Virgin imposes daft restrictions

[WestCoastTravel]

Good morning all

I've just had a look in the new NFM02 kindly supplied by users on this forum and see to my disgust quite frankly that Virgin have removed most of their previosuly unrestricted tickets with restricted tickets! Basically they've taken off the 8A (use on any train, any time) and put on a 2R (arrive at or after 1030).

Some typically journeys that I usual take in the morning peak are:

Preston - Crewe used to be £19.90 now risen to £35.00

Preston - Shrewsbury used to be £31.90 now risen to £53.00

Preston - Stafford used to be around £31.00 now risen to £54.00

The only fare which hasn't loss it's restriction yet is

Preston - Rugby at £54.

I work for a company where we are active encouraged to take public transport to visit our sites to reduce carbon footprint. How on earth can virgin justify fare rises like this when the government is trying to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport! Some of these fares are more than a tank of fuel for me and although my company pays for the fares on expenses, I have to stump up the cash first. (I can do preston - shrewsbury on half a tank circa £25). I will be writing a letter of compliant to virgin regarding this, as I don't think I should have to pay a premium fare to travel to these locations. Sorry to have a rant, but this has really peed me off...

Has anybodies elses journey been adversely affected by these sharp rises?

Regards, a very unhappy

WestCoastTravel.

Edit: Now found a cheap alternative using a method outlawed by ATOC - fare splitting!!

Preston - Warrington BQ: SDR £12.00
Warrington BQ - Crewe: SDR £9.40
Crewe - Shrewsbury: SDR £11.10

Total £32.50 a saving of £21.... that's only 60p more expensive than it was before.

And as usual I'd like to end with a question...

Why is Preston to Warrington and Warrington to Crewe, priced by Northern when they don't, to my knowledge, run any trains between these two stations?

Many thanks,

WestCoastTravel.

 

[OwlMan]

Although I agree that the change of restrictons is not good for people who used these tickets, they are after all, Off-peak tickets not anytime tickets and Virgin have the right to impose peak time restrictions

Peter

 

[WestCoastTravel]

I can see where you are coming from, but Virgin prices the ticket between Preston - Shrewsbury, but doesn't operate Crewe - Shrewsbury so why should I paid peak time restriction for a journey not covered by their company?

Being pendantic one could say well pay the £35 down to Crewe then do the SDR to Shrewsbury for £11.10, priced by Arriva, thus not paying the premium. But that's a little silly considering you can get down to Shrewsbury by fare splitting for less than you can get down to Crewe direct!

What a wonderfully simple ticketing system we have!!!

WestCoastTravel

 

[glynn80]

I can see where you are coming from, but Virgin prices the ticket between Preston - Shrewsbury, but doesn't operate Crewe - Shrewsbury so why should I paid peak time restriction for a journey not covered by their company?

Being pendantic one could say well pay the £35 down to Crewe then do the SDR to Shrewsbury for £11.10, priced by Arriva, thus not paying the premium. But that's a little silly considering you can get down to Shrewsbury by fare splitting for less than you can get down to Crewe direct!

What a wonderfully simple ticketing system we have!!!

WestCoastTravel

You do understand that the Preston to Shrewsbury Off Peak Return does give you much more validity than the combination of Anytime Day Returns. It is valid via any permitted route whilst the combination is limited to the route where the tickets are split. Also the Anytime Day Returns are only valid for return on the same day whereas the Off Peak Returns are valid for return within the month. This extra validity is the money you are paying extra for!

Although I do agree that Virgin have increased prices by stealth on some flows by introducing peak time restrictions, this is their prerogative and with a new service upgrade having been introduced they are likely to use that to justify the increases.

 

[WestCoastTravel]

Thanks for making the above point. I think I should have pointed out in the first instance that these are generally day trips rather than for a length of time. However I am aware that an off peak return gives more validity than a combination of standard day return tickets.

I sure Virgin would say it was justified to increased fares because of upgrading, but personally I don't like walking up to the ticket office and finding my ticket has increased by 80% overnight!!

Regards,

WestCoastTravel

 

[Trains06]

Wow... There are some daft ones there... But, If you got a VT Only Ticket there are some decent fares

 

[Guinness]

Aren't these Regulated fares that are set by the Government rather than Virgin Trains? Perhaps one of the more 'Ticketing Folk' in the know would be able to shed light on this.

 

[glynn80]

Aren't these Regulated fares that are set by the Government rather than Virgin Trains? Perhaps one of the more 'Ticketing Folk' in the know would be able to shed light on this.

Yes the previously Saver now Off-Peak Return fares are regulated/protected fares, but this only applies to their price, i.e. they cannot rise in price higher than the July RPI+1%. They are not however regulated on their conditions and many TOCs use this to their advantage.

London Midland for example imposed peak restrictions on all their previously unrestricted Saver fares when Simplification was introduced. In their place they introduced a much higher Anytime fare which previously did not exist. This allows them to raise prices by "stealth" by charging a higher price for the same product.

Unfortunately the DfT (SRA etc. perviously) deemed it is the name of the ticket that should be protected from price rises rather than the product itself.

 

[2030720310]

might as well drive

 

[yorkie]

Aren't these Regulated fares that are set by the Government rather than Virgin Trains? Perhaps one of the more 'Ticketing Folk' in the know would be able to shed light on this.

The fares are regulated, but it's about as useful as saying fish n chip shops can't increase the cost of a small chips by more than 6%, but not stopping them reducing the number of chips they give you.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

..the government is trying to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport! ...

The government are encouraging people to use their cars, as they have not increased fuel duty yet they have increased fares massively despite inflation being very low. They pretend to encourage people to use public transport, but what they claim and what they actually do are very different things.

 

[Guinness]

The fares are regulated, but it's about as useful as saying fish n chip shops can't increase the cost of a small chips by more than 6%, buthing not stopping them reducing the number of chips they give you.

Cheers

 

[yorkie]

Edit: Now found a cheap alternative using a method outlawed by ATOC - fare splitting!!

It's not at all outlawed - it's just that every time someone splits a ticket and ATOC gets to hear about it, they throw a tantrum.

 

[Failed Unit]

It's not at all outlawed - it's just that every time someone splits a ticket and ATOC gets to hear about it, they throw a tantrum.

I can't see how it could get outlawed either without raising the prices of the combined tickets so they are more expensive - which would not go down well. If you break your journey where you would have changed trains anyway then you are in effect making 2 journeys anyway....

 

[WillPS]

Is fare splitting actually not allowed then?

 

[me123]

No, it's perfectly allowed! It's just that a certain someone doesn't like it.

 

[Ferret]

Well it's in the conditions of carriage so he'd better learn to deal with it!!!!!!!!

 

[glynn80]

Well it's in the conditions of carriage so he'd better learn to deal with it!!!!!!!!

Yes and the only body with power to alter this is the Department for Transport (although the OFT did force changes in 2006 I believe) so unless this changes ATOC should stop making false statements such as the one made by Andy Wakeford.

 

[WestCoastTravel]

In reference to my comment regarding outlawing I was been flippant. I'm sure Andy wakeford would want to see it outlawed, but for the time being he's going to have to live with it!!

Maybe we wouldn't have to fare split if the system was more simple and different companies didn't do their own thing...

Thanks,

WestCoastTravel

 

[Krispo]

At least it's not like on Merseyrail, where they scrapped off-peak tickets all together shortly after the "simplification"

 

[Pumbaa]

At least it's not like on Merseyrail, where they scrapped off-peak tickets all together shortly after the "simplification"

Ah... What's in place instead then?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Ah... What's in place instead then?

:neutral: Anytime fares which are available, erm, anytime (!)

 

[Mojo]

They haven't got rid of all Off-peak fares, there are still some available to the destinations further our such as Hooton, Chester, Ellesmere Port & West Kirby. Still, given the service provided, some of those fares are a bargain!

It's common on many routes to do this - we abolished CDRs on the Severn Beach Line a few years ago to make it easier to issue tickets (zonal fares were introduced at the same time): http://www.severnbeachline.org/fares.php.

 

[Krispo]

Ah... What's in place instead then?

Just Anytime fares, so there was a large jump in price (relatively)