brfares.com how does it work?

[sansyy]

Hello so I was looking at some of the advanced fares on the website and I scrolled down to the really cheap ones but how do you actually go about purchasing them and how to they work?

https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=CTR&dest=EUS&rte=515&tkt=V2X - this is the one I was looking at but I just don't see how to translate that into a purchased and valid ticket. Thanks for any assistance.

 

[plugwash]

brfares only tells you what tickets exist in the database.

To actually sell an advanced ticket, the booking engine must be able to allocate seat reservations. Train operators can set reservation quotas on each train for different tiers of advance ticket.

 

[sansyy]

brfares only tells you what tickets exist in the database.

To actually sell an advanced ticket, the booking engine must be able to allocate seat reservations. Train operators can set reservation quotas on each train for different tiers of advance ticket.

Using the example above, is there anything to be able to figure out how to use the booking engine and find a ticket like that, or is it just luck that one pops up?

 

[plugwash]

It used to be that reservations were released 12 weeks in advance. So you could time when tickets for your train would be released and jump on them. Covid has sent that into disarray though, with reservations being released much later.

There is also suspicion that train operators may be releasing few if-any reservations for the cheapest tickets.

 

[sansyy]

I think Avanti aren't very liberal with their cheaper fares. Rarely see any avanti tickets for below 30 single and that's 10 weeks in advance, maybe my luck is just unfortunate but surely there should be some regulation towards this.

 

[JonathanH]

I think Avanti aren't very liberal with their cheaper fares. Rarely see any avanti tickets for below 30 single and that's 10 weeks in advance, maybe my luck is just unfortunate but surely there should be some regulation towards this.

What sort of regulation are you thinking of, and on what route? Advance fares are not regulated. The operator can offer as few at any given fare as they see fit.

 

[Watershed]

Hello so I was looking at some of the advanced fares on the website and I scrolled down to the really cheap ones but how do you actually go about purchasing them and how to they work?

https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=CTR&dest=EUS&rte=515&tkt=V2X - this is the one I was looking at but I just don't see how to translate that into a purchased and valid ticket. Thanks for any assistance.

As others have said, BR Fares shows the fares that exist. Just because they exist doesn't necessarily mean they are available to buy, because (in the case of Advance tickets) they are quota-controlled and there may be no quota for most or even all trains.

V2X is the cheapest tier of Advance ticket that Avanti offer (other than sale fares), and in my experience it is very rare for it to be available on any journeys to and from London. It's more common to see it on journeys that avoid London, such as Preston to Glasgow.

 

[negone]

It's a question I have always wanted to ask. I assume you cant go into a local ticket office, show them the required BRFares page and ask for that ticket.
I have found a few generic advanced tickets by searching and buying online in advance, but except for national rail's cheap fare finder which takes you to the toc site. it seems to be all manual searching.

Cheap Train Tickets, Rail Times & Fares Finder - National Rail Enquiries

Find the cheapest train tickets possible, the best value rail fares and times for your journey from the official source of Britain's rail travel.

ojp.nationalrail.co.uk

 

[AlterEgo]

Many of the fares are not actually for sale, or zero-quota'd.

 

[Wallsendmag]

It used to be that reservations were released 12 weeks in advance. So you could time when tickets for your train would be released and jump on them. Covid has sent that into disarray though, with reservations being released much later.

There is also suspicion that train operators may be releasing few if-any reservations for the cheapest tickets.

This happened well before Covid arrived. Think of BR fares like a Dictionary, all the words are there but they aren't all used all the timee.

 

[jfollows]

It's a question I have always wanted to ask. I assume you cant go into a local ticket office, show them the required BRFares page and ask for that ticket.
I have found a few generic advanced tickets by searching and buying online in advance, but except for national rail's cheap fare finder which takes you to the toc site. it seems to be all manual searching.

Cheap Train Tickets, Rail Times & Fares Finder - National Rail Enquiries

Find the cheapest train tickets possible, the best value rail fares and times for your journey from the official source of Britain's rail travel.

ojp.nationalrail.co.uk

Not for advance tickets, no.
But often the ticket office won’t know about all possible tickets, so it can be useful if you ask for one they don’t know about.

 

[Haywain]

Many of the fares are not actually for sale, or zero-quota'd.

Or are only for sale through specific channels, such as business travel or promotional sites.

 

[akm]

Am I right in saying that the central booking system - where the availability is actually controlled - is really limited in terms of what information it offers to ticket retailing sites? eg you can't do something obvious like "tell me the availability in all the advance ticket buckets for this specific train" ?

 

[Haywain]

Am I right in saying that the central booking system - where the availability is actually controlled - is really limited in terms of what information it offers to ticket retailing sites? eg you can't do something obvious like "tell me the availability in all the advance ticket buckets for this specific train" ?

It's not simply what you can and can't do but also how long it takes and how much it costs.

 

[Watershed]

Am I right in saying that the central booking system - where the availability is actually controlled - is really limited in terms of what information it offers to ticket retailing sites? eg you can't do something obvious like "tell me the availability in all the advance ticket buckets for this specific train" ?

That's how websites work out the availability of Advance (and other) fares. But there are quite strict limitations on the number of searches that retailers can undertake in this system, so they couldn't undertake a blanket search for every tier on every train on a given week, for example.

 

[redreni]

What sort of regulation are you thinking of, and on what route? Advance fares are not regulated. The operator can offer as few at any given fare as they see fit.

Yes, advance fares are completely unregulated. Which is one of the main reasons why advance fares and airline-style pricing is a good deal more popular with ministers than with me.

I wouldn't actually mind so much if the fares and quotas were regulated. A regulation that says once you've sold a certain number of seats on a train, you can begin to charge higher prices for the remaining seats, could serve a useful purpose by encouraging people who can be a bit flexible to choose less busy trains. But that's quite different for a free-for-all where the TOCs can play with the fares and quotas in whatever way they feel maximises revenue.

Making train fares more predictable would be a very good thing.

 

[Haywain]

But that's quite different for a free-for-all where the TOCs can play with the fares and quotas in whatever way they feel maximises revenue.

That free-for-all is what we have had for most of the last 30 years, subject to the limitations of regulated fares. It's nothing new.

 

[OscarH]

Am I right in saying that the central booking system - where the availability is actually controlled - is really limited in terms of what information it offers to ticket retailing sites? eg you can't do something obvious like "tell me the availability in all the advance ticket buckets for this specific train" ?

One other thing to note is buckets don't work remotely as you'd expect them too, one seat being booked somewhere can cascade changes in very strange ways (and what changes will/have happened is intentionally not exposed to avoid retailers seeing the yield management strategies)