Night riviera pricing

[modernrail]

Hi, I have just checked the pricing for 2 people on the Night Riviera next week and it is coming up at over £300 for the cabin supplement?!? (For 2 people) on top of the fare.

Am I doing something wrong or has pricing turned crackers on the night riviera as well.

 

[NER1621]

Other more informed sources will have better information, but a lay-person’s perspective might be that those are the prices you can expect if you only give yourself a week’s notice to try to book on a restricted-capacity sleeper to a prime holiday destination during a heatwave in the first week of the school holidays…

 

[Hadders]

Taking Tuesday next week as an example these are the options:


Picture shows the cost of sleeper berths on Tuesday 15th July from Paddington to Penzance.

If it's any consolation the Celedonian Sleeper will be more expensive!

 

[Jan Mayen]

Taking Tuesday next week as an example these are the options:

View attachment 183501
Picture shows the cost of sleeper berths on Tuesday 15th July from Paddington to Penzance.

If it's any consolation the Celedonian Sleeper will be more expensive!

That's if you can get it. I've made a few attempts in the past few days. Seems to be fully booked. Perhaps we should have more sleepers!

 

[CyrusWuff]

Hi, I have just checked the pricing for 2 people on the Night Riviera next week and it is coming up at over £300 for the cabin supplement?!? (For 2 people) on top of the fare.

Am I doing something wrong or has pricing turned crackers on the night riviera as well.

The pricing structure for the Night Riviera changed in 2022.

Where you previously purchased a berth-inclusive ticket at various price points, you now have to buy a walk up ticket and the berth supplements are at various price points.

The only real advantage of this approach for customers is that someone who has staff travel facilities can now share a cabin with someone who doesn't.

On certain Ticket Issuing Systems, it's a nightmare to sell because you have to check each supplement individually, entering customer details each time.

 

[Benjwri]

It is just the way with the Night Riviera in peak season at such late notice. I got a single berth for £60 a few months ago booking far in advance

 

[AlterEgo]

Other more informed sources will have better information, but a lay-person’s perspective might be that those are the prices you can expect if you only give yourself a week’s notice to try to book on a restricted-capacity sleeper to a prime holiday destination during a heatwave in the first week of the school holidays…

Cornwall is mad in the summer, and a lot of monied people from the South East go there, so £175 ish per person is about what they'll charge, yes.

 

[modernrail]

Is there not an upper cap on the berth price though?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Is there not an upper cap on the berth price though?

Looks to be the extra £175 for a single berth. On top of the actual ticket price! At least places still seem to be available/reservable.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Is there not an upper cap on the berth price though?

Looks to be £49 to £224 for a Solo cabin and £29.50 to £174.50 per person for a Twin cabin.

 

[modernrail]

Thanks for replies. That is a lot extra for the cabin on top of the ticket price if at the upper end. A walk up a week before railway for the rich. 6x the cost of the lowest cabin fare for exactly the same product.

Our railway dynamic pricing junkie fare setters really do love a very big spread don’t they. I would not be surprised if the biggest spread worldwide for exactly the same (distinctly average) product.

Daytime train it is, still not cheap but over £400 cheaper than this nonsense. For a train trip to Cornwall.

 

[Watershed]

Thanks for replies. That is a lot extra for the cabin on top of the ticket price if at the upper end. A walk up a week before railway for the rich. 6x the cost of the lowest cabin fare for exactly the same product.

Our railway dynamic pricing junkie fare setters really do love a very big spread don’t they. I would not be surprised if the biggest spread worldwide for exactly the same (distinctly average) product.

Daytime train it is, still not cheap but over £400 cheaper than this nonsense. For a train trip to Cornwall.

Sleeper berths are effectively the same as hotel rooms. I'm sure you must be well aware of the price fluctuations you see for those, on quiet rainy November Mondays vs peak summer Saturdays when there's an event on...

 

[GilfachFargoed]

I would not be surprised if the biggest spread worldwide for exactly the same (distinctly average) product.

I suspect that you will find a substantially wider 'spread' on Ryanair (as one example).

 

[modernrail]

Sleeper berths are not effectively hotel rooms. They are a subsidised train service with a very short bed. The bed is nowhere near as comfortable as a hotel room. The Riviera doesn’t have en suite bathrooms. It is about a century since anybody last stayed in a hotel room without an en suite bathroom for the equivalent of £175.

It is rare you see hotel rooms with a spread of more than x3 and that tends to be when they have switched on the mega dynamic pricing price gauging button.

Ryanair and hotels are not subsidised public services.

I absolutely love sleeper trains, I absolutely loathe publicly subsidised train services giving away some beds too cheaply and then charging those that are last there a ridiculous multiple of that price. It is just completely unnecessary. The UK rail network is not Ryanair, it is not Hilton, it is a train service that everybody in the country pays towards the vague hope they might find it affordable to use at some point.

The cheapest the cabins should go for it probably about £60 each. The top end should be about £90. That puts it as equivalent to the most expensive hostel bed you have ever paid for, which is what it is equivalent to quality wise.

Sleeper berths are effectively the same as hotel rooms. I'm sure you must be well aware of the price fluctuations you see for those, on quiet rainy November Mondays vs peak summer Saturdays when there's an event on...

 

[JGurney]

6x the cost of the lowest cabin fare

Quite possibly six times the demand, too.

 

[Benjwri]

That is a lot extra for the cabin on top of the ticket price if at the upper end. A walk up a week before railway for the rich. 6x the cost of the lowest cabin fare for exactly the same product.

Sleeper berths are not effectively hotel rooms. They are a subsidised train service with a very short bed.

The alternative is no option to even buy one at this point, because they’re all sold out, and an even greater subsidy than that already.

 

[Watershed]

Sleeper berths are not effectively hotel rooms. They are a subsidised train service with a very short bed. The bed is nowhere near as comfortable as a hotel room. The Riviera doesn’t have en suite bathrooms. It is about a century since anybody last stayed in a hotel room without an en suite bathroom for the equivalent of £175.

It is rare you see hotel rooms with a spread of more than x3 and that tends to be when they have switched on the mega dynamic pricing price gauging button.

Ryanair and hotels are not subsidised public services.

I absolutely love sleeper trains, I absolutely loathe publicly subsidised train services giving away some beds too cheaply and then charging those that are last there a ridiculous multiple of that price. It is just completely unnecessary. The UK rail network is not Ryanair, it is not Hilton, it is a train service that everybody in the country pays towards the vague hope they might find it affordable to use at some point.

The cheapest the cabins should go for it probably about £60 each. The top end should be about £90. That puts it as equivalent to the most expensive hostel bed you have ever paid for, which is what it is equivalent to quality wise.

I completely understand what you're getting at, and I certainly agree with you as concerns daytime trains. Unfortunately I think we have to be realistic and accept that:

1. Services like the Night Riviera are already highly subsidised, and the DfT will be applying pressure on GWR to cut subsidy as much as possible by maximising revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a factor behind the decision to change from cheaper berth-inclusive fares to pricier supplements a couple of years ago.
2. Sleeper berths are clearly nowhere near as comfortable as a decent hotel room, but they functionally still perform a similar role. People are saving on the cost of a hotel and the time spent travelling during the daytime. As such, that attracts a premium - people are prepared to spend some (or all) of the cost of a hotel on the sleeper.
3. If your proposals were implemented, the end effect would likely be that there would be no berths at all available a week before departure (during busy periods). This is the inevitable outcome of there being limited supply which is outstripped by huge demand.

To put the last point another way, does it really make sense to sell out a heavily subsidised train at prices well below market rate? That effectively means you're changing from a walk-up but expensive railway, to a cheap but no longer walk-up railway - since have to book months in advance to guarantee getting on a particular service. I'd rather have the walk-up railway, personally speaking.

Another angle would be that if the trade-off in terms of allocating public subsidy is between introducing a half-hourly service somewhere (say, the Barnstaple line) and offering cheaper berths, what do you think the average member of the public would favour?

For daytime trains, the equation is rather different as there are very few times when demand is so high that it outstrips not only seating capacity but standing space. Therefore I am more comfortable with selling busy trains below the maximum 'market rate', since you are unlikely to be actually denying people travel by doing so (notwithstanding LNER/Avanti's fake 'compulsory’ reservations).

It also means that 'average' people can actually benefit from the huge network subsidy they are paying towards in taxes, which is an important factor in my view.

 

[NER1621]

The UK rail network is not Ryanair, it is not Hilton, it is a train service that everybody in the country pays towards the vague hope they might find it affordable to use at some point.

To which I suspect the response of 95% of taxpayers would be to say “stop using my money to subsidise a niche and objectively unnecessary train service and spend it where many more train passengers get a bigger bang for the buck.”

(I’m being generous - in reality I suspect 90% of taxpayers would say “spend that subsidy on the NHS/potholes/social care, not trains.”)

I love sleeper trains. In fact I’m using the Night Riviera for a short break in Cornwall next month. But I planned that trip a while ago, and I could just as easily do it on day trains. Of all the train services that should be fully commercial the NR sleeper is high in the list. And if the argument is that it’s vital for Cornish-based business travellers, then subsidise their travel (Kernow residents’ railcard?) and let the sleeper berths find their market value - like hotel rooms - for the rest of us.

 

[modernrail]

I came to the conclusion the subsidy should probably be withdrawn on the Scottish sleeper a good while ago because the fares are in no way inclusive any more at any time.

We seem to be heading in the same direction for the Riviera. Hopefully it stops short of that.

Interestingly a trawl of this forum finds posters in this thread saying £60 felt overpriced as a cabin supplement in 2022.

 

[Sleepy]

The berth supplement prices do increase once you get to 4 weeks out, as others have said the cheaper quotas do sell out earlier (espically Friday/Sunday nights) Looking at 15th October you can have single cabin for £49 or twin berth for £79. Search 1st August & you get £199 for a single and £309 for a twin berth.

 

[bkhtele]

I wondered how may berths are available pity they can't/don't add a couple of carriages to provide extra capacity

 

[Haywain]

I wondered how may berths are available pity they can't/don't add a couple of carriages to provide extra capacity

Because they no longer allow random strangers to share, the question is really how many cabins are available. According to Wikipedia it's 12 cabins per coach, and the trains have 4 sleeper coaches (5 from Paddington on Friday and Penzance on Sunday), so that's between 48 and 96 berths per train. I'm not sure how many of those continue into Cornwall after the train splits at Plymouth.

 

[AlterEgo]

Sleeper berths are not effectively hotel rooms. They are a subsidised train service with a very short bed. The bed is nowhere near as comfortable as a hotel room. The Riviera doesn’t have en suite bathrooms. It is about a century since anybody last stayed in a hotel room without an en suite bathroom for the equivalent of £175.

Untrue. Been there and done it myself at a major event in 2019.

It is rare you see hotel rooms with a spread of more than x3

Untrue.

and that tends to be when they have switched on the mega dynamic pricing price gauging button.

No such thing. You mean simply that hotel rooms are dynamically priced according to availability. I’m taking the family on holiday outside the school holidays to a holiday park that is about a quarter of the price than if we went in August.

and then charging those that are last there a ridiculous multiple of that price. It is just completely unnecessary. The UK rail network is not Ryanair, it is not Hilton, it is a train service that everybody in the country pays towards the vague hope they might find it affordable to use at some point.

At some point perhaps, but maybe not the only sleeper train to Cornwall from London in high season. If it was cheaper you would have had no berths to look at whatsoever. They’d be sold out. Then you could moan about something else.

The cheapest the cabins should go for it probably about £60 each.

The very cheapest ones in low season go for about £50, so not far off.

The top end should be about £90.

“Trains should be subsidised so I, personally, can afford them at my preferred price point”

That puts it as equivalent to the most expensive hostel bed you have ever paid for, which is what it is equivalent to quality wise.

The Night Riviera is not a hostel!

 

[Sleepy]

Because they no longer allow random strangers to share, the question is really how many cabins are available. According to Wikipedia it's 12 cabins per coach, and the trains have 4 sleeper coaches (5 from Paddington on Friday and Plymouth on Sunday), so that's between 48 and 96 berths per train. I'm not sure how many of those continue into Cornwall after the train splits at Plymouth.

It hasn't detached any coaches at Plymouth since 2006 (the same time as motorail was discontinued)

 

[Haywain]

It hasn't detached any coaches at Plymouth since 2006 (the same time as motorail was discontinued)

I was going by RTT which says, for Friday night's train from Penzance, "Service gains coaches here".

 

[styles]

I don't particularly object to the Night Riviera pricing. There are cheap room supplements to be had in advance. Compared to the Caledonian Sleeper, there are some right bargains to be had frankly.

I do however think that a lot of the tension around the sleeper pricing discussions is because their main benefit is somewhat conflated, and because while there is enough interest for them to get fully booked, there just aren't enough budget options. Both have removed the option to share with strangers, and them being 2-person cabins means a true budget option just isn't there without large subsidies. While not for everyone, there are plenty of people, especially young people, who would be happy to have a bed in a 4 or 6 berth compartment if it came in at a cheaper price point. Travelling at night and even factoring in engineering works, I'd imagine we have the capacity for it and it would sell.

I take the Caledonian Sleeper for work. Yes it is often cheaper to get a daytime train + cheap B&B, but then I'm losing out on 4 hours with my partner and dog on the way out, and working with unreliable connectivity and my dog on her own all morning on the way home. When I add up the price of a daytime train + hotel and compare it to the CS, there's often not a huge amount in it, but it's often sold-out last minute, which is my bigger frustration. There is of course the flying option, but I'm not sure we want to encourage domestic flights for obvious reasons, plus for many journeys I make I either end up at a similar price point, or I'm having to get a bus or two to the airport, get there say 45 minutes early to get through security and be around for gates closing, then bus/tube/train at the other end, etc; and it often just doesn't seem that convincing. For the NR, you can't get direct flights from Penzance or Exeter to London so it's a bit mute.

On this 'quality time' basis, I think train+hotel vs sleeper is really personal preference. The fact that the sleepers have such high utilisation rates suggests the public value this aspect over mere price, even if it is a smaller bed and a shower at the destination rather than in the room.

If someone is on a very tight budget, they go with coaches. But really, a whole night spent curled up on a coach seat is not for most people if they can avoid it, especially on routes where they take significantly longer.

Basically I'm happy ish with the sleepers as they are - I just wish we'd add a handful of additional budget sleeper options.

 

[LondonerTravel]

How far in advance do GWR usually sell sleeper tickets?

 

[styles]

How far in advance do GWR usually sell sleeper tickets?

12 weeks