Chiltern advance tickets

[SWT_USER]

Does anyone know when advance tickets are likely to go on sale for Saturday 21st December for Chiltern between London and Birmingham? Only 6 weeks away and AP tickets usually on sale longer in advance than this.

They have been on sale up to 14/12 for about 2 weeks now. No engineering works that I can see sceduled for the 21st, unless I'm missing something?

Thanks in advance.

 

[kel-green]

The 14/12 is the last day of the current timetable, so it may be due to finalising things due to the timetable change. I seem to remember a thread a while back regarding Chiltern being very late opening advance tickets when there was a timetable change.

However, some advance tickets do appear to be available on some days after this (although not on 21/12 at the moment).

The Trainline advance window https://www.thetrainline.com/ticketalert shows up to the 23/12 and a browse through shows advance tickets in the new timetable up to this date, but only on weekdays.

Money Saving Expert https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-train-tickets/ has a table regarding availability of 'Christmas' advance tickets where it states:

Late Dec tickets "likely" avail end Oct/early Nov

Not sure where MSE gets this information from though - clearly end Oct has gone so hope for early Nov.

Interestingly, Chiltern has it's own ticket alert https://chilternrailways.yourpreferencecentre.com/routenotice/ - Unfortunately, it's a bit useless here has the first date you can select an alert about is 24/01.

 

[SWT_USER]

Thank you, yes I had noticed the advance ticket alert which as you say is useless in this case.

I'll just keep checking the website.

 

[SWT_USER]

I appreciate this thread is of limited interest to anyone else, but by way of an update: Advance ticekts now awailable for Saturday 21st December, although their website still advises only available up to 14/12.

 

[General Zod]

I have managed to purchase Advances to the West Midlands for travel on 23rd Dec but nothing is available for returning on the 27th Dec. Will there be Advances released for the 27th or not ? I spoke to ticket staff at a local Chiltern station who said that if there were Advances for that date they would have been released by now.