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September Cornwall Fares

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Pythagoreans

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We are a couple in London looking to do a five day break in Cornwall in late September.

Looking at London to Penzance, there are advance tickets there and back for £39.10 up until Wed Sep 22nd. It's intuitive that the cheaper tickets on Thu 23rd through Sun 26th would be booked up, but ...

The following week has different price points, eg £71.90 for Penzance to London on Tue Sep 28th. This seems counterintuitive to us, but we thought perhaps someone here might have some answers and some advice for when to buy to get a better deal. It would explain things if some cheap tickets weren't yet released for the last week in September, but we understood tickets to be released 12 weeks ahead or more, and that's 10 weeks away.
 
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alistairlees

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We are a couple in London looking to do a five day break in Cornwall in late September.

Looking at London to Penzance, there are advance tickets there and back for £39.10 up until Wed Sep 22nd. It's intuitive that the cheaper tickets on Thu 23rd through Sun 26th would be booked up, but ...

The following week has different price points, eg £71.90 for Penzance to London on Tue Sep 28th. This seems counterintuitive to us, but we thought perhaps someone here might have some answers and some advice for when to buy to get a better deal. It would explain things if some cheap tickets weren't yet released for the last week in September, but we understood tickets to be released 12 weeks ahead or more, and that's 10 weeks away.
Lots of TOCs are a long way off releasing dvance tickets 12 weeks away. It will be at least a year before the industry gets back to that universally. Mind you, I see the GWR site suggests it has availability for Advance tickets on those dates: https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/choosing-your-ticket/advance-tickets.

It might just be that there are very few tickets at such a cheap price point. £39.10 is incredibly cheap for 650 miles by train.
 

Wallsendmag

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Lots of TOCs are a long way off releasing dvance tickets 12 weeks away. It will be at least a year before the industry gets back to that universally. Mind you, I see the GWR site suggests it has availability for Advance tickets on those dates: https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/choosing-your-ticket/advance-tickets.

It might just be that there are very few tickets at such a cheap price point. £39.10 is incredibly cheap for 650 miles by train.
They just aren’t trying hard enough, wait until Tuesday ;)
 

Mcr Warrior

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Must be an epic roundabout route if it's 650 miles one way between London and Penzance. :rolleyes:
 

alistairlees

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It’s 325 miles. That’s 12p a mile at £39.10. The OP’s opening post was unclear.
 

Pythagoreans

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Sorry for not being clear re: fare type earlier. Would like to add my husband (who wrote the OP) is from Yorkshire.
 

Master29

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We are a couple in London looking to do a five day break in Cornwall in late September.

Looking at London to Penzance, there are advance tickets there and back for £39.10 up until Wed Sep 22nd. It's intuitive that the cheaper tickets on Thu 23rd through Sun 26th would be booked up, but ...

The following week has different price points, eg £71.90 for Penzance to London on Tue Sep 28th. This seems counterintuitive to us, but we thought perhaps someone here might have some answers and some advice for when to buy to get a better deal. It would explain things if some cheap tickets weren't yet released for the last week in September, but we understood tickets to be released 12 weeks ahead or more, and that's 10 weeks away.
If your looking for intuition you won't find it with the ticketing system in this country. As pointed out they do have advanced tickets covering the 12 week period but its all over the place and bloody expensive for so called advanced tickets. Some are dearer than the off peak returns. I always thought the earlier you booked the cheaper but not now it seems and GWR are far from alone here. Split ticketing used to work but doesn't seem to now as they're obviously catching on about it's benefits. I too have tried the ticketing system from Cornwall to London and it's horrendous.
 

Mcr Warrior

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I think we are going to have to get used to the idea that an advance ticket isn't necessarily priced 'keenly'.
They do seem to be increasingly priced at what is considered to be a level that the market will bear, and which can yield negligible savings (if any) compared with walk up return tickets. :rolleyes:
 

Master29

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They do seem to be increasingly priced at what is considered to be a level that the market will bear, and which can yield negligible savings (if any) compared with walk up return tickets. :rolleyes:
Indeed. Sometimes they don't even do that.
 
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