NRE offering Off Peak fares at Peak time?

[campainr]

Hi all

I hope someone can help me with this. I am looking at travelling to London from Coventry on Thursday am, returning Friday pm. I have a 16-25 railcard. I did a search for the cost using the NRE website and it is offering cheap Off Peak fares for services such as the 0752 COV-EUS which surely cannot be correct?

When I do not add the railcard to the search it shows the price of the full anytime single which is £74. Is this a glitch in the NRE site or have I stumbled across some weird quirky deal? The fare is called a "Virgin Saver Half" which I Googled but can't find any more info on this.

I have attached some screenshots. I don't know whether to just buy the ticket and blame it on NRE if challenged but I have a feeling that strategy would not go down well!

Thanks in advance for any help or advice on this.

 

[crehld]

Hi all

I hope someone can help me with this. I am looking at travelling to London from Coventry on Thursday am, returning Friday pm. I have a 16-25 railcard. I did a search for the cost using the NRE website and it is offering cheap Off Peak fares for services such as the 0752 COV-EUS which surely cannot be correct?

When I do not add the railcard to the search it shows the price of the full anytime single which is £74. Is this a glitch in the NRE site or have I stumbled across some weird quirky deal? The fare is called a "Virgin Saver Half" which I Googled but can't find any more info on this.

I have attached some screenshots. I don't know whether to just buy the ticket and blame it on NRE if challenged but I have a feeling that strategy would not go down well!

Thanks in advance for any help or advice on this.

Virgin have an easement which allows the use of railcard discounted off-peak tickets at peak times. See: http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/railcard-discount/

So NRE is correct.

 

[cool110]

There's 2 things going on that are specific to Virgin (west coast). The 1st is the railcard easement that allows off-peak tickets to be used in the peak when discounted with some railcards. The other is the existence of the "saver half" (SVH) which are set at exactly half of the return and can only be bought with another single in the other direction, they intended to be used when buying an advance one way but flexibility is wanted in the other direction.

 

[campainr]

Virgin have an easement which allows the use of railcard discounted off-peak tickets at peak times. See: http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/railcard-discount/

So NRE is correct.

Thanks for your quick reply with the good news.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

There's 2 things going on that are specific to Virgin (west coast). The 1st is the railcard easement that allows off-peak tickets to be used in the peak when discounted with some railcards. The other is the existence of the "saver half" (SVH) which are set at exactly half of the return and can only be bought with another single in the other direction, they intended to be used when buying an advance one way but flexibility is wanted in the other direction.

Thanks. Saver halfs sound like a good idea.

 

[crehld]

Thanks for your quick reply with the good news.

No problem. It's a handy easement which I make good use of myself!

Thanks. Saver halfs sound like a good idea.

Equally useful!

 

[185143]

Virgin allow railcard Off Peak Single/Returm tickets to be used anytime.

 

[t0ffeeman]

Virgin allow railcard Off Peak Single/Returm tickets to be used anytime.

Does anyone know if that applies to PRIV rate?

 

[causton]

Does anyone know if that applies to PRIV rate?

Officially, no. A nice Virgin Train Manager, on the other hand...

As far as I know, it is only railcards.

 

[button_boxer]

The fare is called a "Virgin Saver Half" which I Googled but can't find any more info on this.

The fare used to be called Saver Half before "simplification" decided that all tickets had to be called either Anytime, Off-Peak or Advance. The former Saver Half fare is now called an Off-Peak Single, but you can only buy it as part of a return journey, as opposed to the completely different Off-Peak Single ticket (the one which was formerly called Saver Single until they decided this was too complicated), which is available for a single journey...

 

[Deerfold]

Just to add, in case anyone else reads this thread for info, the easement does not apply to all railcard types - sadly including Two Together railcards.

 

[Mag_seven]

Officially, no. A nice Virgin Train Manager, on the other hand...

As far as I know, it is only railcards.

But on the other hand a not so nice Virgin Train Manager could see the use of a PRIV off -peak ticket on a peak service as a mis-use of PRIV so be careful!