No more Thameslink only fares?

I was messing about trying to find the best options for a journey to Gatwick starting near the end of the am peak period. As a result I was looking at senior railcard fares from East Croydon and a normal fare to East Croydon. I noticed that if I do this for a date in August, I get a fare of £3.50, Thameslink only. For exactly the same time train on 23 Sept I'm offered a fare of £3.55, any permitted.
I'm not too bothered about the 5p difference but is this just an error in the journey planner or is some new fares policy kicking in in September?

It looks like the Thameslink only fares are not being sold for travel on or after 8 September. But even if nothing was changing is it really worth it to prevent yourself taking half of the available trains for 5p? (discussion of whether GTR should be allowed to differentiate fares by sub-brand aside)

As I said, I'm not worried about 5p (and I will already be on a Thameslink train anyway)! But there are other Thameslink Only fares with a greater price difference.

SAPhil said:

As I said, I'm not worried about 5p (and I will already be on a Thameslink train anyway)! But there are other Thameslink Only fares with a greater price difference.

Click to expand...

At weekends, the cheap-day returns from London to Brighton (technically Super Off-Peak? though they don't say that) that are marked "Thameslink only" are well under half the price of any-train CDR tickets. I have yet to use one on the "wrong" train and point out the illegality and hence unenforceability (as per other threads here) of it... But these tickets are still available well beyond 8 September.

By the way, what's the deal with "not Gatwick Express" tickets for journeys using what are branded as GE trains to travel between London and Brighton (since they're been using them to provide extra London-Btn capacity for a while now)? I've assumed that for that journey special GE tickets weren't relevant; but at Brighton recently I saw a London train on the departures board - which turned out to be a GE one - which was flagged on the board as "not-GE tickets not valid" or something similar. But I've never seen a London-Btn ticket - or seen the option for sale - which made that distinction.

SAPhil said:

As I said, I'm not worried about 5p (and I will already be on a Thameslink train anyway)! But there are other Thameslink Only fares with a greater price difference.

Click to expand...

Quite.

Off-peak Day Return any permitted London to Brighton - £29.40
(no any permitted Super Off-Peak fare available starting from London)

Off-peak Day Return Thameslink-only London to Brighton - £18.70

Super Off-peak Day Return Thameslink-only London to Brighton - £12.50
(valid only at weekends and bank holidays)


At the weekend, a price difference of £16.90...

Are you sure? They are still showing for sale on the TPE booking engine for dates in September. Where were you looking?

Of course, the time will come at some point when they get withdrawn in line with the plans announced when GTR was put together or as a result of the roll-out of the simpler fare system people always say they want.

If anyone becomes aware of large fare increases, this would be useful to know.

Also if anyone has either been paying more than the cheapest GTR fare for their journey, it is worth retaining any relevant evidence, as it may be useful one day...