London Midland fares

[Polarbear]

A quick question if I may?

I'm thinking of travelling from Crewe to London Euston & note that London Midland (LM) retail a "super off peak" return for £20.00. Use of their services only which is fine by me.

Now having been on the LM website, this ticket seems to have fairly stringent restrictions on weekdays. However, the implication is that there are no restrictions on Saturdays or Sundays.

However, putting my travel details into Trainline, I can't get any availability for early on a Saturday morning from Crewe to London.

Does anyone happen to know the exact restrictions for this ticket. It's a bargain price so I fully expect some conditions but it would be useful to know exactly what those conditions are!

 

[First class]

Go to NRES and choose 'Advanced Search' and fill journey in.

At bottom select 'London Midland Only'.

That way all journeys that this fare is available on will be displayed.

"SATURDAYS, SUNDAYS and BANK
HOLIDAYS:
By any London Midland train."

Leave Crewe at xx49, change at Stafford. Arrive at London exactly 3 hours later. (train leaves Stafford at xx21).
Leave London at xx46, change at Stafford. Arrive at Crewe 2h 44 mins later.

 

[robert2000]

the £28 ticket has less restrictions, this will be the one i will buy anyway.

 

[First class]

the £28 ticket has less restrictions, this will be the one i will buy anyway.

Well if you're going on a weekend you're paying £8 too much!

The £20 ticket has NO restrictions on it Saturday/Sunday!

Why would anyone buy a CDR at a more expensive price when the OPR is even cheaper with identical restrictions?

 

[Polarbear]

Stethomson - I can probably shed some light on the reason for that.

I decided to go down to London today using LM. Turned up at Crewe & used the Virgin ticket machines to buy my ticket. When I requested the £20 super off peak return fare (for today), a message appeared informing me that the ticket was not valid out of London between around 15.30 and 19.30. As I didn't have sufficient time to query this at the ticket office, I paid the £28 fare.

The fares on LM are pretty cheap, albeit for a considerably slower run to London. However, the fact that the rules & restrictions for each of their tickets is not laid out clearly is something I may well take up with LM.

Thanks for all the advice to date folks.

Edit - new post below.

I've sent an e-mail to LM. I'm a bit concerned that a Virgin ticket machine is implying that a competitor's cheapest ticket may not be valid at times when said competitor says it is!

 

[323235]

Plus the £20 Super Saver Return is valid for return within a month

 

[First class]

Very unusual that Virgin machines are informing passengers the ticket is invalid.

Certainly something that I would feel compelled to report to ATOC if Virgin cannot provide a sufficient explanation.

I don't think it's anything Virgin have deliberately done this though. Perhaps all the various types of TVMs have this problem, I've never checked.

Also, I think ticket restrictions on all tickets should be printed somewhere. I think an airline-style ticket (like in Europe) would be best- with the usual ticket details, but an extra few lines explaining when and where the ticket is valid.

 

[OwlMan]

Stethomson - I can probably shed some light on the reason for that.

I decided to go down to London today using LM. Turned up at Crewe & used the Virgin ticket machines to buy my ticket. When I requested the £20 super off peak return fare (for today), a message appeared informing me that the ticket was not valid out of London between around 15.30 and 19.30. As I didn't have sufficient time to query this at the ticket office, I paid the £28 fare.

The fares on LM are pretty cheap, albeit for a considerably slower run to London. However, the fact that the rules & restrictions for each of their tickets is not laid out clearly is something I may well take up with LM.

Thanks for all the advice to date folks.

Edit - new post below.

I've sent an e-mail to LM. I'm a bit concerned that a Virgin ticket machine is implying that a competitor's cheapest ticket may not be valid at times when said competitor says it is!

But the ticket is not valid Mon - Fri at those times - as it is not a day return it advises you that on Mon-Fri it is not valid between those times. (At least on the Coventry machine it does say Monday - Friday with the times)

 

[First class]

But the ticket is not valid Mon - Fri at those times - as it is not a day return it advises you that on Mon-Fri it is not valid between those times. (At least on the Coventry machine it does say Monday - Friday with the times)

Well that makes sense

 

[mumrar]

I think an airline-style ticket (like in Europe) would be best- with the usual ticket details, but an extra few lines explaining when and where the ticket is valid.

If we put all the conditions for tickets to or via London I think you'd end up with an airplane (Airbus A380 size) style ticket rather than airline. Why are people priced so heavily to travel to or through what is an abhorrent hole of a city??

 

[Polarbear]

That sounds right. However, I'm 99% sure the machine I used at Crewe did not specify that the restriction applied to weekdays only, hence my enquiry.

I certainly know for next time & I will be using LM from Crewe to London in the future. It may take a little longer, but is such a reasonable fare & has the added bonus of not having to book months in advance & keeping your fingers crossed that nothing crops up between buying the ticket & the day of travel.

Other than the 350/2 on the outward leg, (which is a bit cramped on such a long journey), it went very well. Trains clean & punctual, staff in evidence were friendly. No ticket check on the way back though, which given that all stations north of MK Central aren't gated, was a surprise.

I agree that the rules & conditions for all rail fares should be much more widely publicised. To be fair, I think LM aren't too bad for this sort of thing but some other TOC's are just dire.:roll:

 

[Pumbaa]

Why are people priced so heavily to travel to or through what is an abhorrent hole of a city??

Because they're willing to pretty much regardless of the price - the way it's always been!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

No ticket check on the way back though, which given that all stations north of MK Central aren't gated, was a surprise.

No surprise whatsoever - LM staff are notoriously lazy; even more so than VT staff north of Crewe and Coventry!

 

[glynn80]

Why are people priced so heavily to travel to or through what is an abhorrent hole of a city??

Its more the fact that people are charged less for avoiding London rather than being charged more to travel via London.

The option to travel via London is often a longer route than those permitted with an Any Permitted option and thus passengers are charged prices relative to those already in place to the capital as well as relative to the entire journey being made.

For example Newcastle to Bristol, there are two routes- Not London and +Any Permitted (valid via London with a cross London transfer). The price of the Not London flow from Newcastle to Bristol SOR is £219.00, the price of the +Any Permitted is £156.00 higher at £375.00. Obviously some may say that you are being charged a hell of a lot more for travelling into the capital, but when you consider the Newcastle to London Terminals SOR is £266.00, you can see that the longer route via London is being charged relative to the other flows around it.

 

[MKB]

I've sent an e-mail to LM. I'm a bit concerned that a Virgin ticket machine is implying that a competitor's cheapest ticket may not be valid at times when said competitor says it is!

That's nothing. Virgin's website has been massively overcharging LM tickets on the WCML for several months.

E.g. Crewe to Euston via Northampton after 10am outbound on a weekday and return after 10am on the next weekday: instead of the £20 super off-peak LM return, you're told you have to pay £118.60 to travel on LM.

Of course, if you don't say "via Northampton", they don't even tell you that their competitor's trains exist, which, in itself, with no caveats, is misleading. Here in Nuneaton, LM offers the only services to Euston at most times of day, so the VT website does show LM services without the need to specify a via. Yet it still fails to show the LM-only fares. The only way to get those fares to come up is to ask for an open return, but most people wouldn't know that, and you can't then get a reservation for the return portion.

How VT get away with such fraud I have no idea. I wonder how many passengers have paid more than they need to, or travelled by VT because they thought they had no alternative.

I've been in correspondence with Passenger Focus / VT about this since September last year, and neither party seems to think there is much wrong with overcharging passengers. At the very least they should display a warning that their website does not show journeys and fares that may be available from other TOCs.

 

[tony_mac]

I had correspondence with Transpennine express in June last year about the same sort of thing - they also have a trainline website, which doesn't show anything other than the quickest journey.

They have a student offer for 50% off advance fares that is only bookable on their website, yet for some routes you usually can't book the advance tickets on their website as it isn't the quickest journey.

Half a dozen emails didn't produce a single reply that even made sense.

Writing to them did get a sensible (ish) reply, which said 'I understand the problem - but haven't looked into in detail and the website developers say that it's all fine, but if you lose money we will repay that amount in vouchers'.

They still haven't fixed it or addressed the issue in any other way (such as advertising it or even admitting that there is a problem).
I think it's incompetent rather than malicious, as it's their own fares that you can't buy from them.

 

[MKB]

While what TPE is doing is not good, there's a big difference between failing to show all possible journeys (TPE) and showing a journey but pricing it incorrectly (VT).

 

[tony_mac]

no, I agree it's not the same thing.
I just though it was interesting because they (and thetrainline staff) were told about the problem at least a year ago and nothing at all has been done about it.

 

[yorkie]

It's incompetence by Thetrainline, which runs both Virgin and TPEs sites. The TOCs can customise to some extent but it's the same database and same booking engine.