A few weeks ago I had occasion to travel form Haddenham & Thame Parkway to Didcot (on a Saturday afternoon, so the ticket office was closed). I was surprised to find that the off-peak day single fare, routed Not London, was £29.50 (BRfares.com indicates that you can go via London, which must be several times the distance, for only about 33% more). Fortunately I was due to have enough time at Oxford to rebook there, so I was able to reduce the fare to £12.90*, but I wonder whether if the ticket office had been open they would have suggested this -- as I understand it, they don't have to, but it would seem that offering only a ridiculously high fare will put people off travelling. For a simple two-part split with the same ticket type, a 56% saving seems quite a lot -- does anyone know of examples of bigger savings?
*Actually I have a Network Railcard, but the percentage difference is still the same.
My guess was that the through fare is the same as it was before the curve at Bicester was opened, and is calculated on the assumption that people will go via Banbury (or at least King's Sutton), but it appears that even if you do want to go via Banbury you can do so for £18.50 by splitting. Does anyone know why the through fare is so high (something to do with clustering, maybe?), or whether Chiltern would be likely to pay any attention to suggestions to change it? I see that the £6.00 Haddenham-Oxford fare (in contrast to £28.50 for 'not via London') is routed 'Chiltern only', which wouldn't work for destinations beyond Oxford, rather than 'via Oxford Parkway', which would.
The other thing I found was that when I came to add the railcard discount on the first ticket machine that I tried, and at an earlier stage on the other one, the machine appeared at first to be unresponsive. Normally in my experience, touchscreens respond to a gentle touch with a fingertip or knuckle, or failing that firm pressure with a thumb, but the only thing that worked on this occasion was (I eventually found) to hit it sharply as if knocking on a door. I mention this in case other people find it useful. Has anyone else had the same problem? (I don't know much about ticket machine types, but I think they were what's pictured here).
*Actually I have a Network Railcard, but the percentage difference is still the same.
My guess was that the through fare is the same as it was before the curve at Bicester was opened, and is calculated on the assumption that people will go via Banbury (or at least King's Sutton), but it appears that even if you do want to go via Banbury you can do so for £18.50 by splitting. Does anyone know why the through fare is so high (something to do with clustering, maybe?), or whether Chiltern would be likely to pay any attention to suggestions to change it? I see that the £6.00 Haddenham-Oxford fare (in contrast to £28.50 for 'not via London') is routed 'Chiltern only', which wouldn't work for destinations beyond Oxford, rather than 'via Oxford Parkway', which would.
The other thing I found was that when I came to add the railcard discount on the first ticket machine that I tried, and at an earlier stage on the other one, the machine appeared at first to be unresponsive. Normally in my experience, touchscreens respond to a gentle touch with a fingertip or knuckle, or failing that firm pressure with a thumb, but the only thing that worked on this occasion was (I eventually found) to hit it sharply as if knocking on a door. I mention this in case other people find it useful. Has anyone else had the same problem? (I don't know much about ticket machine types, but I think they were what's pictured here).
