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Yes, and sometimes trying out unusual routes that the ticketing engines don't even consider.
I once found that the cheapest route to get from TM to York on the day I wanted to travel was, incredibly, via Ipswich!!
The Newcastle one was by going via London when GWR had an offer on BRI-PAD. Trainsplit didn't even consider via London.
Another good reason for booking direct through a TOC, sometimes these special offers are only available direct.
I'd be interested to hear the details, but I would also point out that Trainsplit did not offer splits at places like Burton, Tamworth, Chesterfield etc for this journey 2 years ago, and now it does.
Early versions of Trainsplit were a lot more limited.
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Yes, and sometimes trying out unusual routes that the ticketing engines don't even consider.
I once found that the cheapest route to get from TM to York on the day I wanted to travel was, incredibly, via Ipswich!!
From TM? Bristol Temple Meads? I don't think Trainsplit could be expected to find tickets via Ipswich, nor would many people want to take such a huge deviation.
Don't say it just took a couple of minutes to find the cheapest route was via Ipswich?!
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The Newcastle one was by going via London when GWR had an offer on BRI-PAD. Trainsplit didn't even consider via London.
Another good reason for booking direct through a TOC, sometimes these special offers are only available direct.
But is it really sensible to book each segment of the journey from a different retailer?
Taking your example, if you book BRI-PAD on GWR and then KGX-NCL on LNER, this potentially adds extra hassle if one of the trains is cancelled or re-timed (see other threads where this has happened).
It's also more of a faff to either collect multiple booking references or have multiple PDF e-tickets from separate locations.
It may make Delay Repay claims more difficult (again see other threads for examples of this).
How often do TOCs retail special offer tickets that only the relevant TOC sells on its own trains from its own website? Not very often, I'd say. I'd also argue the practice is anti-competetive but that's a whole new topic!
Does the average passenger really want to buy tickets from multiple retailers, and do multiple searches for each segment? Presumably you'd be looking up Bristol to Swindon/Didcot/Reading, then each of those to London on GWR, and likewise London to various stations and various stations to Newcastle on LNER, and some intermediate journeys to ensure you've not missed a more complex split?
How long does all that take, and for the average person, is it not just better to let one website take care of all of that, have one booking reference (or in the case of e-tickets one PDF) and a clear through itinerary as evidence of the contract for the full journey?
Also bear in mind if you book direct with GWR you cannot use a seat selector and if you do your own splits, obtaining the same seat throughout could be very time consuming.
Actually it did. I had previously done a trip to Norwich and was amazed at how cheap advance singles were from Bristol to Ipswich and beyond (So cheap that I paid a bit extra for first class and did BRI-NRW for 34.50). So when looking up a trip to the North East I thought about seeing what Ipswich-Newcastle was like for advances.
Another reason for doing your own research instead of using split ticketing sites is that split ticketing sites don't show local day rover tickets which are often cheaper than standard fares. For example a day return from Sheffield to Birmingham is often cheaper using a Derbyshire Wayfarer for part of the journey.
But is it really sensible to book each segment of the journey from a different retailer?
Taking your example, if you book BRI-PAD on GWR and then KGX-NCL on LNER, this potentially adds extra hassle if one of the trains is cancelled or re-timed (see other threads where this has happened).
It's also more of a faff to either collect multiple booking references or have multiple PDF e-tickets from separate locations.
It may make Delay Repay claims more difficult (again see other threads for examples of this).
How often do TOCs retail special offer tickets that only the relevant TOC sells on its own trains from its own website? Not very often, I'd say. I'd also argue the practice is anti-competetive but that's a whole new topic!
Does the average passenger really want to buy tickets from multiple retailers, and do multiple searches for each segment? Presumably you'd be looking up Bristol to Swindon/Didcot/Reading, then each of those to London on GWR, and likewise London to various stations and various stations to Newcastle on LNER, and some intermediate journeys to ensure you've not missed a more complex split?
How long does all that take, and for the average person, is it not just better to let one website take care of all of that, have one booking reference (or in the case of e-tickets one PDF) and a clear through itinerary as evidence of the contract for the full journey?
Also bear in mind if you book direct with GWR you cannot use a seat selector and if you do your own splits, obtaining the same seat throughout could be very time consuming.
No, when travelling via London I usually make use of the time in London, something not all pax will do, but typically my arr Pad - dep KGX is 5 or 6 hours, sometimes more, so not a problem.
And how picking up all tickets from one machine at TM is a problem, I'm at a loss to see how this is any kind of problem at all.
As for delay claims, the way I book means that that this cannot ever be a problem as the parts of my journey are always well seperated (see above)
How often do TOCS do special offers? Well FGW/GWR regularly do special offers BRI-PAD, or rather they did pre-covid, £ 10 single available for months at a time.
I am not an ordinary passenger and at no point did i suggest that ordinary passengers would buy tickets in this way. (Nor travel by the often much slower routes that I take)
No, I don't do multiple splits to get to PAD, so it's a simple one ticket BRI-PAD (or beyond ).
Again, I am a rail enthusiast, not an average traveller and I am used to looking up cheap tickets. This means I know what to try and can find tickets quite quickly. (And am also aware of quite a few loopholes in the pricing structure that make some journeys cheaper) Some of my freinds are aware of this and often ask advice on buying tickets.
Lastly I never do splits on the same train, so seat booking simply isn't an issue.
is an example when the new version of trainsplit gives weird and expensive results. For a day return trip Radley to London Terminals it suggests making your own way to West Ruislip, for an inflated price. In fact, a cheap day return has no evening restriction from Marylebone.
Yes, and sometimes trying out unusual routes that the ticketing engines don't even consider.
I once found that the cheapest route to get from TM to York on the day I wanted to travel was, incredibly, via Ipswich!!
Which is obviously an absurd routing. The issue here is that it isn't a permitted route on a through ticket, so it isn't likely to show up. It takes considerably longer, incudes additional changes of trains. It's not suitable to provide this journey, even if it is cheaper. Those whoa re interested in this sort of thing will search manually themselves as you have done.
It's not really acceptable to say anything negative about any retailer who won't display itineraries like this when it is not a valid route on a through ticket.
No, when travelling via London I usually make use of the time in London, something not all pax will do, but typically my arr Pad - dep KGX is 5 or 6 hours, sometimes more, so not a problem.
See the forum to find out a few horror stories of ticket machines not printing 1 ticket in a group of >1 and how people have ended up being prosecuted by it.
It's the same retail API and journey planner underneath, the new version doesn't do anything special in this regard so I'm surprised at the assertion it's been somehow architected differently in order to give more expensive results!
In any case, there's a handy "Leave feedback" link on the journey results page you can use to flag issues up with specific journey or searches - things can be properly looked into, that way.
It's really difficult to investigate random screenshots without full details of exactly what steps you took, what you picked to prioritise (speed / "Best value" / cost) for the search, the origin/destination/departure datetime/return datetime/passengers etc.
... In any case, there's a handy "Leave feedback" link on the journey results page you can use to flag issues up with specific journey or searches - things can be properly looked into, that way.
...
I did, at the time, report the above weirdness - and another one: paddle your own canoe to Greenford, and buy a pile of expensive singles Greenford to Radley. These weirdnesses were, at the time, appearing only on the new version. I got a brief acknowledgment to the effect that trainsplit was experimenting with offering non-obvious routes including a short walk!
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
