Basingstoke to London

[fandroid]

I don't know if it's related to the landslip at Hook on the Waterloo line or some other glitch, but I've had trouble getting off-peak tickets with a Railcard discount online.

Yesterday I was at Heathrow with a planned journey into London using Elizabeth Line and Tube, then back out via Paddington and Reading to Basingstoke. Experience has shown that the simplest way to get good value for that journey is to buy an offpeak out-boundary Travelcard. I tried the Forums site (Trainsplit) and also the GWR one, but I just couldn't force them to offer an offpeak Travelcard.

Today I've been after an offpeak day return to London Terminals from Basingstoke with Railcard discount. Again I couldn't get either site to offer me that! The best offer was £10 more expensive than the one I knew I could get. Eventually I went to the station and got the right ticket from a TVM.

Is the SWR disruption messing with the journey planner part of any online ticket vending for this location? I know exactly how much I should be paying. I worry that many others are being ripped off.

 

[Haywain]

I don't know if it's related to the landslip at Hook on the Waterloo line or some other glitch, but I've had trouble getting off-peak tickets with a Railcard discount online.

Yesterday I was at Heathrow with a planned journey into London using Elizabeth Line and Tube, then back out via Paddington and Reading to Basingstoke. Experience has shown that the simplest way to get good value for that journey is to buy an offpeak out-boundary Travelcard. I tried the Forums site (Trainsplit) and also the GWR one, but I just couldn't force them to offer an offpeak Travelcard.

Today I've been after an offpeak day return to London Terminals from Basingstoke with Railcard discount. Again I couldn't get either site to offer me that! The best offer was £10 more expensive than the one I knew I could get. Eventually I went to the station and got the right ticket from a TVM.

Is the SWR disruption messing with the journey planner part of any online ticket vending for this location? I know exactly how much I should be paying. I worry that many others are being ripped off.

What time are you looking at for an outward journey? All of the faster trains from Paddington to Reading between 1600 and 1900 (roughly) are barred for the Off Peak day Return, so only Anytime fares will show up although these will be railcard discounted.

 

[fandroid]

What time are you looking at for an outward journey? All of the faster trains from Paddington to Reading between 1600 and 1900 (roughly) are barred for the Off Peak day Return, so only Anytime fares will show up although these will be railcard discounted.

That might have explained yesterday's problem. In that I had forgotten that the GWR site would show the quickest trains, and not the Elizabeth Line for my Paddington to Reading journey. I was willing to use that if I needed to. Anyway Trainsplit usually offers up the cheapest first and so should have allowed an Elizabeth Line Option.

Today I'm travelling from Paddington well after 19.00, and my journey start from Basingstoke was well after 10.00. So it's not obvious why I was not offered the best value

 

[Haywain]

Yes, that's a bit odd. There are some journeys this afternoon where the Off Peak Day Return isn't showing as available, seemingly because the departure from Reading towards Paddington is at a time that should be restricted going away from London, but the unpublished restriction states "not valid to depart from Reading...".

Today I'm travelling from Paddington well after 19.00

How much well after 19:00? There are unpublished restrictions on departure from Paddington up to 19:28. I suspect it's somewhere in that unpublished complication the the problem lies.

 

[Benjwri]

How are you searching for it? I can get it to offer me an Off-Peak Travelcard or Off-Peak Day Return for any time it should, including today, even in the evening peak using Elizabeth Line trains.

For the Travelcard on the forums site did you specify Basingstoke as your origin, and tell it you were doing a return journey? You can always force a travel card by specifying Basingstoke to London Travelcard Zones 1-6.

 

[fandroid]

How are you searching for it? I can get it to offer me an Off-Peak Travelcard or Off-Peak Day Return for any time it should, including today, even in the evening peak using Elizabeth Line trains.

For the Travelcard on the forums site did you specify Basingstoke as your origin, and tell it you were doing a return journey? You can always force a travel card by specifying Basingstoke to London Travelcard Zones 1-6.

I did specify Basingstoke as the origin. Is there a listed destination London Travelcard Zones 1-6 ?

I'm still getting to grips with the Forums site. I've used it successfully for proper split ticket journeys but still finding my way around "normal" ticket buying. The GWR site (when it did Nectar points!) used to offer Travelcard for any London Terminals day return journeys in offpeak times after offering the more conventional station to station tickets.

 

[Benjwri]

I did specify Basingstoke as the origin. Is there a listed destination London Travelcard Zones 1-6 ?

Yeah on the forum site there are a couple of listed destinations that are useful in London, travelcards is one, and there’s also a London Underground Zone X-X, which is a cross London ticket valid for one journey through those zones.

I'm still getting to grips with the Forums site. I've used it successfully for proper split ticket journeys but still finding my way around "normal" ticket buying. The GWR site (when it did Nectar points!) used to offer Travelcard for any London Terminals day return journeys in offpeak times after offering the more conventional station to station tickets.

The issue I thing your facing is as mentioned above GWR unpublished restrictions are a huge mess at the moment, and that’s what the planners use. The unpublished restrictions won’t allow you to leave Reading at the times you want towards Basingstoke, however in reality this is valid. If you allow splits though the forums site seems to get around this with a split that makes it cheaper anyways.

 

[fandroid]

Yeah on the forum site there are a couple of listed destinations that are useful in London, travelcards is one, and there’s also a London Underground Zone X-X, which is a cross London ticket valid for one journey through those zones.

The issue I thing your facing is as mentioned above GWR unpublished restrictions are a huge mess at the moment, and that’s what the planners use. The unpublished restrictions won’t allow you to leave Reading at the times you want towards Basingstoke, however in reality this is valid. If you allow splits though the forums site seems to get around this with a split that makes it cheaper anyways.

Thanks. I suspect that you are correct about the hidden restrictions being at the bottom of the problem. No such issue seems to have arisen when Waterloo wasn't cut off by landslips! Then I could put London in as a destination and choosing the Any Permitted option (allowing the Reading route) was fairly simple. I've done the one way up and the other way down a few times, depending on where I was going to London.

Several systems seem to have been stressed to the point of collapse by the massive uncertainties around the landslip. We'll see what happens after they slew the down fast over at the weekend which should provide some sort of genuine two-way service that the journey planners can get a grip on.