Manchester Airport Ticket Roulette

Greenshield · 13 Mar 2024

I'm flying out of Manchester Airport Saturday morning, returning Sunday evening, and I thought it would be easy to buy a return ticket from Preston; there is a direct train. Getting there is straightforward, but coming back I will have no idea which train to get depending on flight times, immigration, baggage, etc, so I cannot book a specific train.

Why are prices so variable? usually 2-3 trains per hour, but prices can be £8.40 for a single or £17.40 for a single, and an open return weighs in at a hefty £26. Why do we have this farsical ticket roulette going on, it should be easy and straight forward. Would it not be a lot easier and simpler if there was just a standard fare for each journey?

I once saw a Japanese family on the same train having arrived at Manchester Airport, and they were getting distressed by the guard telling them their ticket was not valid for that train, it should have been a different one and they would have to pay penalty fares.

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jfollows · 13 Mar 2024

You can buy a "standard" fare, but it's more expensive.
You can buy a cheaper TPE-only fare.
You can buy a TPE-only "airport advance" ticket which allows you to use a later train if your flight is late.

We understand that sometimes flights back to sunny Manchester are delayed and you may be concerned about missing your train; don't worry, with an Airport Advance you can catch the next available TransPennine Express train up to 3 hours after the departure time stated on the ticket. If you are delayed, don't forget to endorse your ticket at the Manchester Airport station ticket office before you board the train.

You can buy an even cheaper Northern advance ticket for Northern trains.

But if you want "just a standard fare", it exists and you're free to buy it.

If I were you I'd either buy the TPE "airport advance" now or the Northern one from your phone when you're waiting for your luggage to arrive in the baggage hall.

30907 · 13 Mar 2024

jfollows said:
You can buy a TPE-only "airport advance" ticket which allows you to use a later train if your flight is late.

The annoyance with those on the Preston route is that TPE now only operate a minority of trains.

Incidentally, £28-odd offpeak return for 40-odd miles isn't atypical on the network.

Greenshield · 13 Mar 2024

jfollows said:
You can buy a "standard" fare, but it's more expensive.
You can buy a cheaper TPE-only fare.
You can buy a TPE-only "airport advance" ticket which allows you to use a later train if your flight is late.

You can buy an even cheaper Northern advance ticket for Northern trains.

But if you want "just a standard fare", it exists and you're free to buy it.

If I were you I'd either buy the TPE "airport advance" now or the Northern one from your phone when you're waiting for your luggage to arrive in the baggage hall.

Thank you.
The Airport Advance is not a ticket option for the times I am looking at on the TPE website.

Found trains with the Airport Advance ticket option, and There is no way I'm paying £30+ to get to and from Manchester Airport when Northern Trains can get me there and back so much cheaper. I'll be able to afford a couple of pints in The Black Horse.

TUC · 13 Mar 2024

From insurance to energy to rail fares, there seems to be people who would rather have one standard price than have to spend five minutes searching for the best deal. Just because you have money to waste is no reason for expecting everyone to pay more.

MichaelAMW · 13 Mar 2024

Greenshield said:
Thank you.
The Airport Advance is not a ticket option for the times I am looking at on the TPE website.

Found trains with the Airport Advance ticket option, and There is no way I'm paying £30+ to get to and from Manchester Airport when Northern Trains can get me there and back so much cheaper. I'll be able to afford a couple of pints in The Black Horse.

It's not "£30+", it's about £28, as you have already said. You can save money by getting an Advance ticket for a significantly long time after you're due to land, or try to get a Northern 'on the day' Advance, as has been mentioned. In your position, I would note that we're talking about something like £12 as the difference between the fare that is, in fact, the one you want in terms of its validity and two Advance fares. Whilst I realise it's not my £12, I am going to guess that it's a small amount compared with the total cost of your trip overall and you are getting a journey right to the airport, which is something that attracts a premium in many places all over the world.

LNW-GW Joint · 14 Mar 2024

Northern is the fare-setter for Preston-Manchester Airport, so they set the £28.70 off-peak return (weekends are off peak) as the "standard" 1-month return fare, valid on both operators. There is a cheaper £25 return fare on TPE-only trains.
Advance fares (Northern or TPE, single only) can be lower but vary according to demand so for two legs you might not better the off-peak return fare.

mangyiscute · 14 Mar 2024

TUC said:
From insurance to energy to rail fares, there seems to be people who would rather have one standard price than have to spend five minutes searching for the best deal. Just because you have money to waste is no reason for expecting everyone to pay more.

But are you not worried that with fare "simplification" it'll actually just be used as an opportunity to increase fare prices (as we have already seen on the ECML). Even if the train operators decide to charge one fare for each journey and that is it, that fare will be either the current off peak fare, the current anytime fare or somewhere in between, meaning that anyone buying cheap advances will lose out and most likely off peak tickets will increase as well.
I do agree something should be done to simplify fares because they are extremely confusing, but I also think it'll almost certainly come with fare increases for the majority of journeys

TUC · 14 Mar 2024

mangyiscute said:
But are you not worried that with fare "simplification" it'll actually just be used as an opportunity to increase fare prices (as we have already seen on the ECML). Even if the train operators decide to charge one fare for each journey and that is it, that fare will be either the current off peak fare, the current anytime fare or somewhere in between, meaning that anyone buying cheap advances will lose out and most likely off peak tickets will increase as well.
I do agree something should be done to simplify fares because they are extremely confusing, but I also think it'll almost certainly come with fare increases for the majority of journeys

I'm not arguing for simplification. If anything, online ticketing sites make it possible to have a hundred fares and for it to work out for you which is the best value.

td97 · 14 Mar 2024

Advance ticket on the day is quite risky as Northern tend to cancel a few Manchester Airport to Blackpool circuits on Sundays, particularly evening services. In principle you would be at least eligible for delay repay (and if applicable rerouting) if you already hold a valid return ticket in the event of a Northern cancellation.

Greenshield · 15 Mar 2024

MichaelAMW said:
It's not "£30+", it's about £28, as you have already said. You can save money by getting an Advance ticket for a significantly long time after you're due to land, or try to get a Northern 'on the day' Advance, as has been mentioned. In your position, I would note that we're talking about something like £12 as the difference between the fare that is, in fact, the one you want in terms of its validity and two Advance fares. Whilst I realise it's not my £12, I am going to guess that it's a small amount compared with the total cost of your trip overall and you are getting a journey right to the airport, which is something that attracts a premium in many places all over the world.

£31.10 which I suppose is "about £28"
The cost of where I'm going is irrelevant, and no, the £12 is not your £12.
Why should it attract a premium? It doesn't cost any more to run the train.

Grumpy Git · 15 Mar 2024

I almost always buy a Northern advance (directly from the Northern website), as soon as I've collected my luggage.

Last time it was only about £5 (to Liverpool).

Watershed · 15 Mar 2024

Greenshield said:
£31.10 which I suppose is "about £28"
The cost of where I'm going is irrelevant, and no, the £12 is not your £12.
Why should it attract a premium? It doesn't cost any more to run the train.

View attachment 154266

Unfortunately railway ticketing isn't based on what it costs to provide the service. It's (mostly) based on what they think people are willing to pay - hence why you have to pay more for extra flexibility, or to put it another way, you get a cheaper price if you're willing to commit to a particular train.

At the end of the day, whether it's right or wrong, that's just how it is and it's not going to change anytime soon. The most you can do is to work with it.

janb · 15 Mar 2024

Greenshield said:
£31.10 which I suppose is "about £28"

The Off Peak Return is £28.70 which is "about £28". Travelling Sat AM, Sun PM you shouldn't be considering anything that costs more than that.

Deerfold · 15 Mar 2024

janb said:
The Off Peak Return is £28.70 which is "about £28". Travelling Sat AM, Sun PM you shouldn't be considering anything that costs more than that.

With the advantage of being able to catch any Northern or TPE service, direct or changing in Manchester.

Haywain · 15 Mar 2024

Watershed said:
Unfortunately railway ticketing isn't based on what it costs to provide the service

Alternatively, it might be just as well that it isn't.

Tetchytyke · 15 Mar 2024

mangyiscute said:
I do agree something should be done to simplify fares because they are extremely confusing, but I also think it'll almost certainly come with fare increases for the majority of journeys

For walk-up tickets, the price increase would be negligible. The TPE and TfW-only tickets from Manchester to the Airport are typically only a few pence cheaper than the any permitted.

And it’s the operator specific walk up tickets that cause the confusion, particularly because both online retailers and TVMs (understandably) show the cheapest ticket first. It isn’t always made very clear that these tickets are operator specific- on LNER you need to click into two sub-menus to see this restriction.

And for MIA-MAN it’s not even clear that the same ticket is issued. The TPE-only day return is only 80p cheaper but is issued to ‘Manchester Stations’; the any permitted is issued to ‘Manchester CTLZ’, with the latter giving you tram validity in the city centre.

Advance tickets are relatively easy to understand- booked train only.

mangyiscute · 15 Mar 2024

Tetchytyke said:
For walk-up tickets, the price increase would be negligible. The TPE and TfW-only tickets from Manchester to the Airport are typically only a few pence cheaper than the any permitted.

But what about routes where there is a huge difference, such as the cheap LNWR only tickets from Manchester to London?

Tetchytyke said:
Advance tickets are relatively easy to understand- booked train only.

It is very clear to me that a lot of people do not understand the difference between an advance ticket and an anytime/off-peak ticket, we get people who get penalised for not understanding that their advance ticket is single train only (especially for short trips like all the advances northern now offer) and there is a much greater majority of people who will book a ticket online and just travel to that itinerary even though they have a flexible ticket because they are unaware that their ticket is flexible, and since they know that some tickets are specific train only they aren't willing to take a risk and use a different train, obviously we have no idea how frequent this is since these passengers are not penalised or anything.

Imo, the ticket websites/apps need to do a lot more to make it clear to passengers what type of ticket they are buying - I'd have a pop up that says "this ticket is valid on this train only" or "this ticket is valid on any (off-peak) train" that the user has to physically close to ensure they have paid attention to it - then have an option to "don't show this pop up again" so for people who know these things, they don't have to see the pop up every time.

Class800 · 16 Mar 2024

Tetchytyke said:
For walk-up tickets, the price increase would be negligible. The TPE and TfW-only tickets from Manchester to the Airport are typically only a few pence cheaper than the any permitted.

And it’s the operator specific walk up tickets that cause the confusion, particularly because both online retailers and TVMs (understandably) show the cheapest ticket first. It isn’t always made very clear that these tickets are operator specific- on LNER you need to click into two sub-menus to see this restriction.

And for MIA-MAN it’s not even clear that the same ticket is issued. The TPE-only day return is only 80p cheaper but is issued to ‘Manchester Stations’; the any permitted is issued to ‘Manchester CTLZ’, with the latter giving you tram validity in the city centre.

Advance tickets are relatively easy to understand- booked train only.

Except when you add in airport advance which is a whole different category

Manchester Airport Ticket Roulette

Greenshield

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jfollows

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30907

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