Great Ticket Sale courtesy of Grant Shapps

[Wallsendmag]

Looks like the sale is so popular it's broken the LNER website!

Are you sure? I don't have any staus alerts.

 

[Watershed]

Has anyone managed to find an Off-Peak Rail Sale ticket from Welwyn Garden City (WGC) to London, on any date? Fares from WGC to London Thameslink are supposed to be £8.20 in the Rail Sale. I'd like to help the Secretary of State (whose constituency includes WGC) find a good value ticket.

Also, has anyone managed to find a South Western Railway Rail Sale Advance Single (ticket type NW1) for any date? I have searched Bournemouth to London Waterloo pretty thoroughly, I think. Even though the National Rail site (and the fares data) show Rail Sale Advance Singles for £9.30, I can't find any on any date (nor for any other SWR route, either). Any takers? I'm beginning to think that SWR have just forgotten to set up any availability.


I can't see anything has been set up. Anybody else?


I don't thinnk they do. So far as I know, Northern have set every Rail Sale fare to be £1.50. I hadn't realised there were no railcard discounts, though that is reasonable considering. Carlisle to Leeds is probably the longest flow (112.75 miles) they have set up though.

Nottingham to Carlisle is even further and can also be done on a direct train both ways on a Sunday. 192 miles 27 chains for £1.50 - 0.78p per mile. That's decent value if you ask me!

 

[cygnus44]

There seem to be much better offers on LNER than Avanti, just secured a Kings Cross to York return 1st Class for £42.50. Nothing any where near this on Avanti

 

[mmh]

Unfortunately it seems the nationalists are using this to push the whole "England treats us unfairly" line, and are rather missing the point that this should in fact reflect on the Welsh and Scots Governments, as transport is a devolved matter so Westminster has no powers to do this within Wales/Scotland at all.

Despite saying they're not part of this, Transport for Wales are actually taking part.

 

[aquae39]

I haven't seen any price reductions on SWR services, have they updated to the rail sale fares or are they participating in the sales?

 

[alistairlees]

Nottingham to Carlisle is even further and can also be done on a direct train both ways on a Sunday. 192 miles 27 chains for £1.50 - 0.78p per mile. That's decent value if you ask me!

So it can and is. Although, as it's not in the list of GB Rail Sale flows that I have from the TOC concerned, I didn't know about it.

I haven't seen any price reductions on SWR services, have they updated to the rail sale fares or are they participating in the sales?

As in post 240, no I don't think they have added availability yet. The ticket type (NW1) is set up and there is supposed to be availability on many SWR flows to / from Waterloo (but only flows to / from Waterloo). But I see nothing so far.

 

[All Line Rover]

There seem to be much better offers on LNER than Avanti, just secured a Kings Cross to York return 1st Class for £42.50. Nothing any where near this on Avanti

That's because Avanti have max 3 bacon rolls and 1 brandy miniature on any service, so need to keep a tight lid on 1st pax numbers.

 

[voyagerdude220]

There seem to be much better offers on LNER than Avanti, just secured a Kings Cross to York return 1st Class for £42.50. Nothing any where near this on Avanti

That doesn't surprise me given how extortionate (in my opinion) Avanti First Class fares are.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

The LNER app is very clear that the sale is for Monday-Thursday tickets only (at least in their case). Just got a ticket for £31 when I expected to pay £49 - though whether that's due to the sale or just a cheaper Advance ticket than I usually find, I can't say for sure. Less good is that fares for the following week look higher than usual. Presumably it's the cheapest Advance tickets that are being further discounted in the sale and are selling out more quickly than usual - so if you have to travel on a particular date you may be worse off

 

[whale]

My experience so far has been relatively good. Not seen a single SWR discounted fare as of yet, but managed to bag a £7 Hereford - Manchester with TFW, and a couple of days out around Kent with the vast majority of SE advances being sub £3 as a result of the sale (and there being an abundance of SE advances nowadays!). Great idea

 

[Hadders]

How does it work with the off peak tickets in the sale on Thameslink - which routes are included? I've struggled to find anything.

Has anyone managed to find an Off-Peak Rail Sale ticket from Welwyn Garden City (WGC) to London, on any date? Fares from WGC to London Thameslink are supposed to be £8.20 in the Rail Sale. I'd like to help the Secretary of State (whose constituency includes WGC) find a good value ticket.

I can see WGC-STP Off Peak Day Return with railcard for £4.75
SVG-STP Off Peak Day Return using my Gold Card discount for £6.45 is a snip!

A quick look appears to suggest that Thameslink sale tickets are only available to London Terminals/London Thameslink. No cross London journeys and nothing available to any intermediate destinations. For example no sale tickets for Stevenage to Cambridge, Stevenage to Welwyn Garden City or even Stevenage to Finsbury Park.

 

[FenMan]

I haven't seen any price reductions on SWR services, have they updated to the rail sale fares or are they participating in the sales?

Given SWT's attitude to pricing, why would I be surprised that SWR's "sale" falls short of reasonable expectations?

(I'm assuming no changes in personnel resulted from the switch between SWT and SWR).

 

[Gricer99]

I didn't see a single advertised £1.50 low fare on the Northern site yesterday evening.

 

[Watershed]

I didn't see a single advertised £1.50 low fare on the Northern site yesterday evening.

Which journeys did you search for?

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I didn't see a single advertised £1.50 low fare on the Northern site yesterday evening.

Like many TOCs it looks like they're only offering £1.50 fares in one direction, meaing that you have to buy a full priced advance single for your return journey.

Nonetheless a day trip from Sheffield to Scarborough for £14 is pretty good value!

Buy Cheap Train Tickets Online | Northern

Book your train journey directly at Northern. Calling at over 500 stations in the North of England. View train tickets and times.

www.buytickets.northernrailway.co.uk

 

[Deltic1961]

Like many TOCs it looks like they're only offering £1.50 fares in one direction, meaing that you have to buy a full priced advance single for your return journey.

Ah, the old Easyjet con. £35 flights on the way out but the return a week later is in the hundreds.

 

[alistairlees]

Like many TOCs it looks like they're only offering £1.50 fares in one direction, meaing that you have to buy a full priced advance single for your return journey.

I don't think that's correct - at least it is not intentional if it is happening.

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

I think it depends a lot on the route.. I checked this morning and there's still tickets available between Manchester and Barrow on the weekends. However there's less availability on routes across the Pennines now and also up to Carlisle.
I've just picked up a return to Carnforth from Manchester Piccadilly for £3 on Saturday 30th. Gave up on trying to find anything further south of Birmingham for that Saturday!

I'm banking on good weather that first weekend of May.. otherwise this whole thing has gone to pot.



From Manchester, though I'm not sure how good value the Rugby, Holyhead & Peterborough tickets actually are compared to their normal advance fares. They're not routes/services I often travel on.

 

[Peter0124]

Managed to get a return from Glasgow to London on Avanti for just £34 with railcard

 

[erk]

I have booked a return Manchester - London (on TfW and LNWR) for £12.42 (with senior railcard). I have collected the tickets. The ones in the rail sale have "FOR TEST USE ONLY" printed across the top, where you normally see something like "Advance Single".

Is this a known problem, and now can I protect myself against dubious ticke inspectors?

A further potential glitch...

As noted above, Northern's sale tickets are apparently all at £1.50, with no railcard discount. If you search on Trainsplit, with a railcard specified, it doesn't recopgnise that a non-railcard fare would be cheaper. My bargain Manchester to London journey could have been even cheaper.

 

[PTR 444]

Couldn’t find any such advances until half an hour ago, but now I have just managed to grab an £18.50 SWR return from Poole to London Waterloo with railcard on Trainline

 

[Haywain]

I have booked a return Manchester - London (on TfW and LNWR) for £12.42 (with senior railcard). I have collected the tickets. The ones in the rail sale have "FOR TEST USE ONLY" printed across the top, where you normally see something like "Advance Single".

Is this a known problem, and now can I protect myself against dubious ticke inspectors?

I would be very concerned about that and would suggest that you urgently contact both the retailer and the operator of the machine where you collected the ticket (it's not obvious where the fault would lie).

 

[JonathanH]

Couldn’t find any such advances until half an hour ago, but now I have just managed to grab an £18.50 SWR return from Poole to London Waterloo with railcard on Trainline

Yes, it does now look as though SWR have released their tickets for this offer.

 

[Llandudno]

I see TfW are offering sale tickets, despite previous announcements stating they were not going to. This is a bit annoying as I just bought some tickets which I now see are cheaper than when I booked earlier this morning.

At least the reduced fares will in part make up for standing on most north Wales coast trains!

 

[James H]

Couldn’t find any such advances until half an hour ago, but now I have just managed to grab an £18.50 SWR return from Poole to London Waterloo with railcard on Trainline

Why pay over the odds booking on Trainline? You could have avoided the fee buying from any TOC site.

 

[whale]

Yes does appear that SWR tickets are on there now, but with no railcard discounts available. In fact the sale fare is actually more expensive now (for a Waterloo - Lymington in 3 weeks time) than the normal advances were 2 days ago (taking into account the railcard discount on the existing advance).

 

[Paul Kelly]

I would be very concerned about that and would suggest that you urgently contact both the retailer and the operator of the machine where you collected the ticket (it's not obvious where the fault would lie).

I'd hazard a guess that it's the machine, and it's simply using slightly out-of-date fares data. Are TVMs required to update their data daily as part of accreditation?

 

[Haywain]

I'd hazard a guess that it's the machine, and it's simply using slightly out-of-date fares data. Are TVMs required to update their data daily as part of accreditation?

You may well be right. I'm not sure on the frequency of updates but it really shouldn't be possible for the ticket to be issued with that wording in place. That could be down to the fare setter or TVM provider.

 

[erk]

I would be very concerned about that and would suggest that you urgently contact both the retailer and the operator of the machine where you collected the ticket (it's not obvious where the fault would lie).

Yes, I have advised the retailer (Trainsplit) and machine operator (Northern). No responses yet. The journey isn't until 9 May, so no panic yet.

 

[Fiyero]

Yes, it does now look as though SWR have released their tickets for this offer.

At last! I actually got one (after giving up yesterday for a different journey!)