PlusBus - is it £2 this month or not?

Adam Williams · 22 Jun 2019

http://www.plusbus.info/offers

£2 online offer - June & July
Travelling by train during June or July 2019 and buying your train tickets online?

Then you'll be able to buy PlusBus day tickets for just £2 a day with our online offer. You could save pounds off our normal prices, as some tickets will be half price!

And yet..

image above shows PlusBus priced at £2.25 with a Railcard as part of a July booking with West Midlands Trains

Is this likely to be a problem with West Midlands Railway? Do other TOCs honour this promotion?

Edit: This appears to be caused by the railcard.. Adding the 16-25 railcard bumps up the price of the PLUSBUS ticket. If you try and buy a ticket without a railcard you get the £2 fare.

Is this correct?

RailUK Forums

Clip · 22 Jun 2019

Probably a coding error with the railcard

hawk1911 · 22 Jun 2019

I've found that some online companies are offering the £2 deal, others are not; I booked a Cross Country journey, earlier this month, through Transpennine Express, rather than Cross Country, just because Cross Country were charging full price for the PlusBus rather than the £2 offer.

yorkie · 22 Jun 2019

I've not done any analysis of it recently, but when I looked into it a few years ago, I think it was only the Trainline powered sites that offered the discount? If anyone has the time and inclination to check, that would be useful.

There is possible an abuse of a dominant position going on here, depending on which retailer(s) are able to offer it, and what agreements are in place. However it's unlikely that a class action lawsuit would be viable for this as the value of the claims, and number of claims, would be relatively small.

That said, it does happen for two months every year, so again the rail industry is on dodgy ground by doing this! I do wonder if some of these companies have access to good quality legal advisers who are proficient in competition and consumer laws.

Joe Paxton · 22 Jun 2019

yorkie said:
I've not done any analysis of it recently, but when I looked into it a few years ago, I think it was only the Trainline powered sites that offered the discount? If anyone has the time and inclination to check, that would be useful.

There is possible an abuse of a dominant position going on here, depending on which retailer(s) are able to offer it, and what agreements are in place.
...

The June & July £2 Plusbus online offer is available from multiple non-Trainline powered sites now - this has been the case for a few years at least.
www.plusbus.info/offers

The T&Cs talk of "participating websites" - I rather suspect that this was always available to any web retailer, but the Trainline (which had less competition than it does now) was the only participant for a number of years.

yorkie · 22 Jun 2019

Ok that's good to know. I just did a quick search and found several threads stating it was Trainline only, but these were a few years old. I always assumed it was a deal done directly between PlusBus and Trainline. There were still multiple retailers even then and the competition from Atos was stronger than it is now.

Adam Williams · 22 Jun 2019

Joe Paxton said:
The June & July £2 Plusbus online offer is available from multiple non-Trainline powered sites now - this has been the case for a few years at least.

Good to know, and do these sites work properly with the railcard? I tried with GWR's site and it seemed to work fine with a 16-25 railcard.

If anyone's interested, I did contact WMT/West Midlands Railway about this and they a) implied it was out of their control and b) said that I should contact plusbus directly. Unless PlusBus have implemented this themselves, I am a little doubtful. At the end of the day, WMT t/a WMR are selling the tickets.

And thanks to whoever edited my OP to make it accessible, I should've avoided two huge images when I posted.

alistairlees · 23 Jun 2019

Joe Paxton said:
The June & July £2 Plusbus online offer is available from multiple non-Trainline powered sites now - this has been the case for a few years at least.
www.plusbus.info/offers

The T&Cs talk of "participating websites" - I rather suspect that this was always available to any web retailer, but the Trainline (which had less competition than it does now) was the only participant for a number of years.

Indeed, this offer has not been restricted to Trainline only for at least five years.

yorkie · 23 Jun 2019

alistairlees said:
Indeed, this offer has not been restricted to Trainline only for at least five years.

Interesting, thanks.

Does that mean it was restricted to Trainline only prior to that? Or that it was open to all, but only Trainline who took it up?

Do you have any idea why some websites are charging the higher price this year?

alistairlees · 24 Jun 2019

yorkie said:
Interesting, thanks.

Does that mean it was restricted to Trainline only prior to that? Or that it was open to all, but only Trainline who took it up?

Do you have any idea why some websites are charging the higher price this year?

My memory is a little hazy - it was seven or eight years ago. I think it was initially offered only via TTL-powered websites because they were the majority, and there was just a need to get it out. I don't think there was malicious intent. It was added to most other sites a year later, when there was more time to implement it.

No idea why some are selling it at the incorrect price now. Poor implementation most likely.

blakey1152 · 24 Jun 2019

Oddly I notice the offer does not apply to Family and Friends Railcards under the terms and conditions.

island · 24 Jun 2019

Adam Williams said:
Good to know, and do these sites work properly with the railcard? I tried with GWR's site and it seemed to work fine with a 16-25 railcard.

There is no further discount available on the £2. If the full price less the Railcard discount would normally be under £2, that will be charged instead.

IanD · 24 Jun 2019

island said:
There is no further discount available on the £2. If the full price less the Railcard discount would normally be under £2, that will be charged instead.

I think the point is that it charges £2.25 in the OP's example when it should knock the 25p off, even if it can't knock a third off the offer price.

Adam Williams · 24 Jun 2019

IanD said:
I think the point is that it charges £2.25 in the OP's example when it should knock the 25p off, even if it can't knock a third off the offer price.

This was exactly my question, yeah. The answer is yes - they do calculate it properly, as verified with GWR's site.

PlusBus - is it £2 this month or not?

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