Disparity in prices

[leejayd]

When buying a return ticket from Wrexham to Northwich the ticket price is £9.70. This involves a train from Wrexham to Chester and then a different train from Chester to Northwich.

If I buy a ticket for the Chester to Northwich train the price is £10.10.

Seems very odd. I happen to live in Chester. Is there anything stopping me buying a ticket at Chester from Wrexham to Northwich and then going through the gates to get on the train at Chester?

 

[SS4]

The £9.70 is an Anytime Day Return so Break of Journey is allowed meaning you may start short at Chester (and finish short on your way back)

 

[leejayd]

Thanks SS4, makes me wonder if this would apply to a season ticket too. Season ticket for 1 month Wrexham to Northwich is £164, £174 from Chester.

 

[SS4]

Thanks SS4, makes me wonder if this would apply to a season ticket too. Season ticket for 1 month Wrexham to Northwich is £164, £174 from Chester.

It would (season tickets allow for unlimited break of journey)

 

[kieron]

Tickets from Ruabon (or Hope) to Plumley cost the same as Wrexham-Northwich ones, and could save you a bit of money if you ever need to go further than Chester-Northwich.

 

[John @ home]

Season ticket for 1 month Wrexham to Northwich is £164, £174 from Chester.

There is even greater route availability by buying a Cefn-Y-Bedd - Plumley season at the same price. Due to the shortest route rule, this is valid via Wrexham General (36.5 miles) or via Shotton (37.25 miles).

 

[leejayd]

Wicked. Cheers all. I got the cost down to 162! The other good thing is that I only have to pay £3 to go from plumley to knutsford. Will save a fortune on taxis!

All this makes me wonder how I can travel more for less. It's a bit bonkers to me.

Incidentally, I'm thinking of putting together a visualization of ticket/season prices.

Used to show things such as highest cost per mile.

To do this I need a way to either scrape or get bulk access to fares. Is any of this possible?

 

[Lrd]

Avantix Traveller or www.brfares.com

 

[maniacmartin]

ATOC are really dragging their heels at releasing the fares database in a bulk computer-readable form to joe public, because they don't want you doing precisely that!

 

[craigwilson]

There's a quite useful fare anomaly that exists in Kent which I can make use of, it exists with the seasons but not the SDRs, and is very nice for saving me £20/month on my commute!!

 

[yorkie]

These sort of anomalies are surprisingly common.

Unfortunately they are sometimes 'fixed' by increasing the cheaper fare, if the pricing manager finds out (ie, if they are reading this or if it gets reported!) however sometimes that is not possible, for example due to fares regulation.

For walk-up travel except for relatively local journeys, it is rare for a ticket from A to B to be the cheapest ticket (or combination of tickets) to actually get from A to B in my experience.

We cover various examples in our popular Fares Workshops. Some of the possible savings are far more substantial than the example quoted in this thread, with potential to reduce the fare to a third of the cost.