EMT ripping people off

[yorkie]

Just searching for some fares from Market Harborough, looking for a way to do the cycle ride from Northampton to Market Harborough without breaking the bank, and I notice that some Advance fares cost more than Anytime fares.

If you can't see the image it is showing a price of £24 (advance) or £19 (Anytime), from Market Harborough to Newark departing 1637 on the same trains.

This practice should be illegal IMO.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
There's more.

Leicester-Sheffield.

Mon 12 Apr 201
16:35 or 17:05
Advance Single price is £31.00
Off Peak Single price is £21.00
Anytime Single price is £28.00

 

[ralphchadkirk]

I can get you Tim Shoveller's email address if you want to complain about it...

 

[PhilipW]

I agree with you, Yorkie.

I do not have examples to hand at the moment but I have seen similar cases with other Operators, so I do not believe that the problem is not just with EMT.

From my observations the anomalies are mainly when fares are being booked close-in the travel date, the system seems to yank up the Advance fare to overtake the walk-on fare.

Yes, I am sure the unwitting do fall for it.

 

[yorkie]

I can get you Tim Shoveller's email address if you want to complain about it...

He's welcome to visit this forum if he likes

I doubt he's unaware of it. I mean, you can't be a MD of a TOC and not know your own fares policy. So what's he going to say? There's currently no rules against it anyway. However it is something that perhaps we can campaign on and try to put pressure on the relevant bodies who can outlaw it, to do so.

EMTs fare policy is utterly ludicrous but there's no point in me contacting the MD about it.

Besides, he's probably got directions from higher up to have that policy.

 

[voyagerdude220]

An example of VT acting very similarly between Warrington & Euston:

Off Peak Single= £65.20

Advance Standard singles for travel tomorrow 06/04/10:

11:20 arr 13:12- £102.50
12:20 arr 14:12- £80.00
13:20 arr 15:12- £102.50
14:21 arr 16:11- £51.00 + cheaper+
15:20 arr 17:12- £102.50
16:21 arr 18:08- £51.00 + cheaper+
17:20 arr 19:13- £80.00

Out of the above seven trains- 5 are offering advance standard singles which are more expensive than the valid off peak single ... :roll:

 

[moonrakerz]

Why should it be made illegal ? There are enough stupid Laws already (did you know that this Government made it illegal to detonate an atomic weapon ?).

The anytime fare, by definition, is displayed all the time - if people cannot see that one fare is more expensive than another do we have legislate for that ??

It is just one of the quirks that come out of a complicated fares structure - there are hundreds (thousands ?) of these if you look.
Have a browse round your local supermarket you will find plenty of similar price anomalies - "family" size packets costing more (per weight) than two small packets is a common one.

 

[b0b]

If you can't see the image it is showing a price of £24 (advance) or £19 (Anytime), from Market Harborough to Newark departing 1637 on the same trains.

One might argue that the Advance comes with a guaranteed seat, whereas the Anytime doesn't?

 

[tony_mac]

You can also reserve a seat with the anytime ticket.

It is purely an attempt to profit from people who get confused by the (complicated) systems. There is absolutely no need for this to happen. If this was a financial product then I am sure that the regulators would have something to say about it.

Virgin know that their website overcharges but won't change it.

 

[Dolive22]

The FSA, who regulate financial services in the UK, stubbornly refuses to do anything about exactly this sort of thing.

 

[flymo]

It is just one of the quirks that come out of a complicated fares structure -

Shouldn't that read simplified?

 

[jon0844]

Advance tickets should be capped at the price of a normal ticket; problem solved.

Anyone hunting for a cheap deal should be entitled to do so without having to check the standard price after to make sure they haven't been ripped off (or, I guess you could say 'caught out legally').

The person that finds out may simply refuse to travel by train again. A couple of quid made for a much bigger loss in the long run.

 

[maddeningcrowds]

It is not necessarily a deliberate attempt to con people. Often it is just a consequence of they way the fares are set in zones and then quota controlled. Short hops on the West Coast, for example, can have ludicrous advance fares on offer: they are exactly the same as the fare all the way to London.

 

[b0b]

You can also reserve a seat with the anytime ticket.

You can, if there are any available. Advances come with the seat.

 

[moonrakerz]

You can, if there are any available. Advances come with the seat.

Not on SWT !

 

[yorkie]

You can, if there are any available. Advances come with the seat.

But the statement has no meaning. If the Advance fare is available then clearly seats are available. Can you clarify whether or not you are suggesting that there is any benefit of an Advance fare over an Anytime/Off Peak fare (when both are bought in advance when specifying the same train)?

 

[b0b]

But the statement has no meaning. If the Advance fare is available then clearly seats are available.

at the Advance Fare price... I'm not familiar with the booking engines, so I don't know if a the booking reserved seat for any other fare consequently reduces the number of Advance fares available.

 

[yorkie]

at the Advance Fare price...

Nope. Seat reservations come at no price! Again, can you clarify what you are saying?

I'm not familiar with the booking engines, so I don't know if a the booking reserved seat for any other fare consequently reduces the number of Advance fares available.

It doesn't automatically affect the advance quota, no.

But if a TOC noticed that a train was heavily booked with Off Peak/Anytime tickets, yet still had plenty of AP availability, then obviously they could manually adjust the quota accordingly.

But that's not relevant to the issue at stake here.

 

[b0b]

Nope. Seat reservations come at no price! Again, can you clarify what you are saying?

I am saying the Advance ticket guarantees you a seat as the conditions of the use of the Advance ticket state you must sit in that specific seat.

 

[yorkie]

I am saying the Advance ticket guarantees you a seat as the conditions of the use of the Advance ticket state you must sit in that specific seat.

If I book for the train quoted in the original post, and make that booking today, I have the choice between two ticket types. If I book Anytime then I have the option of reserving a seat. If I want one, I'll do that.

Q1: Given the above scenario, how does booking the Advance fare "guarantee" a seat any more than the Anytime ticket?
Q2: How does being theoretically forced to sit in a specific seat in any way give me more right to a seat than having a seat reservation which I may, or may not, choose to take up?
Q3: Is there any advantage whatsoever in purchasing the Advance ticket, over and above that of buying an Anytime ticket for the same train, via the same method, today? If so, what is that advantage?

 

[mickey]

On ATOS systems such as the one in question above you have to click on a 'fare type' to display journeys available at that price. Given that the 'anytime' fare is always visible there, and the system is designed to show both an advance and an ordinary fare on the same initial screen, it could easily be argued that it's the customer's fault if he buys the wrong one.

Advance tickets should be capped at the price of a normal ticket; problem solved.

I would agree with this. However, it should be an industry-agreed initiative rather than a law since, as pointed out above, there are too many new laws about where self-regulation is a much simpler option.

Yorkie, there is no advantage to the customer of buying an advance ticket in this situation (but there is of course to the TOC).

 

[yorkie]

On ATOS systems such as the one in question above you have to click on a 'fare type' to display journeys available at that price. Given that the 'anytime' fare is always visible there, and the system is designed to show both an advance and an ordinary fare on the same initial screen, it could easily be argued that it's the customer's fault if he buys the wrong one.

But the first option is for fares from £9, people could easily click on this. Of course, you or I would never book these expensive tickets, but someone who does not fully understand the intricacies of the system can easily make that mistake.

Here it is possible to pay up to £48.00 for a return journey that costs £22.80 for a flexible ticket, by selecting what appears to be the cheapest (from £9) option.

I would agree with this. However, it should be an industry-agreed initiative rather than a law since, as pointed out above, there are too many new laws about where self-regulation is a much simpler option.

If the industry does not implement it, then a law should be created. After all there are no shortage of rules telling us what we can or cannot do yet not enough laws stopping consumers being ripped off.

Yorkie, there is no advantage to the customer of buying an advance ticket in this situation (but there is of course to the TOC).

Of course we that, but b0b appears to be suggesting otherwise hence my request for clarification.

 

[mickey]

But the first option is for fares from £9, people could easily click on this. Of course, you or I would never book these expensive tickets, but someone who does not fully understand the intricacies of the system can easily make that mistake.

Maybe I'm too optimistic but I'd like to think that people would notice the '£19 single' and '£22.80 return' buttons and join the dots when the £9 fare doesn't show up. After all, if you're expecting £9 e/w and all fares shown are double figures, wouldn't you do a double take? Again though, perhaps too optimistic - as you say, it's easy to forget that we know what's going on. Hmmm.

If the industry does not implement it, then a law should be created. After all there are no shortage of rules telling us what we can or cannot do yet not enough laws stopping consumers being ripped off.

Agreed. But there are enough recent precedents where government has said "sort yourself out or we'll legislate" and it's worked to be confident it would here too.

 

[moonrakerz]

Of course, you or I would never book these expensive tickets, but someone who does not fully understand the intricacies of the system can easily make that mistake.

Whilst I disagree with Yorkie's call for legislation I would agree that the TOCs do operate various levels of "pricing by confusion" - whether this is deliberate or has just grown up from adding various layers of prices year after year, I wouldn't like to say.

The example shown of a TOC's website/prices, I think amply proves this point. Yorkie may understand it, I may understand it - but would your granny ?

I usually use FGW's site (unless offers are available only on other sites!) and I usually recommend others to use it. It may not look high-tech, but I think it is a lot easier to understand that the example shown above.
It shows what fares are available on a particular train, whether single or return and links to detailed ticket restrictions. AND.......... it also clearly shows the selection you have made before moving you onto payment.

 

[ashworth]

I am saying the Advance ticket guarantees you a seat as the conditions of the use of the Advance ticket state you must sit in that specific seat.

On more occasions than not when I have travelled on EMT's busy Norwich to Liverpool service there have been no seat reservations. Is this normal on this service or just coincidence that it seems to happen whenever I travel on that route with an AP ticket complete with my seat reservation.

I have travelled on the 0745 Nottingham to Norwich service on a number of saturdays over the past year and have never found any seat reservations. The 0745 from Nottingham to Liverpool also on Saturdays is another train that regularly has no reservations. Only 2 weeks ago, Tues 30th March, when I last travelled on this route there were no reservations on the 0845 from Nottingham to Liverpool.