Off-peak removed from Potters Bar to Ashwell & Morden route (& back)

I was troubled to find that on off-peak tickets appear to have to some extent disappeared on this route on weekdays: literally on some days, and on other days effectively (the off-peak discount being 10p-30p on a £16.80 ticket).

Off-peak tickets used to, predictably, reduce the price by about a third. That's gone.

The 'Anytime' single price is £16.80.

On some days there were only Anytime tickets.

All day.

I rang National Rail Enquiries and they confirmed that Anytime tickets all day were what were showing on their system.

On other days there is a bit of an off-peak discount, but 10p or 30p or for some return tickets, wow, it's a £1 or £2 discount for the £18.xx fare.

Super off-peak seems to have been raised to £11 instead of its old £8.xx rate visible only recently.

Is this a new form of 'dynamic pricing' (sarcasm)?

What has happened?

Thanks.

BR fares (an unofficial source) shows off peak and super off peak.

Have you tried buying from a ticket machine?

Thank you for the useful link and suggestion. The link affirms my main point: the off peak fare is only 10p less than the peak.

Doesn't this seem to represent an incredible rise in the price? I always remember it being a third or so off.

I stand by what I said about there being only Anytime fares (because called 'Anytime' and identical to peak) showing for Tuesday when I rang National Rail on Monday, and checked online. But whether it's true or not, and whether I and the NRE operative were both mistaken, it doesn't add much to the price rise issue!

bakerstreet said:

BR fares (an unofficial source) shows off peak and super off peak.

Have you tried buying from a ticket machine?

Look up fares for any train journey in Britain

Full details of all British rail Single, Return & Season tickets and Travelcards. Built-in Season Ticket Calculator.

www.brfares.com

Click to expand...

An off peak day return is £17.40.

Many (probably a majority of) off peak return/day return tickets, are priced in this way with off peak singles / day singles priced at a token amount less.

This will affect you if you are only making single off peak journeys.

There was a trial on LNER priced journeys for single (super) off peak tickets to be around 40% of the off peak return price but only for a small number of flows.

Thanks for your reply.

I don't understand, I apologize.

I am not sure I have communicated properly the element which concerns me, which is that an off-peak discount for weekday singles as distinct from Anytime singles (put returns out of your mind entirely please for now) starts at 0.6% (10p) and goes up to 1.8% (30p) rather than ~33% which I remember it being.

The maximum off-peak discount showing during weekdays for return tickets is now around 10%/£2, again not the historical ~33%.

The anytime weekday return being £18.xx and the cheapest weekday off-peak return being £16.xx the issue still affects people taking off-peak returns: there is no real off-peak weekday discount for any ticket on this route, which was in very recent memory about £11 for a weekday off-peak return & single, that's to say, about 33% off the Anytime cost.

bakerstreet said:

Many (probably a majority) of off peak return tickets, are priced in this way with off peak singles a token amount

This will affect you if you are only making single off peak journeys.

There was a trial on LNER priced journeys for single (super) off peak tickets to be around 40% of the off peak return price but only for a small number of flows.

Click to expand...

Jonathan75 said:

The anytime weekday return being £18.xx and the cheapest weekday off-peak return being £16.xx the issue still affects people taking off-peak returns: there is no real off-peak weekday discount for any ticket on this route, which was in very recent memory about £11 for a weekday off-peak return & single, that's to say, about 33% off the Anytime cost.

Click to expand...

Using the fare period feature in BR Fares, the weekday Off Peak day return was £14.90 in the period 2 Jan 2023—4 Mar 2023 (the equivalent anytime day return was £15.70, and super off peak return £10). How "recent" is recent memory when the weekday off peak return was £11, or am I missing something?

Jonathan75 said:

The anytime weekday return being £18.xx and the cheapest weekday off-peak return being £16.xx the issue still affects people taking off-peak returns: there is no real off-peak weekday discount for any ticket on this route, which was in very recent memory about £11 for a weekday off-peak return & single, that's to say, about 33% off the Anytime cost.

Click to expand...

Please forgive the (perhaps silly) question. Are you, or were you, a Railcard user?

I ask because you mention in your first post that prices were reduced "predictably by about a third". This sounds very much like it could the 34% railcard discount.

The Senior Railcard, for example, is valid only after 0930 between these two stations. Thus a return valid during the morning peak would be the Anytime Day Return at the £17.40 full-fare; after 0930 you could use a Off Peak Day Return at the £10.95 railcard-discounted rate.

There is no set formula for off-peak and anytime fares, other than that it wouldn't be expected for the anytime day return to exceed two anytime day singles.

The anytime day single is £16.60 and the anytime day return is £17.40, suggesting that the anytime day return is sold at a discount to what it could be sold at, leaving not much room for a further discount on the off-peak day return which is £16.60. The distance is just under 29 miles.

Contrast Knebworth to London Terminals which is £14.50 anytime day single for 25 miles, £17.40 off-peak day return and £23.70 for an anytime day return. There, you could argue that the off-peak day return is broadly similar pricing to the Potters Bar to Ashwell & Morden fare, but the anytime day return carries a premium.

Essentially there is a discount for the anytime day return on the flow from Potters Bar to Ashwell & Morden that has the psychological impact of making the off-peak day return seem expensive.

This has long been the issue with any move to reduce the differential between off-peak and peak fares. It makes people think off-peak fares are overpriced even if they aren't necessarily so.

The fares on the Great Northern routes are more expensive travelling towards London. Historically there were no Off Peak Day Singles, only Off Peak Day Returns. This is still the case between Ashwell & Morden to Potters Bar - there is no Off Peak Day Single.

The Off Peak 'discount' essentially only applies to return tickets.

Potters Bar to Ashwell & Morden:
CDS £16.50
SDS £16.60
CDR £16.60
SDR £17.40

Ashwell & Morden to Potters Bar:
SDS £16.80
CDR £16.90
SDR £18.40

Isn't this an Oval benefit?