Southern Advance Tickets

[jeannie1548]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but looking for some advice. I need to get from London Victoria to Chichester on 17th September in the evening, and back on 21st September (any time of day). There are no direct trains because of the disruption, and, as far as I can see, no advance tickets at all for sale for the next few weeks. Am I too late for advance tickets (usually I can book them fairly easily even the day before)? Or is Southern's response to the disruption, and not being able to confirm a timetable, just to not sell any advance tickets at all?!? It seems a bit much to pay more than usual for a service considerably worse than usual.

I've called Southern, the guy on the phone didn't know what was happening. National Rail website says advance tickets have been released to November. If that is true then there can't be very many of them!

 

[MrJeeves]

Or is Southern's response to the disruption, and not being able to confirm a timetable, just to not sell any advance tickets at all?!?

I expect this is the truth.

There is no obligation to offer Advance tickets, and if there is reduced capacity then I would expect a TOC not to offer them, particularly given some would have been sold before this was announced/implemented.

It's all well and good having the railway offer cheap advance fares to drive customers onto the railway, but when the industry can make these fares disappear at a moment's notice it's a stark reminder of why flexible non-quota-controlled fares are important.

 

[jeannie1548]

Thank you, this is very helpful. I guess I have the choice of paying the full fare or flying (I'm coming down from Scotland, and managed to find advance tickets to London but not from London to Chichester). I can fly for less than the price of a train ticket from London to Chichester, which is not a good way to encourage people to use the train!

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

There is an industry viewpoint that one shouldn't sell Advance fares until the timetable is fully confirmed, since the ticketing system pivots off the confirmed forward timetables rather than the conceptual one that used to be available for all to see in printed timetable plans and books.

Once upon a time (about 20 years ago) there was a T-12 rule, ie NR and TOCs should sort out the timetable at least 12 weeks in advance, which was supposed to help people trying to put together confirmable travel plans in advance. But it's pretty gone out of the window, with the industry back to it's traditional stance of only confirming engineering work at the last minutes, sometimes only 7-14 days in advance in some instances.

Anyway, no one has been been enforcing the T-12 rule for years....

So, in this situation one would imagine that when the timetable is resolved for the days in question you might see some Advance fares emerge. Alternatively, you might at least be able to get an Advance Fare from London to a place en route (Hove? Arundel?) and then get an ordinary peak/off-peak fare from there to Chichester?

In terms of your 2nd post, re flying: notwithstanding much of what the main operators (ie. Avanti and LNER) say, my experience is that yes it is indeed often cheaper to fly if booked about 2-4 weeks in advance and sometimes quite a bit easier (since disruption has become so prevalent!) And if you get a flight to Gatwick, you also save the hassle of dealing with Thameslink (which also has had persistent service issues for many months, sadly).

There really is no formal policy of 'encouraging people to use the train', the long distance train operators remain under a semi-commercial remit from government rather than one driven by carbon reduction..... In addition, a substantial reduction in train delays on the main routes would help!

 

[marshlinker]

I think that advance tickets will have been suspended because as well as the loss of direct services, several services have been cut.
If journeytime isn't critical consider these options:
1)Advance ticket to Angmering, change there same platform to Chichester with a anytime single for Angmering to Chichester.
2) Advance ticket to Havant (from London Waterloo), change there over the footbridge to Chichester. Single to Chichester.
In the off peak period there are 3 trains per hour on this section Angmering- Chichester-Havant
3) Advance Ticket to Littlehampton, across the road to the bus stop take 500 bus to Chichester (£3 bus cap). Bus is half hourly to 19.25 then hourly to 23.00
The bus takes 45 to 60 mins but basically serves the Chichester Ring Road before reaching the Bus Station which is across the road from the rail station . So may actually take you closer to your destination than the rail station. https://bustimes.org/services/500-littlehampton-yapton-barnham-fontwell-tangmere

 

[jeannie1548]

This is really helpful, thank you very much! I will look into these options.

 

[marshlinker]

Thank you, this is very helpful. I guess I have the choice of paying the full fare or flying (I'm coming down from Scotland, and managed to find advance tickets to London but not from London to Chichester). I can fly for less than the price of a train ticket from London to Chichester, which is not a good way to encourage people to use the train!

Unfortunately I think that there is an assumption by people from the north that the whole of the southeast is a suburb of London and that anywhere beyond London will only be a tube fare away.
The reality is that Chichester is approximately the same distance from Central London as Pitlochry is from Edinburgh.

 

[jeannie1548]

Of course, I was just wondering why I couldn't see any advance tickets for those specific dates and whether it was worth waiting to see if some appear. Living in Scotland with family in the South, I don't think there is that assumption. If anything I would expect an anytime/off-peak between Chichester and London to cost more than between Edinburgh and Pitlochry because it's a busier route and demand has to be managed somehow (and because we don't have peak pricing any more of course!)

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Is a Super Off Peak Return (London Terminals to/fm Chichester) at £40.60 before any applicable railcard discount, not of any use to the OP? Reasonably flexible and not tied to specific trains.

N.B. Time restrictions do apply in both directions, but was stated upthread that the outward journey would be in the afternoon, and the return journey (not same weekday) could be made any time.

 

[Haywain]

This is really helpful, thank you very much! I will look into these options.

You could look on the forum site (aka Trainsplit) and it will look for any such deals for you.

 

[marshlinker]

Is a Super Off Peak Return (London Terminals to/fm Chichester) at £40.60 before any applicable railcard discount, not of any use to the OP? Reasonably flexible and not tied to specific trains.

N.B. Time restrictions do apply in both directions, but was stated upthread that the outward journey would be in the afternoon, and the return journey (not same weekday) could be made any time.

Any Permitted tickets are priced by Southwest. Not available from London 15.59 to 19.01 out or to arrive in London before 14.01 on return. Possibly not suitable for someone travelling to/from Scotland?

 

[Haywain]

Not available from London 15.59 to 19.01 out or to arrive in London before 14.01 on return. Possibly not suitable for someone travelling to/from Scotland?

That can be accommodated within the parameters set by the OP:

from London Victoria to Chichester on 17th September in the evening, and back on 21st September (any time of day).

 

[Swedenorer]

Keep looking and use the Southern booking site. 90 minutes ago a few cheap advances were available maybe 2 each way. They are now gone. I suspect either they were sold or it detected I'd repeated the search from the same IP address. Might be worth clearing the cache when searching? The OP Return at £40 is I think only £6 more than the Gatwick fare. Southern Journey planners are still showing the direct service for those days. There are cheap advances via Hove at the moment.

 

[jeannie1548]

Thank you everyone, this is really helpful. I had forgotten about the longer distance off peak returns as you can't get them on LNER anymore or on the short routes I usually travel.

 

[marshlinker]

That weekend is Goodwood Revival, expect the area/ trains to be packed out https://www.goodwood.com/motorsport/goodwood-revival/

 

[Swedenorer]

Good point about the revival, its not quite as busy as it used to be since all tickets are sold in advance now. Unusually they still have availability too in pretty well all the packages. If you are coming down for that you are in for a treat - it really is worth visiting once. Shuttle bus service from the station.

 

[Timetraveller]

There is a reduced service on the Arun valley lines due to track defects and speed restrictions from 1st September until 29th September therefore this would have of resulted in a smaller selection of advance fares. The direct Portsmouth to London Victoria service via Horsham has been withdrawn during this period.