I'm visiting every train station in the uk, Tuesday night I'm going to Abercynon and Aberdare.
I got Manchester-Abercynon for £13 5 day notice
But is you search from Chorley my nearest station it's £43
On Tuesday it's £27 from Manchester, or £35 from Chorley. So £8 more.
Note that it is possible for the TPE leg to run out of quota for cheap AP availability and that could push up the price for the entire journey. Though I found no evidence of that happening on Tuesday.
Something has got to be done about this. I've just realised how the websites work, many people don't
Yes, you need to book earlier. Advance tickets go on sale up to 12 weeks in advance.
In future can you not post in a way that makes it difficult for us to assist you please? I will also edit your topic title, please use sensible topic titles rather than silly titles like "expensive tickets" or "Another rip off", if you post any more topics with a similar title and similar content I will simply delete it (you did a similar thing on 10 June). As for only just discovering how it works, I find that odd, given that you seemed to work that out in your post of 10 June, and you had plenty of replies. If you want advice, please post in a way that lets us help you.