No off peak singles on CrossCountry Routes?

[leymoo]

I was initially looking up fares between Reading and Birmingham New Street, as I intend to go peak tomorrow 0745, continue to Derby in the evening, then come back off peak, starting at Derby on Thursday evening.


I can't seem to find any off peak fares single fares via Oxford. The only off peak routes are via London.


So, general queries:

• - When did this happen? Has this always been the case since CrossCountry won the route off Virgin?
• - What's the best thing to do with my itinerary? Get an off peak return to Derby and excess to peak one way?

I'm currently stuck with two peak singles to and from BHM and an off peak return between BHM and Derby, and I'm probably posting too late to get this changed, but some general information would be good!

 

[Hadders]

Generally Off Peak Singles are only £1 less than Off Peak Returns so you're not losing out too much (there are some exceptions to this but the general rule goes back to British Rail days).

I don't know where it might be best to split to reduce the cost but there's no need for separate tickets.

A Reading - Derby Anytime Return would suffice, simply break your outward journey at Birmingham and resume it later. The most it would cost is £139.60 for the Anytime Return. Others may be able to advise of suitable splits.

 

[Romilly]

On this route, splitting at some or all of Oxford, Banbury, Leamington and Birmingham, and using a mix of Advances and flexible tickets, tends to be the best way to bring the price down. But checking the options, even using something like trainsplit, is exhausting.

That said, a Birmingham-Derby offpeak return at £17.10 will cover tomorrow evening and the first bit of your journey back on Thursday.

For Reading-Birmingham using flexible tickets, trainsplit suggests: Reading Oxford anytime day single ("ADS"), Oxford-Banbury ADS, Banbury-Birmingham ADS, Birmingham-Banbury ADS, and Banbury-Reading offpeak day single, total £71.70. There are still a few pounds to be saved if you were to sacrifice flexibility and include some Advances in the mix. With that number of tickets, it makes sense to buy online and collect from a ticket machine.

And to partly answer your question, there are offpeak day singles from Banbury southwards.

Edit: with the split tickets, you would need to ensure that you were on a train that stops at all of the splitting points, buy I think you'd be ok as regards trains stopping at Oxford and Banbury.

 

[bb21]

Off-Peak fares do not always exist for all flows. The only fare that is guaranteed to exist for every flow is the Anytime Return or Anytime Day Return (previously the Standard Open Return or Standard Day Return).

Many Off-Peak Singles only came into existence because the DfT were fed up of situations where the return fare is cheaper than the cheapest single, so Off-Peak Singles were introduced at £1 less than the return to minimise loss of revenue. Some such fares as mentioned above also date back to BR days.

 

[yorkie]

Get an off peak return to Derby and excess to peak one way?

Excessing from Off Peak to Anytime is the full difference. See Excess: change of ticket type

CrossCountry charge a premium for longer distance passengers travelling at peak times, so you need to "split", and only pay the sum of the fares that would be charged for several passengers each doing a short journey.