LNER - Difference in Advance Ticket price when order is an amended booking versus a new booking?

[Macscient]

I am a long time viewer of the forum, but this is my first post.

For my sins, I use the LNER app to purchase advance singles for travel once or twice a week from home to work. I've noticed, as others have that LNER are using increasing 'dynamic' pricing on these fares and no longer purchase in the advanced fare window as the same tickets are often then lower in price when the normal ticket purchase window opens.

A new, rather more concerning quirk I have noticed more than once is the same ticket is priced higher on their website and app when making an amendment to a booking versus a new booking.

I understand that rail companies are able to charge a £10 admin fee for changes to advance tickets, (and I will in future purchase from a supplier that waives these fees) but what I was not expecting was for LNER to charge more for the same advance ticket when purchasing as an amended booking versus a new booking.

If I was being cynical I would say they were doing this deliberately to disincetivise changing tickets (where a new booking is for a cheaper ticket than originally booked) and encouraging customers to simply abandon them.

I recently amended a booking for 24th October to move it to 12th December.

When going via the amend booking process, the cost of the outbound ticket is quoted as £8.05 more than the price for a new booking on the same service.

I attach screenshots to show what I mean.

Is this just me or does this feel a rather unethical practice? Can anyone here suggest why the price of a new train ticket is inflated when processing an amended booking on top of charging the £10 admin fee per ticket?

 

[Watershed]

Could it be that this is a case of the LNER app silently reducing prices to match the cost of split tickets, but only doing so for new purchases?

As you say, you will save a lot of money by using a retailer that doesn't charge fees to change Advance tickets. Charging the full £10 per ticket - rather than per transaction - is permitted under the letter of the rules, but it is hardly very customer friendly or competitive.

 

[island]

Could it be that this is a case of the LNER app silently reducing prices to match the cost of split tickets, but only doing so for new purchases?

I believe you are correct.

I understood that LNER would accept amendments via making a new booking and then filling out a webform to refund the old one less the change fee, though I am not sure if that is still a thing.

 

[Haywain]

Could it be that this is a case of the LNER app silently reducing prices to match the cost of split tickets, but only doing so for new purchases?

I don't think it is this, as the same lower fare is offered on the web, and on Trainsplit - the LNER website does not do split tickets and Trainsplit offers it as a through ticket.

I understood that LNER would accept amendments via making a new booking and then filling out a webform to refund the old one less the change fee, though I am not sure if that is still a thing.

That doesn't appear to be the case for Advance tickets now. I don't know how new this functionality might be.

Can anyone here suggest why the price of a new train ticket is inflated when processing an amended booking on top of charging the £10 admin fee per ticket?

I suspect it's completely unintended, and would suggest contacting LNER about it. It's clear to me that you shouldn't be paying any difference in price, and I find it puzzling that the new price is several tiers higher than the original (if it was just one tier it might be explained by availability).

 

[Macscient]

Just by way of update on this. I wrote to LNER customer services to query this ticket pricing behaviour and as of today 20 working days have passed without a reply. I have followed up with them to ask if they could get back to me in the next five working days. Their normal response time is 10 working days and to be fair they normally achieve this.

 

[Macscient]

I've just had a response to my email but they haven't actually dealt with the concern that I raised, which was that their booking system is quoting a much higher price for the same quota of ticket for an amended booking than for a new booking.

Instead the response seems to be a confirmation of things that I already know, such as quotas and dynamic pricing of tickets and the admin fees charged.

"I am sorry to read that when making amendments to your journey that the price was higher than you were expecting.

All our advance tickets are sold in “quotas”. When tickets are initially released for purchase, the cheapest and best value quota for tickets are available. Once the tickets from the cheapest quota are sold out, the tickets from the next quota (which is slightly more expensive), are released. This pattern carries on until only the most expensive tickets are available.

When processing a change of journey, customers may be required to pay an additional fee when the tickets they are booking are of a different type to the original. This would usually be a flexible fare, that is valid for use on multiple services.

Customers can also be required to pay an additional fee if the ticket they are looking to book is from a more expensive quota than the original. However, it appears that tickets from a cheaper quota than your initial ticket was booked from have become available. This is likely due to a number of passengers requesting refunds for tickets from said cheaper quotas."

I have been offered a £20 goodwill gesture for the admin fees and they have closed by saying "With this email, and with the compensation raised, I bring full an final resolution to your complaint".

Should I even bother to go back and ask them to actually answer the concern raised and explain why the booking system did what it did or should I just go to the Rail Ombudsman now?

It has taken them almost 2 months to basically not answer the question and instead try and pretend I have misunderstood how ticket pricing works and fobbed me off with a goodwill gesture, without giving any reassurances that this 'feature' for want of a better word won't repeat itself.

Sorry for the rant but I was expecting a better response from them than this.

 

[redreni]

Sorry for the rant but I was expecting a better response from them than this.

A perfectly reasonable expectation, but rather an optimistic one given the general quality of responses people get out of the TOCs.

If their T&Cs are that you have to pay the difference in fare plus admin fee, but then they're actually charging more than the difference in fare (by pretending the cheapest available fare for the new journey is more than it is) then I would absolutely take it further.

If you want to go to the ombudsman then you need to establish that your complaint to LNER has reached the deadlock stage, which probably means writing to LNER one more time to explain why you find their responses so far unsatisfactory and to request, if they have nothing of substance to add to their previous response, that they provide you with a deadlock letter.

 

[pform]

Hello,
I've stumbled on the above post after researching if other people felt it was wrong LNER overcharge when amending a ticket for date and time. LNER make it very clear that the only extra is the £10 admin fee and any difference in ticket price see: https://spkl.io/6013fcIFz

In my case, the unjustified over charge difference was of £30. I did write to customer service for an explanation and awaiting their response. I did read the response offered to the member above, which is ridiculous really. Customers should be offered with straightforward policies and no gimmicks just to extract more money. It makes no sense putting in front of it "dynamic prices" if a new ticket costs say £100, and the exact same ticket costs £130 when purchased through the amend the journey route. This would be a matter for the Ombudsman then. LNER will not be able to defend their policies in a credible way.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Might this be part of the reason they turned off the splitting functionality?