Best price regardless of date/time

[RyanOPlasty]

I'm fortunate to have retired, and able to travel at any time. The various ticketing sites seem to only offer prices for a selected date and time range. I would like instead to locate the best fare for my journey in the next two weeks. Is there any way to easily do this?

 

[jfollows]

Just post here with details of what you want to do, as precisely as you can, and people will try to help you. Between us we know a lot that we can use to advise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jul 2024 ==

If you want to look for yourself, a good option is this site’s ticketing service and choose the correct “flexible” option. But you’re right that you have to start with a date/time.

 

[Haywain]

If you want to look for yourself, a good option is this site’s ticketing service and choose the correct “flexible” option. But you’re right that you have to start with a date/time.

I don't think the OP is looking for flexibility so much as saying they are very flexible about when can travel in order to get the cheapest fare.

 

[gray1404]

The National Rail website used to have a lowest fare finder. If it's still there you can search for the cheapest fare available each day.

 

[RyanOPlasty]

I don't think the OP is looking for flexibility so much as saying they are very flexible about when can travel in order to get the cheapest fare.

Yes, this is what I am after. The only way I cam do this at present is to check each day separately.

 

[Haywain]

Yes, this is what I am after. The only way I cam do this at present is to check each day separately.

Realistically, I don't think there is anything set up across the board that will provide what you are looking for, but some websites may do part of it - LNER will show the lowest price of the day when you go to select the date for your chosen LNER journey but doesn't do it for other operators - however, if they do it is likely to be for journeys specific to that operator.

Just to add that when I worked in the ticket office of a major London terminals we had no way of dealing with such enquiries other than to try and tie the request down to some specifics. "I want to go to Scotland when it's cheap" really didn't work for our systems!

 

[jfollows]

Yes, this is what I am after. The only way I cam do this at present is to check each day separately.

I misunderstood, apologies.
https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/farefinder/search is the “Cheap Fare Finder” mentioned by gray1404 above. But it‘s limited compared to your needs.
The only other thought is that sometimes split tickets are cheaper and more flexible than advance tickets anyway, for example for me to Birmingham from Wilmslow I never buy advance tickets, I split at Stafford and use day returns etc.

 

[Adam Williams]

So to be clear, the reason this isn't possible is because the rail industry's reservation system doesn't share/push availability data for all services - it's a system you have to send a specific query - and there are quite strict limits about how many services retailers are allowed to query at once. These haven't been changed in years, despite the underlying reservation system having been replaced with something architected supposedly for better performance and scale.

The view from a lot of industry participants is that significant revenue is being left on the table due to this, and the rail industry isn't keeping up with passenger expectations.

 

[Haywain]

Where it is done, as I understand it, it is by caching data from earlier searches.

 

[Adam Williams]

Where it is done, as I understand it, it is by caching data from earlier searches.

You're quite correct, which of course some retailers find much more difficult a task to do than others, on any sort of usable scale!

Naming no names, of course.

 

[Haywain]

You're quite correct, which of course some retailers find much more difficult a task to do than others, on any sort of usable scale!

Naming no names, of course.

Even with LNER it's limited to their own services and I think works because there's sufficient volume of enquiries to keep the data reasonably current. It would be a nightmare for most retailers to offer it for all potential journeys.