Having just completed the fares advice article for the December issue of Railtalk Magazine, I realised that I didn't get round to posting the November article here! So, here it is...
Virgin leaflet causes confusion
On a visit to Carlisle station last week, a Virgin-branded leaflet titled, Is your Off-Peak ticket valid caught my eye, so I picked up a copy and tried to make sense of it.
Now, for the background The term off peak is no longer an informal term to mean any ticket type that isnt valid at peak periods it is now the name of a ticket type. The train operating companies were keen to state that there are only 3 categories of ticket as of September, one of which is Off Peak. If there is a more restrictive ticket, they say, it will be Super Off Peak. The National Rail site gives a link to full conditions of Off Peak and Off Peak Day tickets. Needless to say, when clicking the link you are not actually presented with the restrictions because there are hundreds of them! But the suggestion is that Off Peak and Off Peak Day are identical, with the exception that the suffix of Day means the ticket is only valid for one day.
So a passenger picking up the leaflet about Off Peak tickets should reasonably be able to assume it applies to the use of all Off Peak tickets along the routes detailed in the guide (a map is helpfully provided). The leaflet states that restrictions only apply to journeys to, or via, Milton Keynes, Watford Junction and London (for completeness it even mentions Kensington Olympia and Paddington, in addition to Euston, as many tickets for WCML destinations are also valid via Banbury). Now, it certainly is Virgins policy that only journeys south of Milton Keynes inclusive, should incur restrictions on Off Peak tickets. But this does not extend to other TOCs who set some fares along Virgin routes, for example London Midland recently introduced an Off Peak ticket at the old Saver price, as detailed in previous articles. Admittedly, someone doing a journey such as Stafford to Birmingham, on an Off Peak ticket, on a Virgin train is probably not going to be challenged after all Virgins policy is to allow such tickets but it is officially not valid, and probably would be challenged on a London Midland service, despite the leaflet suggesting it is valid. How on earth is a passenger meant to understand that, because that particular fare is not set by Virgin, Virgins policy does not apply to it? It is not easy for a passenger to determine who sets the fare and, quite frankly it should be irrelevant! There is little sense in who sets the fares anyway. Warrington-Wigan is Northern; Wigan-Lancaster is Northern. But the through Warrington-Lancaster journey is Virgin, to name just one example.
Worse still, there is the issue of Off Peak Day fares. Virgin had a policy of abolishing many of these fares (formerly Cheap Day Returns) in previous years, yet some do remain, and there are also the Off Peak Day fares set by other operators along the route, namely Northern and London Midland. These fares are heavily restricted, yet there is no mention of this in the leaflet other than the claim that if travelling short of Milton Keynes on an Off Peak ticket there are no restrictions!
The leaflet has two columns, for travel toward London the headings are From and Outward/return travel. For travel away from London, the headings are Outward/return travel and Exceptions which I find rather odd, especially as in two cases the Exception column states Valid on any train well, thats not an exception is it?!
Virgin have tried to produce a leaflet that presents the restrictions in a simple format, but ultimately it has failed to do so because it omits so many restrictions and misleads customers into believing their tickets are unrestricted. Even so, with many omissions, the leaflet runs to 8 pages of text in 1/3 A4 format and is difficult to follow.
Cheap First Class on Virgin
In keeping with the West Coast theme, the decision by Northern to rename their Saver fares as Anytime, gives the added bonus of a free upgrade to First Class at weekends. It has long been Virgins policy to allow Standard Open Returns a free upgrade, now it applies to Anytime fares (not Anytime Day), but an Anytime from Lancaster to Wigan is only £13.50! Preston to Warrington is £13.00. Virgin trains website has not been updated to reflect the change from Standard Open to Anytime.
Virgin leaflet causes confusion
On a visit to Carlisle station last week, a Virgin-branded leaflet titled, Is your Off-Peak ticket valid caught my eye, so I picked up a copy and tried to make sense of it.
Now, for the background The term off peak is no longer an informal term to mean any ticket type that isnt valid at peak periods it is now the name of a ticket type. The train operating companies were keen to state that there are only 3 categories of ticket as of September, one of which is Off Peak. If there is a more restrictive ticket, they say, it will be Super Off Peak. The National Rail site gives a link to full conditions of Off Peak and Off Peak Day tickets. Needless to say, when clicking the link you are not actually presented with the restrictions because there are hundreds of them! But the suggestion is that Off Peak and Off Peak Day are identical, with the exception that the suffix of Day means the ticket is only valid for one day.
So a passenger picking up the leaflet about Off Peak tickets should reasonably be able to assume it applies to the use of all Off Peak tickets along the routes detailed in the guide (a map is helpfully provided). The leaflet states that restrictions only apply to journeys to, or via, Milton Keynes, Watford Junction and London (for completeness it even mentions Kensington Olympia and Paddington, in addition to Euston, as many tickets for WCML destinations are also valid via Banbury). Now, it certainly is Virgins policy that only journeys south of Milton Keynes inclusive, should incur restrictions on Off Peak tickets. But this does not extend to other TOCs who set some fares along Virgin routes, for example London Midland recently introduced an Off Peak ticket at the old Saver price, as detailed in previous articles. Admittedly, someone doing a journey such as Stafford to Birmingham, on an Off Peak ticket, on a Virgin train is probably not going to be challenged after all Virgins policy is to allow such tickets but it is officially not valid, and probably would be challenged on a London Midland service, despite the leaflet suggesting it is valid. How on earth is a passenger meant to understand that, because that particular fare is not set by Virgin, Virgins policy does not apply to it? It is not easy for a passenger to determine who sets the fare and, quite frankly it should be irrelevant! There is little sense in who sets the fares anyway. Warrington-Wigan is Northern; Wigan-Lancaster is Northern. But the through Warrington-Lancaster journey is Virgin, to name just one example.
Worse still, there is the issue of Off Peak Day fares. Virgin had a policy of abolishing many of these fares (formerly Cheap Day Returns) in previous years, yet some do remain, and there are also the Off Peak Day fares set by other operators along the route, namely Northern and London Midland. These fares are heavily restricted, yet there is no mention of this in the leaflet other than the claim that if travelling short of Milton Keynes on an Off Peak ticket there are no restrictions!
The leaflet has two columns, for travel toward London the headings are From and Outward/return travel. For travel away from London, the headings are Outward/return travel and Exceptions which I find rather odd, especially as in two cases the Exception column states Valid on any train well, thats not an exception is it?!
Virgin have tried to produce a leaflet that presents the restrictions in a simple format, but ultimately it has failed to do so because it omits so many restrictions and misleads customers into believing their tickets are unrestricted. Even so, with many omissions, the leaflet runs to 8 pages of text in 1/3 A4 format and is difficult to follow.
Cheap First Class on Virgin
In keeping with the West Coast theme, the decision by Northern to rename their Saver fares as Anytime, gives the added bonus of a free upgrade to First Class at weekends. It has long been Virgins policy to allow Standard Open Returns a free upgrade, now it applies to Anytime fares (not Anytime Day), but an Anytime from Lancaster to Wigan is only £13.50! Preston to Warrington is £13.00. Virgin trains website has not been updated to reflect the change from Standard Open to Anytime.
