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Advance Tickets Release Dates

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Hadders

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I have been keeping my eyes open for advance fares from Stevenage to Edinburgh for 24th August.

At present East Coast's website is selling tickets up to Friday 17 August.

London Midland's website has advanced tickets available for SVG-EDB travelling on 24th August!

Why would East Coast allow other operators to sell their advance tickets before they put them on sale themselves?

I realise tickets bought for this journey through LM's website won't get the EC on-line discount but I bet the cheapest tiers will be sold out by the time they are available though EC's website.

Very strange.
 
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DaveNewcastle

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I can see why you have arrived at your conclusion, and it is technically possible that you are correct.
But it is also likely that the full quotas of East Coast Advance tickets have not yet been released for that week. It is also a realistic possibility that there might be more than just the one release of Advance tickets for any particular date (not routinely, but equally, not unknown).

However, its highly unlikely that any release of a quota of Advances onany operator's sites will occur at any other time than a Thursday.

Its also unlikely that the entire quota of a cheapest tier will be sold in its entireity before East Coast release them unless there is a specially high demand at that time - you have specified dates during the highly popular Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe Festival which in my experience create a considerable additional and exceptional demand.

In short, you may be unlucky. Get yourself online on Thursday morning for your best prospects.
 

laphroaig

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Hadders, I just checked your dates on LM and there are indeed EC advances available a week ahead of EC's own website, very strange indeed! Did you manage to get through and actually buy some, or is it just a glitch?

I wonder if this is happening regularly, it might be worth bearing in mind as a way to beat the rush on Thursday mornings to secure the very cheapest fares, accepting that, as you say, you may be able to get them 10% cheaper with the EC discount the week after.
 

Hadders

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It's certainly no glitch! I managed to purchase an advance ticket for Stevenage-Edinburgh for travel on 24 August £38.50. You cannot currently purchase for this date on EC's website.

It is of course possible that EC will have a quota on sale this week that is cheaper than this but is it worth taking the risk?
 

calc7

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It's certainly no glitch! I managed to purchase an advance ticket for Stevenage-Edinburgh for travel on 24 August £38.50. You cannot currently purchase for this date on EC's website.

It is of course possible that EC will have a quota on sale this week that is cheaper than this but is it worth taking the risk?

£4ish discount versus ticket in your back pocket - I'd do what you did!
A recent EC Advance ticket I bought only had 7% discount - boo.
 

OwlMan

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It is not the release of Advance tickets that is the problem it appears that the latest update of software has a new field for the TOC to set "After this date bookings are "too late". EC has this date set form 17 August, LM & Southern for 24 August, Cross country for 12 August, RSH for 24 August , My train ticket.co.uk 13 August. Apparantly this was iplemented by ATOC so that tickets can not be sold until Advanced tickets are available

Another thing for us to watch :cry:

Peter
 
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I think its a good feature, if passengers are always told to book early to get the best deals then you need a safeguard to protect the customer from paying too much because through no fault of their own booked too early to get the best deals (given thats the advice in the first place)
 

OwlMan

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I think its a good feature, if passengers are always told to book early to get the best deals then you need a safeguard to protect the customer from paying too much because through no fault of their own booked too early to get the best deals (given thats the advice in the first place)
Yes but not if it set too early :)
 

Hadders

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Further strange happenings!

Just booked an advance ticket for my journey back from Edinburgh to Stevenage on 25th August costing £38.50 through Virgin's website!

East Coast are still only selling tickets up to Friday 17th August.

I know that advance tickets will be released at different times, depending on engineering works etc. but surely they should go on sale on all websites at the same time (although I could understand, for example, East Coast selling their own advance tickets before other operators were able to sell them).

How is Joe Public supposed to know that they've got to shop around?
 
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