Pay more for less

[fandroid]

You've probably seen this, or something like it, before, but it does no harm to highlight the customer unfriendly behaviour of the railway. The fares shown come from the SWR app, but GWR shows the same. The journey is Basingstoke to Underground zones 1-6 with Senior Railcard. Presumably the Offpeak Day Return shown allows us one journey to somewhere in Zone 6 and one journey back. Whereas the Offpeak One Day Travelcard additionally allows virtually limitless travel around London for a fare that's almost £4 cheaper!

The Any Permitted Travelcard version used to show up immediately beneath the Via Woking version, but GWR has priced that so that it's relatively unattractive now.

I suppose we should now also expect SWR to shift their fare up to within £1 of the GWR one!

 

[redreni]

I agree those fares are ridiculous.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

You've probably seen this, or something like it, before, but it does no harm to highlight the customer unfriendly behaviour of the railway. The fares shown come from the SWR app, but GWR shows the same. The journey is Basingstoke to Underground zones 1-6 with Senior Railcard. Presumably the Offpeak Day Return shown allows us one journey to somewhere in Zone 6 and one journey back. Whereas the Offpeak One Day Travelcard additionally allows virtually limitless travel around London for a fare that's almost £4 cheaper!

And the app seems to be encouraging people to buy the travelcard, which as you have pointed out is cheaper.

What's customer unfriendly about pointing customers towards the cheaper fare?

 

[Tetchytyke]

The off-peak day return fares don't match those shown on BRFares.

Purchase flexible walk-up fares for any British train journey

Purchase flexible single/return tickets & Travelcards – in 3 clicks. Full details of all British rail fares shown, with built-in Season Ticket Calculator.

www.brfares.com

BRFares has the off-peak day return route Woking at £21.70, with the discount.

Very odd.

I was searching for London Terminals above.

The destination Zones 1-6 throws up those fares: https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=BSK&dest=0786&rlc=SRN&period=20250907

 

[fandroid]

And the app seems to be encouraging people to buy the travelcard, which as you have pointed out is cheaper.

What's customer unfriendly about pointing customers towards the cheaper fare?

I suppose that we're just used to it. Why show a poor value equivalent fare at all. Why even have such a fare?

 

[Haywain]

Why even have such a fare?

Because not all discounts apply to all tickets. For example, a member of staff with 'Priv' travel facilities cannot get a discount on a Travelcard but can on an Off Peak Day Return.

 

[Bertie the bus]

The cheapest fare is at the top of the list with the word "cheapest" next to it. How can anybody possibly complain about that?

 

[redreni]

The cheapest fare is at the top of the list with the word "cheapest" next to it. How can anybody possibly complain about that?

I can't speak for the OP. I am not complaining about the way the fares are presented, I just think it's ridiculous that U zone fares are priced higher than Travelcards from the same station. In fact, I wouldn't even let TOCs choose whether to price U zone tickets and if so, how much to charge for them. Instead I would just allow retailers to sell them based on the relevant National Rail fare to the interchange station, plus a defined supplement to cover the TfL portion.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Instead I would just allow retailers to sell them based on the relevant National Rail fare to the interchange station, plus a defined supplement to cover the TfL portion.

Which appears to be exactly what SWR have done in this example.

The undiscounted Off-Peak Day Return (CDR) from Basingstoke to London Terminals on route via Woking is £32.60.

The undiscounted CDR to Zones 1-6 is £44.20, for a difference of £11.60. That's 2x the Peak Zones 1-6 Pay As You Go Single fare. Had they used the Cash fare instead, it would be an extra £14.00.

Comparing with the Any Permitted (priced by GWR):

Basingstoke - London Terminals CDR is £36.40, and to Zones 1-6 it's £48.00, a difference of...£11.60.

So TOCs appear to be using the add-on method, but aren't necessarily using all the possible interchange locations. And pricing policies (potentially dating back to BR) and interavailable routes may result in anomalies.

 

[Cantab26]

I suppose that we're just used to it. Why show a poor value equivalent fare at all. Why even have such a fare?

In my last job, I would not have been permitted to purchase the cheaper ticket as we were forbidden from buying travelcards for trips to London.

 

[styles]

In my last job, I would not have been permitted to purchase the cheaper ticket as we were forbidden from buying travelcards for trips to London.

Yes I've similarly heard of workplaces such as some civil service departments not allowing 1st class rail tickets even when they are cheaper than standard class at the time of booking, because of the public perception.

I do think customers should be able to select any ticket they like for reasons such as this, or Railcard or pass restrictions, etc. But, as the TOC has done here, the best value fare showed first/selected by default.

 

[fandroid]

That's 2x the Peak Zones 1-6 Pay As You Go Single fare.

So, why are the TOCs adding Peak Tfl fares to their own Off-peak ones?

 

[CarltonA]

This sort of thing has been around for years. I was fortunate to get Wimbledon tickets a while back. The outboundary zones 1-6 travel card was substantially cheaper than a Wimbledon day return from Denham at the time.

 

[CyrusWuff]

So, why are the TOCs adding Peak Tfl fares to their own Off-peak ones?

Presumably because there are no Off-Peak cash fares for journeys entirely within Zones 1-6.

The alternative being they add the TfL Cash fares, which would be a minimum of £7.00 Single or £14.00 Return.

 

[TUC]

Am I missing the point here? In all kinds of products one buys unusual comparative pricing patterns can be seen. It's clear here which is the best deal so where's the problem?

 

[fandroid]

Presumably because there are no Off-Peak cash fares for journeys entirely within Zones 1-6.

The alternative being they add the TfL Cash fares, which would be a minimum of £7.00 Single or £14.00 Return.

OK. Just another example of the ever increasing insane complexity of UK rail fares.

There's a possible very simple solution. TOCs just apply the same add-on to Off-Peak Return fares (vs London Terminals fares) as they do for 1 Day Off-Peak Travelcards. That would be good news for those eligible for PRIV fares! Then the issue is reduced to paying the same for less (rather than more!).


If the corporate craziness that we seem to have got so used to has to prevail, then rewrite the software that presents the offers to "normal" passengers so that the daft unfair fares don't clog up the whole offer presentation.

 

[redreni]

Presumably because there are no Off-Peak cash fares for journeys entirely within Zones 1-6.

The alternative being they add the TfL Cash fares, which would be a minimum of £7.00 Single or £14.00 Return.

The through ticketing agreement defines the apportionment of revenue, and sets out the principle that TfL should (with some specified exceptions) receive the "full fare" for the LU portion of the passenger's journey, though "full fare" is not defined.

Personally, I can't see why it couldn't be taken to mean the amount they'd get from a single mixed mode (part-National Rail, part-London Underground) Oyster PAYG journey (with Railcard discount where applicable). That is to say, less than either the PAYG or the cash single fare for the London Underground journey alone. For example, the fare from Crayford to Cannon Street is only £1.20 less than the fare from Crayford to Temple LU. That difference falls to 80p where an Oyster card with a Railcard discount applied is used.

I'm not sure if the TOC takes a haircut where the passenger makes a mixed-mode journey like that so that TfL can be made whole, or vice versa, or if they both take a haircut, but the point is where a mixed-mode journey is made, the passenger pays less than the sum of the separate fares. There's no reason the same can't happen with paper U-zone tickets. The formula in the agreement allows for that.

 

[Haywain]

There's no reason the same can't happen with paper U-zone tickets.

The fare quoted upthread appears to be less than the sum of the paper fares, using the contactless underground fare on a paper ticket - that doesn't seem an unreasonable compromise.