East Coast Advance purchase tickets

[Johnny Lewis]

On Wednesday of this week, I looked at booking a First Class Advance purchase ticket, via the East Coast website, for a journey from Leeds to Kings Lynn, for Wednesday 9th February. A week in advance, there were plenty of journey opportunities for £27.60 (with the 10% online discount). By the following day, ALL the fares had risen to £46.50, but when I made the same enquiry for Thursday 10th February, there were £27.60 tickets available again.

Now, I can't believe that ALL the £27.60 fares had sold out overnight for the Wednesday, so I am wondering, do East Coast have a policy of withdrawing from sale all of the cheapest tickets a week in advance?

If this IS the case, then I think they should make people aware that it is no longer possible to buy the cheapest advertised fares less than a week in advance. This goes back to the days of InterCity, when we had Apex (book 7 days in advance) and SuperApex (book 14 days in advance) fares.

Can anyone comment on this?

 

[mumrar]

There is a bug flaw in your logic. For you to have been offered the cheaper fare there only has to be one left. So it only requires one sale to become sold out.

 

[Zoe]

Why not add to the booking engines a feature to show how many fares of a certain price there are remaining? It may encourage people to book sooner so they don't miss out.

 

[Deerfold]

Or discourage them if there's a lot.

The companies don't seem keen for there to be visibility of how many fares they offer at each level.

 

[Zoe]

The companies don't seem keen for there to be visibility of how many fares they offer at each level.

I can see logic to this, the fares are not refundable and the earlier in advance they are booked the more likely that some of the people won't travel in the end but they still get all the revenue.

 

[Johnny Lewis]

There is a bug flaw in your logic. For you to have been offered the cheaper fare there only has to be one left. So it only requires one sale to become sold out.

My point is that the £27.60 fare was available on at least 4 trains. Then, one day later, none of these fares are available. But they are available on all the same trains for the Thursday. It just seems coincidental to me...

 

[mumrar]

But depending what you were looking at, the advance slot could be taken by people booking longer through journeys. If you were looking at Newcastle to Peterborough it could have been sold to someone going Aberdeen to Kings Cross.

 

[SS4]

It could have been that said batch of the £27.60 fares had sold out and the next day East Coast released another batch of £27.60?

 

[button_boxer]

I can see logic to this, the fares are not refundable and the earlier in advance they are booked the more likely that some of the people won't travel in the end but they still get all the revenue.

And it would show up cases where companies sell just one or two seats per train at the lowest tier so they can advertise a lower headline price without losing too much revenue in practice (I don't know how prevalent this practice is but of course that's precisely the point I'm making...).

 

[mumrar]

And it would show up cases where companies sell just one or two seats per train at the lowest tier so they can advertise a lower headline price without losing too much revenue in practice (I don't know how prevalent this practice is but of course that's precisely the point I'm making...).

All this would show would be which are busier peak services, and which are not. You can't expect any operator in charge of a peak flow to a major city to offer a lot of Advance tickets on certain services, it would be ludicrous.

At least the railway don't increase fares five fold at holiday times such as Christmas, then people could more justly be up in arms.

 

[island]

Is there an X-day advance purchase requirement for that fare?

 

[Deerfold]

Is there an X-day advance purchase requirement for that fare?

Not an advertised one (except before the day of use).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Now, I can't believe that ALL the £27.60 fares had sold out overnight for the Wednesday, so I am wondering, do East Coast have a policy of withdrawing from sale all of the cheapest tickets a week in advance?

Can anyone comment on this?

I can believe that - if there's one on each train and the people who are buying can travel at a range of times they will be the next four tickets on that day sold.

 

[mumrar]

I think there's an issue being skirted around regarding the OP. Is this an inquisitive question regarding he finer working of advance purchase tickets? Or is it a rant and a desire to find some mechanism/system to blame, other than oneself, for the fact that the OP did not purchase the tickets at the earlier opportunity at which he saw these cheaper fares?

This isn't meant in a vindictive way, but I am curious as to the motive(s) behind the question/suspiscion.

 

[swt_passenger]

It isn't necessarily logical to assume that the last fare at a particular value being shown as available on X number of trains means there are X number of tickets left. If a particular fare has a set number available on a given flow on a particular day, the last one to be available could still be offered for multiple services, and when sold disappear from every service at the same time. IYSWIM.

 

[Deerfold]

It isn't necessarily logical to assume that the last fare at a particular value being shown as available on X number of trains means there are X number of tickets left. If a particular fare has a set number available on a given flow on a particular day, the last one to be available could still be offered for multiple services, and when sold disappear from every service at the same time. IYSWIM.

I see what you mean but I don't think they usually work like that - that would actually be quite hard to work out compared with having a specific number per train.

 

[yorkie]

I think actually there is something in this.

I looked at the fares for Tuesday, Friday and Saturday next week. The standard fares were quite similiar, still many good deals available for the Tuesday.

However in 1st class you can only get a good deal if you book on the Saturday.

So yes it appears that you can only the cheaper 1st class fares at least 1 week in advance. This is useful to know.

 

[Failed Unit]

I guess they have to do that, business Travellers tend to book later and they dont want them on cheap APs. To be honest I don't have a problem if they did withdraw the cheapest bracket 1 week before. The whole point of AP is to book early for the best deals!

 

[SS4]

However in 1st class you can only get a good deal if you book on the Saturday.

Were they advance tickets or weekend upgrades?

OT: I once found myself in the unusual position of it being cheaper to go first class from New St to Paignton than standard even if there was no first class seating left :roll: but at least I got a voucher off XC

 

[furryfeet]

I think actually there is something in this.

So yes it appears that you can only the cheaper 1st class fares at least 1 week in advance. This is useful to know.

I concur with yorkie, since I have seen such fares disappear once one is only seven days from the date of travel.

At least East Coast does make an attempt to sell 1st apex tickets at reasonable prices, unlike some other TOC's .....