LNER First Class Weekend Upgrades

voyagerdude220 · 23 Jun 2019

Hi all,

(I get the impression prices have recently increased)

I notice looking online that LNER are now charging £35 each way to upgrade to First Class at weekends on "longer journeys", which I feel to be rather expensive.

They charge £25 for "shorter journeys."

I quote from their website:

The cost of a Weekend Upgrade on shorter routes is £25. But if you're on one of the longer routes it's £35. Longer means starting or finishing as far south as London or Stevenage, and going to or from York, Wakefield or beyond. You're getting quite a bit more First Class time for your money, after all."

So presumably London to Wakefield is £25, but go all the way to Leeds (just an extra 10 minutes or so) it's £35.

Admittedly a £35 upgrade say between Aberdeen/Inverness and London would be very reasonable in my opinion, but I feel even Edinburgh to London for £35 is little high.

RailUK Forums

gazthomas · 23 Jun 2019

I remember when "Weekend First" used to be £5. I feel old!

Iskra · 23 Jun 2019

voyagerdude220 said:
Hi all,

(I get the impression prices have recently increased)

I notice looking online that LNER are now charging £35 each way to upgrade to First Class at weekends on "longer journeys", which I feel to be rather expensive.

They charge £25 for "shorter journeys."

I quote from their website:

The cost of a Weekend Upgrade on shorter routes is £25. But if you're on one of the longer routes it's £35. Longer means starting or finishing as far south as London or Stevenage, and going to or from York, Wakefield or beyond. You're getting quite a bit more First Class time for your money, after all."

So presumably London to Wakefield is £25, but go all the way to Leeds (just an extra 10 minutes or so) it's £35.

Admittedly a £35 upgrade say between Aberdeen/Inverness and London would be very reasonable in my opinion, but I feel even Edinburgh to London for £35 is little high.

If doing London-Leeds, buy the Wakey upgrade and a 1st class single between and Leeds and Wakey, it's cheaper!

I recently got a pre-journey email from LNER asking if I wanted to upgrade to 1st between Doncaster and Peterborough for £35. I declined their invitation- £35 for an hour!

Mag_seven · 23 Jun 2019

gazthomas said:
I remember when "Weekend First" used to be £5. I feel old!

I can trump that - when it first came out under BR it was called "Bargain First" - price £1!

(or am I wearing rose tinted spectacles - was it ever as low as £1?)

WesternLancer · 23 Jun 2019

voyagerdude220 said:
Hi all,

(I get the impression prices have recently increased)

I notice looking online that LNER are now charging £35 each way to upgrade to First Class at weekends on "longer journeys", which I feel to be rather expensive.

They charge £25 for "shorter journeys."

I quote from their website:

The cost of a Weekend Upgrade on shorter routes is £25. But if you're on one of the longer routes it's £35. Longer means starting or finishing as far south as London or Stevenage, and going to or from York, Wakefield or beyond. You're getting quite a bit more First Class time for your money, after all."

So presumably London to Wakefield is £25, but go all the way to Leeds (just an extra 10 minutes or so) it's £35.

Admittedly a £35 upgrade say between Aberdeen/Inverness and London would be very reasonable in my opinion, but I feel even Edinburgh to London for £35 is little high.

That's steep IMHO - but are they trying to drive ppl to Advance 1st (for orcats incentives) or fill unsold 1st class over capacity at the weekend? These motives would perhaps influence the w/e 1st price.

Hadders · 23 Jun 2019

£35 - wow. I won't be upgrading any longer, especially with the non-improved 1st class seating in the Azumas.

I felt £25 was pushing it a bit on the longer journeys.

CyrusWuff · 24 Jun 2019

Just to clarify: The rates are £35 for London or Stevenage - Wakefield or York and beyond; £25 for London or Stevenage - Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Selby, Brough or Hull; and £25 for journeys that don't involve London or Stevenage.

John @ home · 24 Jun 2019

CyrusWuff said:
Just to clarify: The rates are £35 for London or Stevenage - Wakefield or York and beyond; £25 for London or Stevenage - Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Selby, Brough or Hull; and £25 for journeys that don't involve London or Stevenage.

By my calculations, that's a £10 increase for all LNER journeys. The script being read on-board makes clear that children aged 5-15 now have to pay the full adult upgrade price. Previously, it was common for children travelling with adults not to be charged at all.

ainsworth74 · 24 Jun 2019

I must admit I don't think I'll be taking advantage of weekend first again on LNER unless there's a bump in the product on offer! I'm not going to be paying £35 for some tea, a coke, a sandwich and a bigger seat between London and Darlington. I'm also not sure if I'd bother on services for £25 either. Perhaps just about for Inverness/Aberdeen - Darlington as that is a lengthy journey. But previously I've done it between say Berwick and York or Edinburgh and Darlington. For £15 I thought that was acceptable. But not for £25.

Presumably, however, regardless of my whinging LNER must think the numbers stack up somewhere down the line and this will raise revenue.

ForTheLoveOf · 24 Jun 2019

ainsworth74 said:
I must admit I don't think I'll be taking advantage of weekend first again on LNER unless there's a bump in the product on offer! I'm not going to be paying £35 for some tea, a coke, a sandwich and a bigger seat between London and Darlington. I'm also not sure if I'd bother on services for £25 either. Perhaps just about for Inverness/Aberdeen - Darlington as that is a lengthy journey. But previously I've done it between say Berwick and York or Edinburgh and Darlington. For £15 I thought that was acceptable. But not for £25.

Presumably, however, regardless of my whinging LNER must think the numbers stack up somewhere down the line and this will raise revenue.

Agreed - I think CrossCountry have got Weekend First pricing about right in terms of price:value (and they have a generally much better weekend first catering offer than most other TOCs to boot).

WesternLancer · 24 Jun 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
Agreed - I think CrossCountry have got Weekend First pricing about right in terms of price:value (and they have a generally much better weekend first catering offer than most other TOCs to boot).

I tend to think EMT not bad also - but does not include any food.

ainsworth74 · 24 Jun 2019

Actually thinking on this a bit more I wonder if it might not be related to the reduction in capacity of first class? 9-car Azumas only really have two carriages of first class compared to the current fleet having two and a half or three carriages of first class and the 5/10-cars are no better. So if you've got reduced capacity that would suggest that you need to a) manage demand and b) manage your yield. Fewer seats available to sell upgrades for would tend to suggest a need to raise the price.

Perhaps an unexpected "benefit" of the Azumas?

Gerald Fiennes · 24 Jun 2019

There never was a child discount for Weekend First, not even in the BR period. But some conductors wouldn't charge for children, strictly unofficially of course... The big thing that has changed over the years has been that first is much fuller at weekends, largely thanks to sensible-ish ADV fare pricing, so I guess LNER are just reflecting strong demand on their routes.

Sleepy · 24 Jun 2019

I can remember when Weekend First was available to use across 1 than one journey eg Norwich - Penzance, you just paid the highest supplement ! Of course privatisation put it in too difficult box so it stopped.

fireftrm · 25 Jun 2019

Very much a 'not worth it' offer - a bigger seat is basically it. The food offer, a hot anmd cold drink.... spend half that and get more from the buffet and stay in Secon d for me. Utterly pointless waste of money now

cuccir · 25 Jun 2019

Probably the way to think about this is a per hour rate. To make a journey comfortable (ie if you're not just taking as much as you can to get best possible value!) we might say a standard desire would be a tea/coffee/juice every 90 minutes, accompanied by food alternating between a snack, then 'sandwich with snack' or breakfast, depending on time of day.

Based on the on-board standard class prices, a drink is £1.95-£2.50, a snack is £1.05 and a sandwich is £3.85-£4.05. Over 3 hours you might have 2 drinks, a snack and a sandwich with snack, so that's approximately £9-£10 worth of value - so that's around £3.30 an hour. Even if you were to squeeze in another drink and snack (ie you make it a drink every 60 minutes) it's still under £5 an hour.

For the £25 destination and accounting for the 'standard' £3.30/hour measure for consumables, then from Doncaster (1.5 hours) that's valuing the 'first class experience' (ie comfort/atmosphere) at £20, or £10/hour, which seems a bit much to me. Wakefield offers slightly better value: journeys are around 2h15, so the first class experience is being valued at £7.80/hour which maybe sounds at the very upper end of right. From Hull it's starting to seem reasonable, being valued at £5/hour.

By contrast from York, the closest £35 upgrade station at ~2 hours (and often slightly under that) you're paying £29.40 or £14.70/hour for the first class experience. It starts to become a bit more reasonable from Berwick (3.5 hours) at £7/hour, and then obviously better value north of there.

So not bad from Scotland or at the edges of the £25 zone, but elsewhere this is overpriced (unless you really go for the food and drinks!)

Silver Cobra · 25 Jun 2019

CyrusWuff said:
Just to clarify: The rates are £35 for London or Stevenage - Wakefield or York and beyond; £25 for London or Stevenage - Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Selby, Brough or Hull; and £25 for journeys that don't involve London or Stevenage.

Based on this information, it seems a bit daft to me that Peterborough to Edinburgh/Glasgow is cheaper (£25) than Stevenage to Leeds/York (£35).

ForTheLoveOf · 25 Jun 2019

cuccir said:
Probably the way to think about this is a per hour rate. To make a journey comfortable (ie if you're not just taking as much as you can to get best possible value!) we might say a standard desire would be a tea/coffee/juice every 90 minutes, accompanied by food alternating between a snack, then 'sandwich with snack' or breakfast, depending on time of day.

Based on the on-board standard class prices, a drink is £1.95-£2.50, a snack is £1.05 and a sandwich is £3.85-£4.05. Over 3 hours you might have 2 drinks, a snack and a sandwich with snack, so that's approximately £9-£10 worth of value - so that's around £3.30 an hour. Even if you were to squeeze in another drink and snack (ie you make it a drink every 60 minutes) it's still under £5 an hour.

For the £25 destination and accounting for the 'standard' £3.30/hour measure for consumables, then from Doncaster (1.5 hours) that's valuing the 'first class experience' (ie comfort/atmosphere) at £20, or £10/hour, which seems a bit much to me. Wakefield offers slightly better value: journeys are around 2h15, so the first class experience is being valued at £7.80/hour which maybe sounds at the very upper end of right. From Hull it's starting to seem reasonable, being valued at £5/hour.

By contrast from York, the closest £35 upgrade station at ~2 hours (and often slightly under that) you're paying £29.40 or £14.70/hour for the first class experience. It starts to become a bit more reasonable from Berwick (3.5 hours) at £7/hour, and then obviously better value north of there.

So not bad from Scotland or at the edges of the £25 zone, but elsewhere this is overpriced (unless you really go for the food and drinks!)

Silver Cobra said:
Based on this information, it seems a bit daft to me that Peterborough to Edinburgh/Glasgow is cheaper (£25) than Stevenage to Leeds/York (£35).

Whilst I agree that the pricing is not 'fair', it is just like the pricing of Advances in a way. It is market-based pricing. First class is an entirely unregulated product in terms of price and facilities, so it is entirely down to market forces (supply and demand) how much LNER charge. LNER have taken some very commercially aggressive decisions over pricing of unregulated products since they took over, so whilst they may be unpalatable they may be the strategy that delivers the greatest premiums for the DfT.

yorkie · 25 Jun 2019

Agreed; there is more demand for 1st at the southern end of the route, and market based pricing makes more sense than 'fairness' .

I've not done Weekend First for many years now; I'm fortunate in that my 1st class ticket generally costs less than the cost of the upgrade anyway. But if that wasn't the case, there is no way if be upgrading (unless my journey was Inverness to Peterborough or something!)

WesternLancer · 25 Jun 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
LNER have taken some very commercially aggressive decisions over pricing of unregulated products since they took over, so whilst they may be unpalatable they may be the strategy that delivers the greatest premiums for the DfT.

A good line, perhaps a level of analysis that some of the advocates of a transfer back to the state have not fully appreciated....

_toommm_ · 25 Jun 2019

Last time I travelled by LNER, i got offered food after every stop on a run from Kings X to Berwick... has something changed recently with regards to their offering?

davetheguard · 25 Jun 2019

Mag_seven said:
I can trump that - when it first came out under BR it was called "Bargain First" - price £1!

(or am I wearing rose tinted spectacles - was it ever as low as £1?)

You're right it was definitely just £1; but no free tea or anything else of course. If I remember correctly, it then jumped to £3 - which might be when it was renamed "Weekend First"?

SickyNicky · 25 Jun 2019

davetheguard said:
You're right it was definitely just £1; but no free tea or anything else of course. If I remember correctly, it then jumped to £3 - which might be when it was renamed "Weekend First"?

Yes. I remember getting one from Birmingham to Dover. The guard issued it all the way through despite the change in London. Those were the days!

Gerald Fiennes · 25 Jun 2019

I like cuccir's valuation of the 'first class atmosphere' per hour. Interesting idea. Although in my limited experience over the past two years, the Edinburgh trains tend to be mega crowded on Sat mid mornings and Sun afternoons, so one may get more 'atmosphere' than one bargained for, eg. few or no seats....

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