Some CrossCountry RPIs get very cross indeed if anyone mentions this to them. I heard one of them having a rant about it to a slightly nonplussed VT TM recently. "All these kids going on 'well Virgin don't mind me getting an early train with this' over and over again, well if you don't like it go and travel with Virgin then!". If I'm honest, I suspect a significant percentage of this and similar confusion results from people who actually still genuinely believe XC services are part of the Virgin franchise.
Moving on, I think this might be a good move. Why should an entirely arbitrary group of railcard holders get this privilege? If VT are going to persist with their lovely policy of charging hundreds of pounds for empty so-called 'peak' time trains and then selling a large number of cheap tickets on evening 'post-peak' trains which are already full, they will just get what's coming to them. Perhaps more reasonable anytime fares are the solution? But oh... would they consider that
People normally have a go at me when I try to point out how much the railway seems to hate its customers sometimes. Well...
Though if that passenger would otherwise have purchased an Anytime, they lose. Therein lies the difficulty.
Demand curve basics. If they haven't mastered it by now...
Has anyone seen the effect of the newish Super Off-Peak London <> West Midlands tickets? First Super Off-Peak from Euston is the 2023, I used it Friday night some weeks past it was a 5 car train... Obviously not everyone got on it.
They only need to keep half of the (railcard holding) customers on the same trains to make significantly more money.
Manchester - London, with railcard
Off-Peak Return £53.85
Anytime Return £217.15
More than 4x
Now that is quite some price elasticity of demand no!?
Seriously, to the average passenger who needs a Manchester to London ticket arriving before almost midday, they are being quoted £329 return. That's really not doing any reputational damage? How many people are being offered an Anytime Single at (still, shocking £164.50) and an Off-Peak Single (£80.60) back? In what universe is anything offered by the Virgin Trains standard class experience worth this kind of money?
It could well make Saturday trains busier, because that will be the only day that railcard holders will be able to have a reasonable day in London for a reasonable walk-on fare.
Just the same as the majority of passengers do currently?