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Rail fares shake-up will ditch refunds and double some fees

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Metroland

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Passengers will lose out from a decision by train companies to stop giving refunds for tickets bought in advance and to double the fee for changes to journey times.

The move is part of what the companies are calling a simplification of rail fares into three main types, which they claim will be easier to understand. More than a million leaflets will be distributed at stations from today explaining the changes but they fail to mention that many passengers will be worse off under the new national refunds policy.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3803746.ece
 
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P156KWJ

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think the whole shakeup is another bribe - saying to passengers that they will be 'easy to understand' but actually, most of the time, the DfT etc. are more bothered about a quick profit than long-term investment
 

theblackwatch

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One thing I've noticed at the end, which answers the question of all TOCs having the same off-peak restrictions:

David Mapp, ATOC’s commercial director, said that companies would have different policies when peak restrictions applied. “This is about renaming and rebranding, not about changing travel restrictions or price levels. We have considered common time restrictions but the trouble is that the pattern of demand and the type of train service varies on different routes.”

That will make it easy for people to understand. Not.
 

yorkie

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Interesting.

So it's all about renaming a few tickets and forcing companies that had lenient policies regarding refunds etc to be strict?

Sounds like nothing significant will actually change, except useful tickets like Business Savers may be abolished to keep the number of tickets down and instead people may need to buy more expensive tickets.

I fail to see how this will be of any benefit to anyone. It's just an excuse to put some fares up!
 

Mojo

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If TOC Z will to have an evening peak restriction on its off-peak tickets but TOC Y will allow them to be used any time after 09:30, how exactly is that simplification?
 

yorkie

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If TOC Z will to have an evening peak restriction on its off-peak tickets but TOC Y will allow them to be used any time after 09:30, how exactly is that simplification?
Basically, simplification is not really happening, at least not in the way that I envisaged.

So that means the existing anomalies are likely to still be around in future.

it is also unclear if tickets such as Savers will be available as singles for half the return fare. The government's white paper hints that they should, but I suspect they won't. And if they don't, all they're doing is abolishing some useful tickets and renaming the rest!
 
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