Railforums Ticket Site Offering 1st Class Where none Exists.

[Envoy]

I just put in for a return from Cardiff to Shrewsbury and the Railforums Ticket site is offering 1st Class on all the trains. Now I know that 1st Class is only available on the Class 67 Mk4 trains and not those services operated with 197’s. Looks like a mistake to me? See screenshot below:>

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

The 10:53 from Cardiff to Manchester does have first class accommodation, so does the 15:42 train back from Shrewsbury.

I think you're just mistaken about what trains are working each service.

 

[30907]

If you ask for a semi-flexible return ticket and either the outward or the return train has 1st class, offering a 1st class fare seems entirely reasonable.

 

[TUC]

Are you saying this the Forum site in particular, or do other ticketing sites offer the same?

 

[Envoy]

Are you saying this the Forum site in particular, or do other ticketing sites offer the same?

The Forum site clearly offers 1st class on all the trains on the CDF > SHR route when this is clearly not the case.

Below is a screenshot of the Scotrail ticketing site for exactly the same trains and it clearly says where 1st class is (or not) available in both directions. Therefore I contend that the Forum site is wrong to be offering 1st Class with the higher prices for passengers to then find that the train does not have 1st Class.

 

[Haywain]

The Forum site clearly offers 1st class on all the trains on the CDF > SHR route when this is clearly not the case.

I've just tried the same search on both the forum site and Trainsplit and I am not shown first class fares for the 09.23 and 09.53 departures.

 

[OscarH]

The Forum site clearly offers 1st class on all the trains on the CDF > SHR route when this is clearly not the case.

Below is a screenshot of the Scotrail ticketing site for exactly the same trains and it clearly says where 1st class is (or not) available in both directions. Therefore I contend that the Forum site is wrong to be offering 1st Class with the higher prices for passengers to then find that the train does not have 1st Class.

Did you click on them? I suspect if you clicked on them you would have seen the warning that there's no first class on the outbound, and it would not have sold first class tickets for the outbound unless the 1st return was cheaper than the std outbound single and 1st inbound single.

 

[Adam Williams]

Therefore I contend that the Forum site is wrong to be offering 1st Class with the higher prices for passengers to then find that the train does not have 1st Class.

If you're going to suggest it's broken, could you maybe spend at least spend 2 minutes checking whether it is or not first before making a thread about it?

Firstly, customers are very clearly told where first class accommodation is unavailable:



This is also shown again on the Ticket Information screen:



Secondly, if first class isn't available on one half of the journey, the fares engine will do its best to swap in standard class fares where this would be cheaper for the passenger according to the planned itinerary:



In this instance, I am only being charged for first class on the train which has first class accommodation.

 

[Mike395]

As @Adam Williams states, there's nothing broken on the RailUK Tickets site here. I'm going to lock this thread, more general discussion on TfW First Class should go elsewhere.