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Which Site mails you when Advances become available?

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Blinkbonny

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16 Mar 2018
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I remember there is one that emails you when they become available, but I've forgotten which.

They seem to be working to a different availability window to when I last booked. Is that right?
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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I remember there is one that emails you when they become available, but I've forgotten which.

They seem to be working to a different availability window to when I last booked. Is that right?
The Trainline have such a tool. The availability of Advances varies widely by TOC, some releasing them months in advance at the moment and others only a few days or weeks.
 

JBuchananGB

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I asked Avanti once to notify me when advances were available, back in the day when they uploaded their advance fares to the system much more than 12 weeks ahead. I then booked 13 weeks ahead using RSH, and received a notification from Avanti 12 weeks ahead of the travel date.

By then the cheapest advance tickets had been sold, because I had bought some.

Avanti's advance fares were available from RSH, but not from Avanti.

So the question is, which provider will notify you that the advance fares are available to purchase, not necessarily that they are available to purchase from them?
 

FQTV

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So the question is, which provider will notify you that the advance fares are available to purchase, not necessarily that they are available to purchase from them?

Every system seems to have flaws. The Trainline one effectively screenscrapes itself to detect drops in fares returned from searches. It then assumes that this is the release of Advances.

The LNER one doesn’t reliably email people (see Twitter for complaints), but then when it does, the fares often aren’t available on the LNER website, which seems to lag The Trainline, other Trainline powered and WebTis sites by anything up to about half an hour.

By the time they do appear on the LNER site, the often very low quotas might have been exhausted by purchasers from other sites.

The LNER one will also sometimes refuse to allow an alert to be set up, saying that tickets are already on sale, when they’re not - presumably a function of situations where the Advance On Sale page doesn’t correctly show that (say) weekend dates within an otherwise on sale time frame are not in fact available.

Again, see Twitter for complaints.
 

Wallsendmag

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The LNER one will also sometimes refuse to allow an alert to be set up, saying that tickets are already on sale, when they’re not - presumably a function of situations where the Advance On Sale page doesn’t correctly show that (say) weekend dates within an otherwise on sale time frame are not in fact available.

Again, see Twitter for complaints.
This was due to a fault that should have been rectified in the last 24 hours.
 

Blinkbonny

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16 Mar 2018
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Thanks for the advice on this, but I'm not much further forward.

The basic matter is I want to travel to London on an Avanti Advance on the 7th of September. The date gets ever closer and nothing at all seems to be forthcoming other than the Timetables are liable to change on the 5th.

How close to the actual date is this likely to be sorted do you think? I'm off on holiday on Saturday and when I come back I'm looking at only having a matter of days before I want to travel. I'm tired of checking in every day and I certainly don't want to pay top prices.

It's looking like I'll be on the LNR bone-shaker for a couple of hours! :frown:
 

trainophile

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I too am waiting and checking daily for Avanti although in the opposite direction to you. Just wondering whether the alert system works if your journey includes legs on other operator trains, with the Avanti part being the longest and the middle of three.
 
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