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Literally went to thetrainline.com (which most people think is "buying a ticket") for Guildford to Oxford. Was careful not to just book a single, and selected return with the same day, then selected the two cheapest trains shown
In this case I don't believe those are advanced tickets, but it's certainly not clear. Either way absolutely disgusting that they'll charge £41.60 for a £20.90 journey.
n this case I don't believe those are advanced tickets, but it's certainly not clear. Either way absolutely disgusting that they'll charge £41.60 for a £20.90 journey.
They aren't advance fares - that is the off peak single - if you look for tomorrow you would potentially see advance fares - GWR don't do 'on the day' advance fares.
I think the trainline interface requires you to see that return tickets are cheaper by comparing two single fares with a return. Anyway, nothing new about off-peak day singles being 10p cheaper than an off-peak day return - it reflects the return being priced at an attractive rate relative to the single to encourage 'days out' travel.
The issue is that two advance fares, priced as singles at £30, are more than the off-peak day return.
Literally went to thetrainline.com (which most people think is "buying a ticket") for Guildford to Oxford. Was careful not to just book a single, and selected return with the same day, then selected the two cheapest trains shown
In this case I don't believe those are advanced tickets, but it's certainly not clear. Either way absolutely disgusting that they'll charge £41.60 for a £20.90 journey.
That’s odd - I’m not sure if it’s just a website thing, because the Trainline app is correctly showing £20.90 for the exact same trains as shown above.
If Trainline appears to be offering an Off-Peak Day Single both ways, something’s wrong with the booking engine rather than the defined fares.
Literally went to thetrainline.com (which most people think is "buying a ticket") for Guildford to Oxford. Was careful not to just book a single, and selected return with the same day, then selected the two cheapest trains shown
In this case I don't believe those are advanced tickets, but it's certainly not clear. Either way absolutely disgusting that they'll charge £41.60 for a £20.90 journey.
There seems to be a mistake in the responsive design that changes the layout depending on browser window size (see attached screenshots): If your browser window is sufficiently wide to show the "desktop" mode with a sidebar, then the "continue" button is shown in the sidebar and a popup warns you that a cheaper return ticket exists if you select two singles. If your browser is sufficiently narrow to trigger a change to a "mobile" mode, then you get separate screens for outbound journey, inbound journey, and ticket selection. But if your browser width is in an intermediate range, then the "desktop" mode is shown without a sidebar, and you have to spot that a cheaper ticket exists in the optional ticket selection list below, which can be partially or completely obsucred by the "continue" button attached to the bottom of the window. The simplest fix would be to ensure that the popup warning shows above the continue button in this mode too.
As noted upthread, it appears that advance fares are being priced by date rather than reflecting demand - so you will see cheaper advances further out from now in some cases but those fares get removed if they aren't bought within a given time frame.
I booked some advance fares yesterday. Folkestone to Plymouth (20/07) 1500 FKC-STP 1704 Padd-Plym. Returning (01/08) 0912 Ply-Pad and 1336 STP-FKC. All the fares on those dates and times had been the same for absolutely weeks (£48.95 each way)
I was just going to wait and get off peak/super off peak returns but in the end opted for these in order to catch the quiet 1704 which is an anytime train.
When I was looking at tickets to get back from Folkestone on the 01/08 again all the services via Newbury were again £48.95 but a couple of £25.10p fares got thrown into the mix for the few services that get routed via Bristol on a Sunday so booked the 1600 FKC and 1800 Padd-Ply.
Clearly looks like they are blanket pricing all Newbury routed fares at the top advance fare bracket.
Another thing I was curious about as I'm not that clued up on fare clearing house or rail settlement plan etc but all the fares between Plymouth and Folkestone were only £3.10p more than the equivalent Plymouth-Paddington single fares, so after TFL have been paid their zone one fare fo the Malta Cross then that doesn't leave Southeastern much of a margin from the fare.
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They aren't advance fares - that is the off peak single - if you look for tomorrow you would potentially see advance fares - GWR don't do 'on the day' advance fares.
I think the trainline interface requires you to see that return tickets are cheaper by comparing two single fares with a return. Anyway, nothing new about off-peak day singles being 10p cheaper than an off-peak day return - it reflects the return being priced at an attractive rate relative to the single to encourage 'days out' travel.
The issue is that two advance fares, priced as singles at £30, are more than the off-peak day return.
GWR most definitely do sell on the day advance fares. I've brought several in past for the 1704 Paddington-Plymouth about an hour before departure for a fraction of the anytime fare. They've even popped up on local journeys too with £4.10p tickets between Plymouth and Exeter/Penzance.
Think they are largely restricted to certain routes and between station points. Example of this was there were £4 singles available between Penzance and Plymouth and between Truro and Plymouth but none between Camborne/Redruth and Plymouth on the same service.
Expect the same day local advance fares introduced by GWR in Devon and Cornwall were in competition to CrossCountry who'd been doing it for some time, though recently CrossCountry's seem to be almost non existent.
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