Portsmouth - Southampton Airport

[janecr]

First post - hope you can help me with something that has been bugging me for years!

They don't sell return tickets on the Portsmouth to Southampton Airport route and so it costs £17 return to get there and back on a different day, which seems extortionate for such as short journey. I complained about this a couple of years ago to South West Trains, and they said:

"The base return fare between two points is the Standard Return.
This is available any day of the week and by any train. Within
the our area these tickets are known as Standard Day Returns as
they are valid on day of issue only. The reason for this goes
back some years when it became necessary to make these tickets day
of issue only as part of measures to combat fraudulent travel.
Other types of ticket are discounted against the Standard Day
Return with railcards offering further discounts. Our resources
are used to their maximum during peak hours and, as such, we do
not offer the availability of cheap fares at this time. Neither
do we offer the facility of an Open Return, which carries a
validity of 1 month, for short journeys where there is a
possibility that some passengers might attempt to use the ticket
for more than one return journey."

I don't really understand the fraud argument, especially with barriers being everywhere, but in any case, is there any way of making this journey more cheaply?

Thanks!

 

[transportphoto]

Hi & Welcome on Behalf of the forums,

I am thinking that maybe they are charging for the privilege to travel to/from the Airport. Maybe it is cheaper to get a service to [STN]SOU[/STN] and then get a different mode of transport (eg Bus) I know its a pain but if you are looking for price...

 

[John @ home]

Maybe it is cheaper to get a service to [STN]SOC[/STN] and then get a different mode of transport (eg Bus)

But the cheapest fare without a railcard from Portsmouth to Southend Central (SOC) is £37.80.

 

[thefab444]

Portsmouth Stns - Southampton Central (the code is SOU incidentally) single is £8.30, which is only 20p cheaper than to Southampton Airport Parkway.

If you do the journey regularly, and travel after 10am or at weekends, you could buy a Network Railcard for £26 (valid for a year), which would cut the price to £5.60 single (to Southampton Airport Parkway) for each individual journey, so you'd need to do about 8 - 9 journies for the railcard to even pay for itself, unless you travel elsewhere of course.

 

[John @ home]

If you do the journey regularly, and travel after 10am or at weekends, you could buy a Network Railcard for £26 (valid for a year), which would cut the price to £5.60 single (to Southampton Airport Parkway) for each individual journey

But the Network Railcard now has a minimum fare of £13 on Mondays to Fridays.

 

[thefab444]

Yes, that's why I said after 10am or at weekends. :roll:

 

[tony_mac]

The minimum fare applies at all times on weekdays.

 

[Matt Taylor]

There are sufficient numbers of stations without barriers to make unrealistic that everyone will have to use a barriered station, thus 2x SDS will be required for this journey.

Cosham, Portsmouth Harbour and Fratton are the main stations without barriers in this example.

 

[thefab444]

The minimum fare applies at all times on weekdays.

Woah, has this changed recently, as I was sure it used to be the same pre-10am restriction that applied to the Young Person's etc, rather than an all-day restriction and the card being totally invalid prior to 10am?!

 

[Drsatan]

Woah, has this changed recently, as I was sure it used to be the same pre-10am restriction that applied to the Young Person's etc, rather than an all-day restriction and the card being totally invalid prior to 10am?!

Copied from the Network Railcard T&C's page http://www.railcard.co.uk/network/terms

6) A £13 minimum fare applies to all journeys Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.

I'm surprised too, since I always thought that the £13 minimum fare was waived after 10am . Dunno whether this was ATOC's or the TOC's initiative.

 

[John @ home]

Woah, has this changed recently

The history is here. A minimum £10 adult fare on weekdays was introduced from 2 June 2002 and this was increased to £13 in May 2009.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Dunno whether this was ATOC's or the TOC's initiative.

ATOC is the TOCs. It is a trade association which exists to represent the views of its members, and its views are determined by a voting procedure amongst its members - the train companies.

 

[thefab444]

The history is here. A minimum £10 adult fare on weekdays was introduced from 2 June 2002 and this was increased to £13 in May 2009.

Ah, I stand corrected then.