before 9am, I won't pay TPE the extra for a Standard Open ticket. Why should I, when someone going to Chinley can use a Saver?! So, I'd get a ticket to Chinley instead. TPE cannot refuse to accept it (though some guards may try so you need to be absolutely sure you know your rights and the restrictions, and that it's valid in the RG).

Travelling from Scunthorpe to Manchester before 9am? TPE don't want you to use a Saver (of course, the guards can't be expected to know all this rubbish, so they accept Savers anyway in general), so buy it from Grimsby instead and suddenly it's valid at any time. Yes, person A going from Grimsby to Manchester on the SAME TRAIN as person B going from Scunthorpe to Manchester is paying LESS for a longer journey.

A passdenger wants to get the 08:27 York to Derby, they are told a Saver is not valid (because MML - yes MML! - say so) and to pay £56.50, call them Person A. Meanwhile person B gets a Saver to Sheffield (£16.60) which is valid on ANY train. By the time they get to Sheffield, CDRs are valid, a CDR to Derby is £7.80. Person B gets exactly the same trains as person A, yet pays only £24.40 - that's £32.10 LESS! And some people have the cheek to say we should not know this.

Another method is to go for a parallel route. MML are expensive, so look for a ticket priced by GNER that allows travel on MML. I won't say what ticket to use here, but I can get the price down by around a third on a York-Derby/Nottingham ticket.

There's loads more methods too.
 
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yorkie

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WSXFan said:
Some fares are absolutely ridiculous...For instance, it costs me MORE to go from Knighton to Linlithgow than it does to go from Hereford...Anyone know why that might be?
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Because they think people will pay more from Hereford, I guess. I'd imagine both are set by Central? There are example of the fare from Malvern being more than Malvern Link (or was it the other way round?) despite the journey being further from the cheaper location. There's loads more too, far too many to mention.

WSXFan said:
Then there's Hereford to Dover Priory (these are all journeys I either want to make or are thinking about doing one day). Usually fares that involve going to Reading or London from Hereford are cheaper via Evesham. Not in this case...It's cheaper to go via Newport, usually the much more restrictive and/or expensive way!
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Who sets those fares though? It could be a different company. NickW found PNZ-IPS cheaper than PNZ-PAD, because 'one' set the Ipswich fare (yes, really!) and they are cheaper than FGW.
 
Ascot

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Ok so would this be valid?

I'm going Brum to London on CT/SS on y/p for £14.45 however there is a time restriction on the outward portion.... SO

I buy a London to Birmingham CT/SS so in theory, i travel on the return portion in the peak and the outward on the way home and both are valid?
 
adambro

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Officially an outbound ticket can is only valid with the unused return I think.
 
1D53

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A fantastic find this.

Oddly enough I cant find any fare info for the Manchester Airport line local stations into Picc!
 
Techniquest

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yorkie said:
Because they think people will pay more from Hereford, I guess. I'd imagine both are set by Central? There are example of the fare from Malvern being more than Malvern Link (or was it the other way round?) despite the journey being further from the cheaper location. There's loads more too, far too many to mention.


Who sets those fares though? It could be a different company. NickW found PNZ-IPS cheaper than PNZ-PAD, because 'one' set the Ipswich fare (yes, really!) and they are cheaper than FGW.
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Not a clue who sets the fares...Let's see what I find when I re-do the search...

SVR £44.90 Any Permitted. GWR comes up by that fare, along with GK.

SVR £46.85 Route Evesham. GWR also comes up by it along with 4N.

As for the HFD - LIN fare, it is £72.75 for a SVR, priced by the looks of it by VXC.

KNI - LIN is a SVR priced at £73.60, with 8A and VXC next to that fare.

How I love this software...
 
adambro

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Section E for the manual for what the validity codes mean (http://www.atoc.org/retail/_downloads/NFM95/NFM95_Common_E.pdf). 8A is good! It means valid on any train in both directions, see page 18.

4N is a bit more complicated, see page 27 (E17). GK can mean a few things, see the manual. For GK with a saver see page 33 (E23).

I presume GWR means its priced by First Great Western.

Apologies if you knew all this already.
 
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yorkie

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The great thing about the software is, if you click on a fare, it states the code of the TOC that sets the fare, along with the restriction code (if applicable) and then on the right hand side it has restriction text that details the restriction (no more cross-referencing with Section E!), it just makes the whole process so much easier.

ATOC could never refuse to give the info on demand, but they made it so you had to phone NRES, or ask at a station, what the code was and then either ask them what it means or look it up in Section E. Obviously, this is time consuming and they hoped to put people off in the hope that they'd give up and pay the Standard Open fare (or go by car in some cases as there's only so much some people can take!).
 
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yorkie

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adambro said:
Officially an outbound ticket can is only valid with the unused return I think.
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Only with SORs.(See here "The outward portion of a Standard Open Return ticket is valid only in conjunction with the unused return portion" - this is to prevent misuse of SORs as they are valid for 1 month).

It is not a condition of CDRs that you have to be in possession of an unused Return portion, therefore you don't need to worry about the return portion being stamped before the outward, as you can discard it (in the evening you could say "I only wanted a single, and I thought a Cheap Day Return was cheaper than a Standard Day Single" which sometimes is the case and sometimes isn't. I can't say I'd recommend it though!).

HOWEVER, I'd be more worried about the outward leg. The fact is, if you travel on a train where CDRs are barred for outward portions and the guard is aware of that, then they're going to spot the trick of using the return portion and then they can do you for using the return portion first, as that is not allowed (it's in the NFM somewhere, the wording is something like "outward portions must be used before return portions" but I can't remember exactly).

Anyway I spoke to Ascot and the following options are open to him:
£24.90 Any Permitted (valid on any Virgin train in the peak, due to VT's rules on railcards!)
£16.00 Saver (Valid on SS trains after 0830 and earlier connecting CT trains - in this case, the 0748 that he wants from Brum is allowed with this ticket)
£14.45 CDR Valid after 0830.
 
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Max

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Just open the .exe file within the .zip folder, and select 'install all files' (or something along those lines). No need for a CD :)
 
voyagerdude220

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I tried that before, and it came up with the error message:

Cannot Install: SETUP or INSTALL programm filename contains folder information. Use Actions/Check Out instead.

I'm using the "WinZip" programme, and can't do the alternative thing because it's a trial (unregistered) version.

Any other programmes/ideas to use?

I'll have a look into registerring the version, and will see what it entales.
 
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Daniel

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Cheers Yorkie.

Liam - put in any station in Origin, the code in destination, and 1 adult.
 
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yorkie

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JsT said:
Does work on the adults though.

Isn't child just half anyway? It doesnt work on Y-P either
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No - generally rovers are 34% off for railcard holders and U16s, however there are a few rovers that give a 50% discount for U16s.

Some Rangers do not give railcard discounts, though.
 
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