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Any idea why the TVMs at Derby are not offering the £22.70 SVR to Birmingham at 14:00 (intended train at 14:10) and are only showing the more expensive £24.30 SDR?
SVR is not valid before 09:30 Mon-Fri but has no evening restrictions.
I’ve noticed this twice in the last week but the ticket office has sold the cheaper fare unbidden on both occasions. What am I doing wrong?
Any idea why the TVMs at Derby are not offering the £22.70 SVR to Birmingham at 14:00 (intended train at 14:10) and are only showing the more expensive £24.30 SDR?
Well that‘s a bit carp then - but your explanation sort of makes sense based on how the interface works. I wonder how many people have paid a bit over the odds because it doesn’t show an Offpeak Return where they might expect to find it?
Well that‘s a bit carp then - but your explanation sort of makes sense based on how the interface works. I wonder how many people have paid a bit over the odds because it doesn’t show an Offpeak Return where they might expect to find it?
I wouldn’t describe it is deliberate miss-selling, but its certainly not displaying / offerlng the cheapest fare that meets the passenger’s requirements. If I select “day return” I would then expect to be presented with the [cheapest] fares that enable me to travel out and back the same day, irrespective of the validity of the ticket extending beyond that day or not. Realistically Derby-Birmingham return is a popular flow that is very likely to be completed in a single day. Fortunately I knew what I expected to pay and thus didn’t accept the fare that the ticket machine was offering - plenty of others, I suspect, may be mislead and pay more than is necessary. This sort of mis-representation / potential over-charging is the sort of issue that advocacy groups for passenger rights should be lobbying to get fixed.
I know there are people that deal with ticket machines from other operators such as LNER and Northern, and I know we have some excellent EMR staff here.
I’d agree it’s not going to be a deliberate attempt to extort more cash from people providing it DOES show the SVR when you state you want to return at a later date (have you checked this?) but overall it is rather poor to not offer a perfectly valid ticket.
I’d agree it’s not going to be a deliberate attempt to extort more cash from people providing it DOES show the SVR when you state you want to return at a later date (have you checked this?) but overall it is rather poor to not offer a perfectly valid ticket.
CrossCountry (XC) got rid of the Off Peak Day Return (CDR) from Derby to Birmingham, so the cheapest return now is the period return product. The issue does not occur for journeys such as Nottingham to Birmingham, where XC still have CDRs (for now.... but don't be surprised if they remove them too!)
TPE did similar with many journeys, notably journeys to/from Huddersfield.
As CDRs are not regulated fares, there is nothing to stop TOCs getting rid of them.
TOCs hate Off Peak Return (SVR) fares because they are deemed to be "too cheap" (despite actually being too expensive for most people, who would drive instead of paying the fares demanded) however most SVRs are regulated by Government, so TOCs can't get rid of them, at least not yet...
The TVM software should be amended to show period return products, where they are cheaper than the lowest priced valid day return product.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
There is a very long list of things that the rail industry does that is not acceptable. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do much about it. It's not a level playing field; train companies can much more easily persecute passengers who they accuse of underpaying.
