Avanti Superfare

[sonic2009]

Avanti have launched a new type of way to get bums on to seats. https://www.avantisuperfare.co.uk/

Sorry can't add more on the phone - seems to be in partnership with Seatfrog

Full T&Cs here : https://www.avantisuperfare.co.uk/terms-and-conditions

 

[JonathanH]

Choosing Morning, Afternoon or Evening is quite a gamble about when the journey will be.

 

[Starmill]

Clever. A lot like Eurostar Snap. Almost the same in fact.

 

[Merseysider]

Clever. A lot like Eurostar Snap. Almost the same in fact.

That’s what I thought too. Might give it a go (for a journey I don’t mind getting delayed on)

 

[Adam Williams]

It's great, except their payment flow is broken due to misconfigured CORS. Some of the API responses are .. odd for a production website, too!
returnUrl "https://localhost:8080/payment-verify?reference=VT-20230117|MCdyEalZbz#ZJqQunPlLp"



Has this actually launched? Where did you find it @sonic2009?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I note the FAQ doesn't contain "what if my train is cancelled" - I assume normal NRCoT rights apply?

 

[alistairlees]

Hmmm. It was not supposed to launch until 28 February, according to industry info.

 

[Adam Williams]

I did wonder. No robots.txt, but it's got a <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> at the top which is a bit of a giveaway. Perhaps Seatfrog should restrict access to their non-prod/unlaunched environments (if this is indeed what it is)

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are tickets released for next week.

 

[Adam Williams]

I'm sure that's just based on RARS availability for the e.g. SF3 ticket type

May or may not coincide with product launch

 

[Starmill]

I note the FAQ doesn't contain "what if my train is cancelled" - I assume normal NRCoT rights apply?

Point number 15 appears to say that any booking is indeed bound by the Conditions of Travel, yes.

 

[BluePenguin]

Literally no tickets available, even weeks into the future. I managed to get one southbound journey from Birmingham to show up on a Wednesday for £12, nothing else

 

[Bletchleyite]

Literally no tickets available, even weeks into the future. I managed to get one southbound journey from Birmingham to show up on a Wednesday for £12, nothing else

There were last night. Maybe they realised it's got out before launch and have removed them all.

 

[realemil]

The site is now protected by username / password.

 

[greatkingrat]

£12 to go to Birmingham at some unknown time doesn't seem that great a deal. If I really wanted to minimize costs, I'd rather book a £7.50 advance on LNWR, it's slower but at least I could make plans around it. Even going with Avanti, there are usually cheap advances available for not much more than £12.

 

[Bletchleyite]

£12 to go to Birmingham at some unknown time doesn't seem that great a deal. If I really wanted to minimize costs, I'd rather book a £7.50 advance on LNWR, it's slower but at least I could make plans around it. Even going with Avanti, there are usually cheap advances available for not much more than £12.

I'm surprised Glasgow and Edinburgh aren't in this. A longer trip to one of these for a few days would be more the sort of thing people would use these for.

At the moment it seems LNR has the Birmingham market - cheap, simple, walk-up (and really cheap Advances).

 

[mangyiscute]

seeing as the website is now not accessible, would it be possible for someone to summarise what this is - from what I can gather, you pay a cheap fare and say you want to travel on say "morning of 28th jan" and then you get told (the day before?) what train you have a ticket for, but I'm not sure if this is how it works
That's one way to fill up the 5am/11pm train

 

[Bletchleyite]

seeing as the website is now not accessible, would it be possible for someone to summarise what this is - from what I can gather, you pay a cheap fare and say you want to travel on say "morning of 28th jan" and then you get told (the day before?) what train you have a ticket for, but I'm not sure if this is how it works
That's one way to fill up the 5am/11pm train

Yes, that's it.

 

[STINT47]

Purchasing an Avanti ticket and only having a vague idea when you'll arrive has been the norm for a while now. I've stopped using them at least for a few more months yet.

 

[Haywain]

That's one way to fill up the 5am/11pm train

I don't know about the evenings but the morning times were shown yesterday as from 0700 to 1059, so no worries about being stuck on a 5am train. I think afternoon was 1100 to 1659, but can't be certain.

 

[All Line Rover]

A random chance of catching one Avanti train within a 3 hour window? Sounds like the perfect match for Avanti's current operation!

 

[Benjwri]

To be fair this is quite a good idea for people like students, which I I’m assuming it’s aimed for. I would certainly make use if such a thing if GWR even introduced it, usually when I’m going home I have a free day anyways.

 

[Trackman]

There were last night. Maybe they realised it's got out before launch and have removed them all.

lol and all that, Avanti have their spies on here as we well know... like when someone on here sussed out how to find the new logo/branding on a industry website. It was taken down within 30 minutes after that post!

I note the FAQ doesn't contain "what if my train is cancelled" - I assume normal NRCoT rights apply?

Surely it must do.
---
Did anyone copy the T&C's?

 

[Merseysider]

At the moment it seems LNR has the Birmingham market - cheap, simple, walk-up (and really cheap Advances).

And being able to buy a ticket more than 1 week in advance

 

[Benjwri]

And being able to buy a ticket more than 1 week in advance

And actually running the services you can buy a ticket for.

 

[BluePenguin]

It will be very nice to be able to buy a ticket to Liverpool or Manchester for under £20 like you used to be able to do. At least if the train is delayed the journey is free

 

[Starmill]

£12 to go to Birmingham at some unknown time doesn't seem that great a deal. If I really wanted to minimize costs, I'd rather book a £7.50 advance on LNWR, it's slower but at least I could make plans around it. Even going with Avanti, there are usually cheap advances available for not much more than £12.

£15 between London and Liverpool is the only offer that is really good I think.

lol and all that, Avanti have their spies on here as we well know... like when someone on here sussed out how to find the new logo/branding on a industry website. It was taken down within 30 minutes after that post!

Surely it must do.
---
Did anyone copy the T&C's?

Point 15 said that the NRCoT apply.

I'm surprised Glasgow and Edinburgh aren't in this. A longer trip to one of these for a few days would be more the sort of thing people would use these for.

At the moment it seems LNR has the Birmingham market - cheap, simple, walk-up (and really cheap Advances).

I don't think it's realistic to think that Edinburgh trains have the capacity for it. Glasgow I imagine would do if they were running the Glasgow - Birmingham service more than one per day, but while that's not the case there's not much that can be done. They likely could sell Blackpool - London however, I wonder if they will add that later

 

[mangyiscute]

I don't think it's realistic to think that Edinburgh trains have the capacity for it. Glasgow I imagine would do if they were running the Glasgow - Birmingham service more than one per day, but while that's not the case there's not much that can be done. They likely could sell Blackpool - London however, I wonder if they will add that later

Usually I take these trains on weekends and they have usually been very busy on these routes, but I took a manchester train out of euston and then a glasgow train back on monday and both services were very quiet with entire 2-seaters available, so I think midweek this could make more sense due to the shift to leisure travel.
This could also be because some people are suggesting that avanti aren't selling many cheap advances at the moment in order to avoid overcrowding in the likely event that they cancel some trains, so they only aim to sell roughly 50% of each train, but on this day, practically every service ran (although there were major delays through Birmingham)

 

[Starmill]

Usually I take these trains on weekends and they have usually been very busy on these routes, but I took a manchester train out of euston and then a glasgow train back on monday and both services were very quiet with entire 2-seaters available, so I think midweek this could make more sense due to the shift to leisure travel.
This could also be because some people are suggesting that avanti aren't selling many cheap advances at the moment in order to avoid overcrowding in the likely event that they cancel some trains, so they only aim to sell roughly 50% of each train, but on this day, practically every service ran (although there were major delays through Birmingham)

A lot of trains are very lightly loaded specifically because people search online and are told the train is full, when in fact it is yet to be released. They don't then return to check later, because why would you if the website says it is full?

This gets around that.

 

[mrmartin]

This is a great idea and wish more long distance TOCs (at least those with a lot of empty seats) would copy!

Just to be clear though, do you get the ticket time straight after you paid for it?