It's worth noting that in some cases the first or last services of the day are outside the time bands which the Superfare offers.
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Avanti Superfare
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Mcr Warrior
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Whilst noting what @Starmill has just stated, this does seem like a cunning marketing wheeze by Avanti to shift unsold advance tickets for those train services where there's still lots of availability left.
P.S. Anyone able to compare and contrast Avanti's "Superfare" offering with airline standby tickets which, if I correctly recall, were very much in vogue back in the day.
Well they can't really be compared because planes are compulsory reservation / allocated seats, notwithstanding that a journey planner TVM won't sell you a ticket if all reserveable seats have been reserved.
Standby with airlines operates on the basis that you have to check in by approx 1 hour before scheduled take off, so once check in closes they know the maximum number of seats that are occupied. Then standby passengers can be given the remaining seats. (And occasionally, passengers from planes which went tech at the last minute, as well as if a checked-in passenger doesn't make it to the boarding gate on time and another standby passenger happens to be ready.)
I guess Avanti probably goes by how many seats are reserved, but they can't ever be 100% sure there won't be a lot of season / flexible / rover ticket holders showing up and making a train busy.
If you are using standby in the sense that you already have a ticket for a certain flight, and you request to stand by for an earlier flight, or sometimes a different route to your destination, that wouldn't be the same as Avanti either, it's not like you buy a Superfare for the 2200 train and then if someone decides the 1800 is less busy you can go on it instead; then failing that you try the 1900, then 2000 etc
mangyiscute
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I wonder if the Preston tickets can be on a faster trent valley service or a via birmingham service (or perhaps a change at crewe too)
Howardh
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Yes, wonder if the tickets will shift when it becomes obvious that, despite it seeming a lottery, the majority of them will be the last train of the day? I'd like to think not and that they want to fill unused seats on 8pm's from Euston etc.
The last train of the day gets routinely cancelled, so they'd be setting themselves up to fail if that's the case...
An existing flexible ticketing scheme has been expanded. I’m not sure whether this has already been discussed, but seems quite a good idea. Especially from Avanti who have come in for a fair bit of criticism on these pages for failure to provide affordable ticketing options.
www.standard.co.uk
Avanti launches £30 London to Scotland tickets for flexible travellers
The ‘low cost superfare’ tickets are less than half of the usual price
www.standard.co.uk
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's not something I'll be using (other than possibly for a random day trip with no specific plans at the destination, perhaps) as I rarely have enough slack in a trip for those wide time windows, but I've no issue with it if it does suit some people.
Yes it'd be interesting to know who's using them because most people wouldn't want to end up somewhere 2 or 3 hours early or late.
Are they aiming it at the coach market? A coach from London to Scotland takes something ridiculous like ten hours, so +\- three hours with a much shorter journey on the train would likely appeal.
Fawkes Cat
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Me and the missus are going down to London from Liverpool for a few days in August. As we've no particular plans for the days when we travel (beyond getting there/back) I can see that an 'afternoon' journey (to be specified later) might suit us quite well.
Bletchleyite
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If going for a city break you've probably got very considerable flexibility.
mangyiscute
Established Member
I imagine you can certainly use seatfrog to upgrade to standard premium with one of these tickets as their only requirement is that you hold a valid ticket for the service, which you will
Johnnylikely
Member
Hi all! Newbie here. Just used it- highly recommend if you’re flexible!
London-Liverpool return
£15 ew
Chose 12-5pm slot outgoing
Was given 2.43pm train
Confirmation received 8am ish previous day
Return
7am-12pm
Given the 10.43am train
So good!
Don’t think you can upgrade with Seatfrog as the confirmation code is a long string of letters and numbers which doesn’t look like previous regular booking I’ve made. And Seatfrog didn’t recognise my booking when I tried to upgrade
Love it!
London-Liverpool return
£15 ew
Chose 12-5pm slot outgoing
Was given 2.43pm train
Confirmation received 8am ish previous day
Return
7am-12pm
Given the 10.43am train
So good!
Don’t think you can upgrade with Seatfrog as the confirmation code is a long string of letters and numbers which doesn’t look like previous regular booking I’ve made. And Seatfrog didn’t recognise my booking when I tried to upgrade
Love it!
mangyiscute
Established Member
Good to hear you had a great time using it! I'm confused about the seatfrog thing, cause when I upgraded with LNER i don't remember ever having to put in a booking reference. It could be different with avanti
LOL The Irony
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Any news on when this is being rolled out to more locations or are they leaving it for their terminuses only?
Welcome! Glad to see there is a market for the fare - I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Avanti's commercial team know more about that than I do. It's not something that'll work for everybody, but if it's something that helps grow revenue then good to see.
That is incredible value. Clearly a good concept - the same price (or less) as a coach.
Johnnylikely
Member
Yeah, if you can be flexible then defo well worth it- I do shifts so can plan accordingly! My carriage was fairly empty from Milton Keynes onwards so it’s a win-win. Given rail fares I haven’t been up north as it’s been so expensive!
Long may it continue!
Long may it continue!
ThrowAway10101
Member
Lucky londoners, I have to pay £34 if i wanted to take the avanti + connection to Manchester from Northampton.
G
Basically if you leave near a selected terminus you are lucky. If you don't then there will always be winners and losers, as someone once wrote in response to a comment I made on here.
BluePenguin
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Where would you change?
Haywain
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That's really no different to the availability of long distance coach services - from London there is competition on routes to big cities, whereas from smaller towns there is likely to be a small selection of National Express routes and no competition.
I think the issue being alluded to here is you have to come from the station the superfare is issued to, as by the time you get told your train it is too late to book a cheap advance on a connecting train, and you have to pay for an open far which might end up more expensive. On coaches you can still book another train/coach as a connection.
Haywain
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I don't think it was, as the post referred to the fare from Northampton. What you allude to is another potential problem, but I doubt you would even consider trying to get a 'Superfare' from London if you were starting from Northampton.
mangyiscute
Established Member
I guess they were suggesting if they starting offering superfares from Rugby/Milton Keynes to Manchester then they could use them
Theres no reason it wouldnt be, but obviously as you don't know what time you are going to travel at until a little bit before, you would have to split with walk up tickets or buy advances once you know what time youre travelling at
Similar to Megatrain, I don't see how this conforms with the TSA, which is supposed to ensure a level playing field so that other TOCs and third party ticket sellers can sell the full range of tickets (with some exceptions, such as promotions that can't last forever). I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on this.
From Johnnylikely's post, it looks like they might try to allocate a seat on a train in the middle of the time window, and only if their quota is full, allocate from a train from the start or end of it. This is a good thing for passengers. I am unlikely to ever use such a ticket though as I value my time more highly than the target market.
From Johnnylikely's post, it looks like they might try to allocate a seat on a train in the middle of the time window, and only if their quota is full, allocate from a train from the start or end of it. This is a good thing for passengers. I am unlikely to ever use such a ticket though as I value my time more highly than the target market.
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