Leeds to Stansted

[alexl92]

I'm looking to find the cheapest ticket from Leeds (or nearby) to Stanstead (SSD) on Saturday morning (29th).
I've looked on various websites travelling from Leeds, York and Wakefield and all of them advertise a £44 fare which involves a change at Peterborough. Each time we get to the actual booking stage and it tells you that the £44 ticket is no longer available.

Now I definitely understand that booking this late won't get me the cheapest tickets because they're sold out but I have two issues with what's happening here.
1. Why, at the first stage where I look at the times and fares available, does it not tell me that the cheapest tickets have sold out? In every case I've had to go all the way to the last page before payment, before it's told me there are no more seats.

2. I then looked at some earlier services which were slightly more expensive at £58. TPE's website said 'Only 8 tickets left at this price!' so I thought, 'Great! I'll take that' but once again at the booking stage, I was informed that there were in fact no tickets left.

Can anyone help? The next best price I can get going LDS-Peterborough-SSD is £80. Can anyone suggest how to beat this at all? I've tried Leeds - KGX - SSD splitting the ticket at KGX and it reduces it to £73 but if anyone can help me beat that further I'd be grateful.

Essentially, it can go from Leeds, York, Wakefield or Bradford via any route so long as SSD is reached by about 12:30pm. Preferably not leaving Yorkshire before 7:30am if poss.

Finally, I've heard you can sometimes book last minute tickets for a cheaper price; where do you find these?

I know this is a long and slightly demanding post but any assistance, however small would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[CBG2KGX]

I believe this happens when there are no reservable seats even if there is advance fare availability, perhaps due to a large number of reservations on other through tickets or some kind of inventory error. Googling for "E00219" suggests you won't easily defeat this.

It looks like the specific problem here is between Doncaster and Peterborough. Have a look at splitting at Doncaster and Peterborough with the DON/PBO leg being first class advance. On the 0840 from Leeds I believe you can get down to £53.90. (Or you could do first class through from Leeds to Peterborough for about £3 more.)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Or try the 0805 from Leeds to Peterborough. This looks like it can be got for £25 without the seat reservation problem. Then get a separate Peterborough/Stansted for £10.40.

 

[alexl92]

I believe this happens when there are no reservable seats even if there is advance fare availability, perhaps due to a large number of reservations on other through tickets or some kind of inventory error. Googling for "E00219" suggests you won't easily defeat this.

It looks like the specific problem here is between Doncaster and Peterborough. Have a look at splitting at Doncaster and Peterborough with the DON/PBO leg being first class advance. On the 0840 from Leeds I believe you can get down to £53.90. (Or you could do first class through from Leeds to Peterborough for about £3 more.)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Or try the 0805 from Leeds to Peterborough. This looks like it can be got for £25 without the seat reservation problem. Then get a separate Peterborough/Stansted for £10.40.

Thanks so much, I'll have a look through this!

 

[yorkie]

The new version of Trainsplit (when the new routeing engine is produced) will solve these problems and identify the cheaper trains.

The Train Companies might not like this because they mistakenly think that everyone will pay the higher price of a walk-up ticket when the lower priced Advance fare is unavailable. In reality, many people will refuse to pay the high fares and look at "splitting".

The current booking engines are not designed around customers' needs. As far as the likes of Atos are concerned, their customer is the Train Companies, and so they build the sites to their requirements, not ours. So they have very little interest in identifying that you may need to take an earlier train (0805) from Leeds in order to reduce the cost. The booking engines try to reduce the journey time, rather than reduce the price.

It's a ludicrous situation, and I look forward to when the Trainsplit site is able to resolve these issues automatically (presenting the options for us to choose from) without having to "manually" look at each leg in isolation and piece it together for one journey.