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Selling Anytime Day Returns for travel on a weekend

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ASharpe

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My much younger brother, after asking my advice, bought a Leeds to Nottingham Advance (along with an Advance returning the same day) and also an Apperley Bridge to Leeds Anytime day return for travel on a Saturday in January.

He made the mistake of buying an Anytime Day Return ticket to Leeds when an Off Peak Day Return would have been absolutely valid.

Should online ticket sellers offer more expensive tickets when they give absolutely no benefit to customers? Examples might include Anytime Day tickets (Or even Off Peak Day tickets) on weekends as in this case or Via XXX tickets where XXX is on a permitted route and where the restriction code is effectively the same.
 
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CyrusWuff

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Online retailers, like most Ticket Offices, are required to offer an impartial service...which means they have to offer all the available fares even if there's no need to buy them for the journey being made.

Having said that, they all show the validity fairly unambiguously in my experience..but that doesn't stop people buying more expensive tickets than they actually need, like two Singles for almost twice the price of the equivalent Return.
 

yorkie

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They don't have to present them for sale e.g. Trainsplit won't offer to sell you such a fare at a time it wouldn't be required, but then Trainsplit won't sell a return ticket without an itinerary in both directions (of course the tickets can still be used on any valid trains).

There may be good reasons to present such tickets though, e.g. Virgin allow Standard Anytime fares to be used in 1st class at weekends so it may be worth paying a little more than the corresponding Off Peak if you are making a shorter journey and it works out cheaper than a Weekend 1st upgrades.

Booking engines have no way of knowing if break of journey is allowed; a passenger may require an Anytime instead of a (Super) Off Peak for this reason.

Without knowing what website was used and what information was presented to the customer, it is difficult to comment. But if the website somehow behaves in a manner that could be considered misleading then the matter should be pursued with the retailer in the first instance and there may be cause for concern. Examples include where 2 x Advance single fares are more expensive than 1 x Flexible return fare: VTEC will alert you of this, XC just sell the higher priced fares regardless (on very dodgy ground IMO).
 
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