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Why would CrossCountry sell Advanced fares for more than Anytime ones?

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Gagravarr

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3 Mar 2016
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Looking for Banbury to Birmingham International on Monday morning, I'm seeing any Anytime Single for £16.80. However, for some trains, I'm also seeing an Advanced Single for £20.00. Not for 1st class, that's standard class too!

I'm a bit at a loss as to why CrossCountry think it's sensible to off a fixed-train advanced ticket for 3 quid more than any Anytime one. Is there something I'm missing? Or is this just CrossCountry being incompetent as seemingly-usual?

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sheff1

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If XC can get someone to pay £3.20 extra for a more restricted ticket they will be better off.
 

BluePenguin

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I don’t see how they are going to do that very easily seeing as the Anytime single has prize position at the top and listed clearly as cheapest option. In any case it is bizarre why anyone would choose to pay more money for less validity.

In the event that someone missed that specific train and the conductor came round to excess their ticket to an Anytime single, would the passenger then be owed a refund of £3.20?

Cross country must think we are stupid if they are looking to take us for mugs.
 

plugwash

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I doubt XC have someone go through and determine the fares for all the possible origin/destination combinations by hand, so presumablly they have some kind of computer program to work it out.

I would guess XC have applied a penalty in the fare-setting calculations for short-distance advances in areas where they have major overcrowding issues and this has resulted in the most-expensive tranche of advance tickets becoming more expensive than an anytime ticket. I would guess they did not consider it worthwhile to add extra logic to remove the pointless tranche of advances.

IIRC most short-distance anytime fares are regulated.
 
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