Paddington to Oxford Commute help?

[s2000]

I've been planning to commute from Paddington to Oxford on weekdays, 7.20 to Oxford in the morning, 16.32 to paddington in the evening.

Usually over the last year, whenever I check on GWR, the tickets for these times have been £4.30, as long as I've checked at least 3 weeks or more in advance. I was able to do this for the month of September (booked near start of august) and for October (booked in start of September)

Now I'm trying to buy tickets for November, but all the prices for the advance singles seem to have a higher baseline. Anyone know why, or was I just too slow and am I just out of luck now?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@s2000. Welcome to the forum.

I'd say that £4.30 is the absolute cheapest possible one-way Advance Single fare after railcard discount has been applied, if/when travelling between London Paddington and Oxford (with GWR). The next tier up is £9.30. By comparison, an Anytime Day Single would cost you some £31.40.

Obviously, no guarantee as regards the availability of advance tickets, on a particular train, at a particular price point, if/when commuting. As an alternative, there *might* be cheap advances if travelling between London Marylebone and Oxford (with Chiltern).

 

[CyrusWuff]

It's possible GWR have stopped offering lower tiers of Advance ticket on those trains. Just because something exists in the fares data is no guarantee they'll be available to buy, alas.

 

[s2000]

It just seems strange that I've seen this behaviour of the £4.30 tickets popping up when I look 3-4 weeks ahead consistently over the last couple months and now it all of a sudden it disappears, was curious if anyone else commutes the same and books similar tickets, or maybe I was just too slow and they've now all sold out. From what I've seen typically they don't keep cheaper fares to release later or anything in case of empty excess capacity?

 

[mickey]

There is not (and never has been) a guarantee of a set number of tickets in each fare bucket. There are several routes where GWR has stopped selling certain cheap apexes over the last few months, it may be a trial or it may be permanent but either way it’s entirely within their gift to do so.

Tbh - and I appreciate this may sound blunt - but £4 is very low for a south-east peak commuter fare, so if anything I’m surprised you got them for as long as you did.

 

[Deerfold]

It just seems strange that I've seen this behaviour of the £4.30 tickets popping up when I look 3-4 weeks ahead consistently over the last couple months and now it all of a sudden it disappears, was curious if anyone else commutes the same and books similar tickets, or maybe I was just too slow and they've now all sold out. From what I've seen typically they don't keep cheaper fares to release later or anything in case of empty excess capacity?

Sometimes companies realise they don't need to offer cheap fares on certain trains. For a few years, I was buying £11 tickets to London from Yorkshire, leaving at 0610, buying as soon as they were released. At some point, about 15 years ago, LNER realised that anyone travelling at that time probably didn't have a lot of choice and the cheapest available jumped to £33.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Having now checked on BRFares, GWR have removed all but one tier of Advance tickets that was below £14 before discount.

I'm guessing the remaining one (the WES at £6.50) is only used for promotions.

 

[Watershed]

Presumably the fact that they are soon becoming part of GBR is a factor. Under privatisation they offered very low fares to compete with Chiltern, who in turn were competing with the likes of The Airline coach service.

Now that they are effectively integrated with Chiltern there is no rationale in charging a cheap price for the faster of the two routes. Effectively that leaves Chiltern as the cheap and slow option, and GWR as the more expensive and fast option.

 

[s2000]

@CyrusWuff That WES one is the one I think I've been getting consistently for the last two months. The £4.30 price is with the railcard discount. Glad to know it still exists, but sounds like I'm just out of luck then. Wish I could've enjoyed more than two months of it haha