Southeastern Groupsave with a railcard: different apps, different prices

[mm333]

I was looking for 3 adults to go up from Canterbury West to St Pancras for the day - up in the afternoon, back in the late evening. One with a disabled railcard, one as a carer and one 'normal'.

As I didn't know about Groupsave, having specified 3 adults and 1 railcard, I was expecting 2 tickets with discounts and 1 full-price. But I got a few different behaviours:

• Uber correctly ignored the railcard and gave 3 Super Off-Peak Day Return Groupsave tickets for £86.10.
• LNER gave me as I was originally expecting, two discounted tickets and one full price: £100.50
• CrossCountry gave me £86.10 for 3 Groupsave tickets.
• Trainsplit, as soon as I entered 3 adults and 1 railcard and hit 'Find Trains', popped up with an alert to say "You will need 2 railcards when you travel. Without railcards, these tickets will not be valid". If I clicked OK, it would sell me 3 tickets with 2 railcards, again for £86.10.

I'm pleased I didn't go to LNER first, as I would have happily paid the extra £14.40 and not known about Groupsave.

 

[Haywain]

I'm pleased I didn't go to LNER first, as I would have happily paid the extra £14.40 and not known about Groupsave.

And if you had used Trainsplit you'd have ended up with one person not having a valid ticket.

 

[yorkie]

And if you had used Trainsplit you'd have ended up with one person not having a valid ticket.

Not so.

Although the alert appears, in this case, GroupSave would have overrriden the Railcard discount.

It is true to say that if the alert is ignored, and Disabled Railcard discounted fares were selected, without complying with the requirements described in the alert, then yes one person would have an invalid ticket, but that isn't the case here.

In future, Trainsplit will support the concept of having multiple Railcards in one transaction, though I don't know the timescale for this. Unfortunately, offering multiple Railcards and also checking huge number of split ticket possibilities is very computationally intensive, so there may end up being some sort of limit to the number of splits and/or Railcards, but I have not heard of any decision being made yet, but I would imagine that the matter will be concluded at some point in 2026.

I suspect LNER have made a deliberate decision not to offer GroupSave because they don't offer it themselves, and of course would strongly disapprove of such products, given they appear to prefer airline style pricing and deter walk-up travel.

 

[Haywain]

I suspect LNER have made a deliberate decision not to offer GroupSave because they don't offer it themselves, and of course would strongly disapprove of such products, given they appear to prefer airline style pricing and deter walk-up travel.

It is offered as an option on the railcard list, so has to be selected but is offered. It might be better if it was offered automatically but, as with the Trainsplit example, care has to be taken to be clear what is being offered.