Forum site not finding cheapest tickets

[BankQuayLowLvl]

Hi all,

Friend of mine is looking at tickets from London-Wolverhampton on Sunday 1st returning Tuesday 3rd. I've been pushing the forum site/Trainsplit but it's let us down in this instance.

Trainline finds several combinations for ~£20 with 26-30 railcard e.g.
outbound 1/6/25 12:56-15:53 for £13.90 (Super Off Peak Single)
return 3/6/25 12:58-15:50 for £5.95 (Advance)

Meanwhile Trainsplit can find the same outbound fare, but on the return cannot find the same itinerary and instead can only offer
return 3/6/25 13:11-15:07 for £17.60 (Advance)

Any idea why?

 

[andythebrave]

You can get it if you exclude Avanti and change search to cheap.

Like this

Results | RailUK Tickets

TrainSplit is a free service that makes it easy to find the cheapest train tickets for your journey.

tickets.railforums.co.uk

Sorry put wrong Railcard but it'll still work

 

[yorkie]

Hi all,

Friend of mine is looking at tickets from London-Wolverhampton on Sunday 1st returning Tuesday 3rd. I've been pushing the forum site/Trainsplit but it's let us down in this instance.

Trainline finds several combinations for ~£20 with 26-30 railcard e.g.
outbound 1/6/25 12:56-15:53 for £13.90 (Super Off Peak Single)
return 3/6/25 12:58-15:50 for £5.95 (Advance)

Meanwhile Trainsplit can find the same outbound fare, but on the return cannot find the same itinerary and instead can only offer
return 3/6/25 13:11-15:07 for £17.60 (Advance)

Any idea why?

Can you provide a link please?

Are we not finding the itinerary? Or is the itinerary provided but not the best combination of fares?

 

[BankQuayLowLvl]

Can you provide a link please?

Are we not finding the itinerary? Or is the itinerary provided but not the best combination of fares?

Here's the Trainline link. And here's the Forum site link. Note that you cannot get down to the same itinerary and fare even if using the "Cheapest" selection.

You can get it if you exclude Avanti and change search to cheap.

Your link works and I can replicate the itinerary that Trainline offered for the same fare (exc. booking fee) by using the filters you applied. However I find it odd that the forum site/Trainsplit wouldn't offer the cheapest, slowest itinerary as standard when setting to Cheapest. I've not encountered it failing to do this without imposing additional conditions before.

So to summarise:
Trainsplit/Forum CAN find the itinerary that Trainline offered, and for the same price, but only by imposing additional conditions (e.g. not Avanti). I find this unusual!

 

[Snow1964]

Your link works and I can replicate the itinerary that Trainline offered for the same fare (exc. booking fee) by using the filters you applied. However I find it odd that the forum site/Trainsplit wouldn't offer the cheapest, slowest itinerary as standard when setting to Cheapest. I've not encountered it failing to do this without imposing additional conditions before.

I think the presumption (and I would have expected this too) is if you choose to click the cheapest button, it then searches for and finds the cheapest, regardless of operator. Not a scenario where have to manually start a set of filters (which of course general public aren't likely to know about, even if experts do).

 

[yorkie]

Here's the Trainline link. And here's the Forum site link. Note that you cannot get down to the same itinerary and fare even if using the "Cheapest" selection.


Your link works and I can replicate the itinerary that Trainline offered for the same fare (exc. booking fee) by using the filters you applied. However I find it odd that the forum site/Trainsplit wouldn't offer the cheapest, slowest itinerary as standard when setting to Cheapest. I've not encountered it failing to do this without imposing additional conditions before.

So to summarise:
Trainsplit/Forum CAN find the itinerary that Trainline offered, and for the same price, but only by imposing additional conditions (e.g. not Avanti). I find this unusual!

Ok that's very useful and I will arrange for someone to look into this, thanks

 

[Adam Williams]

I think the presumption (and I would have expected this too) is if you choose to click the cheapest button, it then searches for and finds the cheapest, regardless of operator. Not a scenario where have to manually start a set of filters (which of course general public aren't likely to know about, even if experts do).

I agree that would be nice. "Nice" and what the industry wants to permit retailers to do are unfortunately sometimes mutually exclusive.

 

[styles]

I agree that would be nice. "Nice" and what the industry wants to permit retailers to do are unfortunately sometimes mutually exclusive.

Out of interest, are there any stipulations on retailers about being 'impartial', for want of a better word?

In this example, excluding Avanti finds a cheaper fare. If this was known to be the case consistently on this route, could the algorithm be refactored to give lesser priority to Avanti?

I'm aware this isn't quite the best example, but hopefully you get the idea!

 

[Adam Williams]

Out of interest, are there any stipulations on retailers about being 'impartial', for want of a better word?

They're supposed to be impartial, yeah, but it's not so much it's prioritising Avanti as it is ranking the itineraries by changes/duration and then capping the number of them that get processed.

 

[styles]

They're supposed to be impartial, yeah, but it's not so much it's prioritising Avanti as it is ranking the itineraries by changes/duration and then capping the number of them that get processed.

Yes, understand the operator isn't the direct cause here, just wondered the hypothetical about deprioritising an operator if it theoretically did make a material difference.