FGW Advance Fares Increases

[extendedpaul]

There seems to have been an unpublicised increase of about 20% in many advance fares to Wales and the West Country priced by First Great Western.

My regular journey went up from £14.50 to £15.00 in January but is now a minimum of £19. Not happy:cry:

 

[telstarbox]

Advance fares are unregulated so FGW can offer and price them as they please - they have probably worked out that enough of their £15 passengers will pay £19 to make this change worthwhile.

If you travel between South Wales and Kent, £19 is still great value for a journey of this length.

 

[soil]

They don't need to publicise it.

For example, the advance fares for London - Caerphilly are:

http://brfares.com/#fares?orig=1072&dest=CPH&rlc=

£12.50
£16.50
£20
£24
£28
£31
£35
£41.50
£56.50
£72.50
£88

The SOS fare is £103.50

On some peak trains they won't sell any cheap Advance fares, ever.

On some off-peak trains they might sell £12.50 Advances in say February, but then due to known higher demand in Spring/Summer cease to sell those fares in say May.

Basically while all those fares exist, they might not release any £12.50 fares at all for a given week, and won't release any such fares for a given train either.

Obviously if you are accustomed to buying advances at a certain low price, then it is indeed a fares rise. But it's not one they need to publicise, since all they have done is reduce the number of seats sold at the given price to zero.