Euston - Manchester, what is this ticket type called?

I've just managed to make a mistake ordering some tickets for travel up to Manchester and back for Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to order an Advance for tomorrow and a open single for the journey back, looking at the National Rail journey planner, the tickets were £25 pounds for an advance to Manchester, and the off peak single back was £40.80, which seemed surprisingly reasonable to me. So I went ahead and purchased the Advance up there and thought I would pick up the return at Manchester on the Sunday.

Luckily I checked the price of a single Manchester to Euston for Sunday and it turns out as a stand alone ticket it's actually twice as expensive at £80.60! I've managed to pick up an advance for £35, so it's not the end of the world, but it's stripped all the flexibility out of my Sunday, which is a little frustrating.

My question is, what is this half advance/off peak return ticket type called, I had a feeling I had read about it before in these forums, but couldn't find any reference to it when searching for it before I booked!

My other question is why is it not clearer on the National Rail Journey Planner that the fare quoted for the 'off peak single' is contingent on the first advanced portion being purchased at the same time, and is therefore actually far more like an 'off peak return' than an 'off peak single'?

Some websites will offer an off-peak single for half the price of the off-peak return if you book a ticket in the other direction. This is a special promotional offer that causes great annoyance as it cannot be booked at stations - the fare is in the system but greyed out and not sellable! Believe it's called a Saver Half. And yes, it is frustrating!

That 'half price' single is offered by Virgin on its website for its services, only for journeys where an Advance is purchased in one direction. It's also an incentive to do your ticket buying business with them rather than another toc.

It can't be purchased as a walk-up ticket.

Its abbreviation is SVH; "Saver Half". Its purpose is to give flexibility in one direction, or to compensate when one direction's advances have sold out.

As I said 2 months ago, This has cropped up perhaps a dozen or so times before, for example Single off-peak fares on Virgin: half the price of a return - is this new?? and it won't be the last!

The old name 'Saver Half Return' (SVH) was far, far too 'complex' for us mere rail passengers to understand, denoting that it was half a return.

The new name 'Off Peak Single' (SVH) "describes when you can buy or use a ticket making, it easier for you to buy the best value ticket for your journey", and as you can see is not available singly. This is in contrast to the 'Off Peak Single' (SVS) which is available singly (!) The new names "simplify the choice, allowing you to choose your rail ticket with confidence."

I know what you're thinking: that these products are different and should have a different name. But this apparently is not so, as "with fewer names you can quickly work out what ticket you need to make your journey."

If you're still in doubt, you can relax in the knowledge that "Ticket terms and conditions are now the same across all train companies nationwide, so you know exactly where you stand."



This has cropped up perhaps a dozen or so times before, for example Single off-peak fares on Virgin: half the price of a return - is this new?? and it also cropped up back in January. Give it another month and we can repeat this all again

Thank you very much for the replies, apologies if it's like groundhog day for you yorkie! I've just done a 'dry run' and it looks like the National Rail website will allow you to buy the tickets from TOCs other than just Virgin, but if it's not available physically from stations then I imagine there is little to no chance of me being able to upgrade my returning advance portion to an 'off peak single (svh)' at Euston. It probably won't help that I purchased the tickets from Greater Anglia!

I like to think of my self as a reasonably savvy rail traveller, but if I'm struggling and I even vaguely knew the ticket type existed then what hope is there for an ordinary travellers and tourists! It's clearly a 'simplification' similar to the recent revisions to the TfL off peak cap for us outer zone dwellers!

Next time I'll just buy an off peak return I think!

The National Rail website doesn't sell tickets so to be honest you're far better off looking for itineraries and tickets on a TOC website (or Trainsplit).

If you want to buy a SVH ticket then you need to use Virgin Trains (West Coast) as other sites do not sell them.

SansPareil said:

Thank you very much for the replies, apologies if it's like groundhog day for you yorkie!

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No need to apologise; I like a good excuse to use some sarcasm about how 'simple' our fares structure is

SansPareil said:

I like to think of my self as a reasonably savvy rail traveller, but if I'm struggling and I even vaguely knew the ticket type existed then what hope is there for an ordinary travellers and tourists!

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But it's so simple! The name Off Peak Single describes when you can buy or use a ticket, making it easy for you to buy the best value to ticket for your journey, and with fewer names you can quickly work out what ticket you need to make your journey and choose your rail ticket with confidence. The conditions for Off Peak Singles are the same across all companies nationwide, so you know where you stand.

And if you think that's inaccurate, bear in mind that David Mapp once claimed that there is "there is no economic justification for [Off Peaks] because they are being offered to customers who are using their income on a leisure journey rather than going to the theatre or buying CDs"

Make no mistake, this is an industry with people at the very top who do not want your custom.

(Disclaimer: there are some fantastic people at ATOC, but they are not allowed to 'tell it how it is' or fight for our rights too much!)

Hadders said:

The National Rail website doesn't sell tickets so to be honest you're far better off looking for itineraries and tickets on a TOC website (or Trainsplit).

If you want to buy a SVH ticket then you need to use Virgin Trains (West Coast) as other sites do not sell them.

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I believe other Trainline-powers sites also will.

JakeF said:

That 'half price' single is offered by Virgin on its website for its services, only for journeys where an Advance is purchased in one direction. It's also an incentive to do your ticket buying business with them rather than another toc.

It can't be purchased as a walk-up ticket.

Its abbreviation is SVH; "Saver Half". Its purpose is to give flexibility in one direction, or to compensate when one direction's advances have sold out.

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It doesn't have to be an Advance ticket in the other direction. You could buy any single ticket as long as it is bought at the same times as the SVH - even another SVH if you want (though not sure why you would).

IanD said:

It doesn't have to be an Advance ticket in the other direction. You could buy any single ticket as long as it is bought at the same times as the SVH - even another SVH if you want (though not sure why you would).

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I might be wrong but I heard it does have to be an advance ticket or you'll just get issued an SVR rather than two SVH tickets.

And because it's possible to save 5-10p due to the rounding down to "half"

JakeF said:

I might be wrong but I heard it does have to be an advance ticket or you'll just get issued an SVR rather than two SVH tickets.

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That is correct, provided the time between the two tickets is a month or less - I believe you can get two SVHs by spacing the journey more than that. But that is not a disadvantage so I wouldn't worry

I also *think* you can get an Anytime Single one way and an SVH the other.

Neil

I think officially it has to be a VT Advance one way and an SVH the other, but as someone who prints out a lot of tickets that people are collecting online, it seems to be pretty much any ticket the other way, be it an LM advance, Anytime single, another SVH etc...!

Hadders said:

The National Rail website doesn't sell tickets so to be honest you're far better off looking for itineraries and tickets on a TOC website (or Trainsplit)

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One of the features the National Rail web site has is "Buy Now" buttons. Pressing this will usually take you to a third party web site, and usually to a screen after the web site's own journey planner. Unless you're looking for cashback, this is roughly as effective as choosing a ticket with the third party site's own search page, and I certainly wouldn't consider it a reason to consider another site to be far better.

You can get an SOS one way and SVH the other; asking for an SVH each way will result in the issue of an SVR.

kieron said:

One of the features the National Rail web site has is "Buy Now" buttons. Pressing this will usually take you to a third party web site, and usually to a screen after the web site's own journey planner. Unless you're looking for cashback, this is roughly as effective as choosing a ticket with the third party site's own search page, and I certainly wouldn't consider it a reason to consider another site to be far better.

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Except that it might direct you to a site you don't have an account on, so you have to register with yet another ticket-selling site.

Better that than overpay for a ticket because the site you selected doesn't offer as large a range of tickets as NRE lists.

You can always pick a different retailer from the drop down list. Even if it's a bit hidden away when you're buying two singles to cover a return journey.