Difference in Pricing

[joke2711]

I have just had work purchase a ticket for London to Wirral on 28th April 2016.

The cost of the advance 1st - London to Hoylake ... £141
The cost of the advance 1st - London to Liverpool ... £108

The cost of a Liverpool - Hoylake ticket ... £3.95

That's one hell of a difference to travel on the same train!

 

[dquebec]

Liverpool Stns and Hoylake are in the same fare "zone" or "cluster" for Virgin Advance Tickets, so the fares are identical.

It seems to be an availability issue rather than a higher fare applying.

 

[joke2711]

Liverpool Stns and Hoylake are in the same fare "zone" or "cluster" for Virgin Advance Tickets, so the fares are identical.

It seems to be an availability issue rather than a higher fare applying.

No fares are always different ... usually only be a £1
it can't be an availability issue as Virgin are carrying me on the same train.

It is the 1807 service from EUS in this instance

 

[greatkingrat]

Are you sure it was £141? I can see Advance 1st fares for London - Hoylake of £121 and £146 but nothing in between.

 

[Merseysider]

Was it a ticket from London Terminals or from a specific station in the London area?

 

[joke2711]

Are you sure it was £141? I can see Advance 1st fares for London - Hoylake of £121 and £146 but nothing in between.

Sorry it was £140 something so £146 is probably right ... it was the price difference that amuses me ...
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Was it a ticket from London Terminals or from a specific station in the London area?

The search was undertaken on the Virgin website with the start point as London Euston.

 

[joke2711]

Just run the query again ... screen shots attached

 

[MikeWh]

It seems to be an availability issue rather than a higher fare applying.

Could it be the difference between VT only and VT & Connections? In the past I've found that the cheapest tiers are only available without connections.

 

[Paul Kelly]

No fares are always different ... usually only be a £1
it can't be an availability issue as Virgin are carrying me on the same train.

It can be an availability issue - we have seen this on the forum with fares to Merseyside stations before. The £108 fare is a "VIRGINWESTCOAST"-routed fare - only valid on Virgin Trains. The £146 one is routed "VTWC &CONNECTNS" - also valid on Merseyrail and possibly Northern, EMT and TPE too depending on where you change, probably also on London Midland and Arriva Trains Wales (I haven't checked the permitted routes thoroughly).

It seems to me that sometimes Virgin have better availability of advance fares where the whole price of the fare goes to them, rather than for "& connections" fares where they have to share some of the revenue (even if only a very small portion) with another TOC. Of course, the price difference here is completely unjustifiable, but I think it can be explained by different availability for fares where Virgin keeps all the revenue compared to fares where they have to share it.

Edit: MikeWh got there before me!

 

[joke2711]

It can be an availability issue - we have seen this on the forum with fares to Merseyside stations before. The £108 fare is a "VIRGINWESTCOAST"-routed fare - only valid on Virgin Trains. The £146 one is routed "VTWC &CONNECTNS" - also valid on Merseyrail and possibly Northern, EMT and TPE too depending on where you change, probably also on London Midland and Arriva Trains Wales (I haven't checked the permitted routes thoroughly).

It seems to me that sometimes Virgin have better availability of advance fares where the whole price of the fare goes to them, rather than for "& connections" fares where they have to share some of the revenue (even if only a very small portion) with another TOC. Of course, the price difference here is completely unjustifiable, but I think it can be explained by different availability for fares where Virgin keeps all the revenue compared to fares where they have to share it.

Edit: MikeWh got there before me!

it would be interesting to know what percentage Virgin will give to the other Operators then ...

 

[crehld]

It may be worth the OP trying another website. Normally I wouldn't think it to be an issue, but I only suggest this because I spent ages this morning trying to book a reasonably priced ticket from Inverness to Crewe using Virgin's website (wanting to make use of the seat selector) but kept receiving a message saying it was having trouble connecting to the national reservations database and therefore could not offer all available advance fares - I went to another website instead which had no such problems.

 

[otter11]

It may be worth the OP trying another website. Normally I wouldn't think it to be an issue, but I only suggest this because I spent ages this morning trying to book a reasonably priced ticket from Inverness to Crewe using Virgin's website (wanting to make use of the seat selector) but kept receiving a message saying it was having trouble connecting to the national reservations database and therefore could not offer all available advance fares - I went to another website instead which had no such problems.

There was definitely an issue this morning as both ScotRail and National Rail were having issues connecting to the reservations database. Not sure exactly what the problem was, but all seems fine now...