Gatwick Airport and cheap fares

[Essingen]

On 19 June 2023 at 13:12 I purchased rail tickets from Gatwick Airport to Twickenham for 3 adults, intending to travel immediately and return a week later after 9:30 am.

Previous research using the Southern Railway website had indicated that this should have cost £66.75 with a group save discount and anytime day single tickets.

The machines at Gatwick offer a filter “Choose cheapest tickets”. However, selecting this filter does not offer the cheapest tickets, but rather only Anytime Standard tickets at a cost of £105.60.

There is no ticket office at Gatwick, but I asked Southern Railway staff why the machines don’t offer the cheapest tickets that are available via the online channel. No one could provide an explanation. After purchasing these tickets, it became clear that had we used credit cards, a far cheaper option would also have been charged.

I regard this as fraudulent. Why don't the machines offer the cheapest tickets?

 

[Alex365Dash]

The machines at Gatwick offer a filter “Choose cheapest tickets”. However, selecting this filter does not offer the cheapest tickets, but rather only Anytime Standard tickets at a cost of £105.60.

The Anytime Return for this journey routed Not via London (Terminals) is £35.20 each or £105.60 total. For some reason, there is no GroupSave discount despite an Off-Peak Return fare not existing. Even more bizarrely, a single out and back is cheaper even without the GroupSave discount at £33.80, meaning that the Anytime Return is just overpriced!

This is the cheapest return ticket for your journey - GTR TVMs can’t select or suggest two singles for a single journey unless you specifically ask the TVM for two singles. Of course though, the cheapest return ticket is not the cheapest set of tickets.

Previous research using the Southern Railway website had indicated that this should have cost £66.75 with a group save discount and anytime day single tickets.

These are the cheapest traditional ticket for your journey - a £11.60 GroupSave-discounted Anytime Day Single to Twickenham and a £10.65 single back, again routed Not via London. Of course though, TfL’s contactless system has single-leg pricing, which then leads to…

After purchasing these tickets, it became clear that had we used credit cards, a far cheaper option would also have been charged.

Off-peak, the TfL PAYG single fare is £9.50, cheaper than all of the above options. It being the contactless system, this price isn’t advertised to you at the ticket machine, and whilst it is mentioned searching on the National Rail Journey Planner, I don’t believe the Southern one does mention it. Also of note…

There is no ticket office at Gatwick, but I asked Southern Railway staff why the machines don’t offer the cheapest tickets that are available via the online channel.

The Metrobus Travel Shop in the South Terminal (which, whilst the Travel Centre was run by a bus company, did sell train tickets and was pretty good at it) was the closest Gatwick had to a ticket office for a good while.

Unfortunately, having double-checked the naming convention on the Metrobus site, all trace of it has disappeared and I can therefore only assume it must have therefore closed.

 

[hexagon789]

Isn't Groupsave only available online or from ticket offices, hence not being offered from a TVM?

How do I get the GroupSave discount?​

Booking your GroupSave tickets is simple and easy. When you book online as a group we’ll automatically apply your GroupSave discount for you, and you will be eligible for a money back guarantee.

GroupSave is also available from our ticket offices, but if you are travelling in a large group please purchase your tickets in advance of your date of travel.

Group Train Booking | Group Train Ticket | Southern Railway

Save money when you travel with friends on Southern.

www.southernrailway.com

 

[Alex365Dash]

Isn't Groupsave only available online or from ticket offices, hence not being offered from a TVM?

I think I remember seeing it as an option at a Scheidt & Bachmann TVM (can’t remember whether it was GTR or SWR) but I’ll check later today if I remember!

 

[AlterEgo]

Ticket machines are not an impartial point of sale as per the TSA and do not have to offer you the cheapest or most appropriate ticket, unfortunately.

 

[Haywain]

Isn't Groupsave only available online or from ticket offices, hence not being offered from a TVM?

That used to be the case but it has been available at TVMs for a long time. I think the problem in this case is that there is no Off Peak ticket and the time restriction for GroupSave can't be applied correctly without a journey planner interface.

 

[Alex365Dash]

That used to be the case but it has been available at TVMs for a long time. I think the problem in this case is that there is no Off Peak ticket and the time restriction for GroupSave can't be applied correctly without a journey planner interface.

I don’t think this is correct - railcard minimum fares can be dealt with fine by the same TVMs depending on the departure time. I imagine it’d work fine the same way with an Anytime Day Single, where it has to enforce a 09:30 weekday restriction for GroupSave.

The fares database seems to offer no GroupSave-discounted fare for the Anytime Return, which appears to be the cause of the problem.

The GTR GroupSave page seems to indicate this is a feature and not a bug, even though the actual GroupSave offer makes it clear that Anytime tickets should be discounted subject to the 09:30 restriction if there is no Off-Peak equivalent fare i.e. Anytime Returns should be discounted if there is no Off-Peak Return.

 

[setdown]

SWR machines definitely offer GroupSave without a journey planner. Indeed, it popped-up with a suggestion to use that instead when I tried to buy returns for 3 adults.

 

[Essingen]

Ticket machines are not an impartial point of sale as per the TSA and do not have to offer you the cheapest or most appropriate ticket, unfortunately.

First of all, thank you to everyone who has replied to my question. I fear that AlterEdo's answer is probably going to turn out to be correct. If this is the case, it is an absolute f-----g scandal. I wonder if a ticket office is supposed to be an impartial point of sale? If so, this would partly explain why there isn't one. Great 24 hour a day business for Southern Railway to have masses of queues for machines that sell you overpriced tickets. No one understands this, not the staff who work there, not the person at SWR who I asked at Twickenham who said that their machines would offer the cheapest tickets.

I will be writing to them demanding a refund and most likely get nowhere but it will be interesting to see if they try and buy me off to keep me from pursuing this nonsense.

 

[hexagon789]

First of all, thank you to everyone who has replied to my question. I fear that AlterEdo's answer is probably going to turn out to be correct. If this is the case, it is an absolute f-----g scandal. I wonder if a ticket office is supposed to be an impartial point of sale? If so, this would partly explain why there isn't one. Great 24 hour a day business for Southern Railway to have masses of queues for machines that sell you overpriced tickets. No one understands this, not the staff who work there, not the person at SWR who I asked at Twickenham who said that their machines would offer the cheapest tickets.

I will be writing to them demanding a refund and most likely get nowhere but it will be interesting to see if they try and buy me off to keep me from pursuing this nonsense.

I would say that even a ticket office isn't, as they are not obliged to offer a cheaper alternative via split tickets unless the customer specifically asks for the relevant splits (and indeed knows precisely what to ask for).

 

[Essingen]

Everyone going out of Gatwick will have bought their ticket elsewhere and will know what they are doing.
The vast majority of people coming into Gatwick to buy a ticket will be non-UK residents who haven't a clue. It is therefore quite feasible that it is just at Gatwick that Southern Railway sees an opportunity to have machines that function in this way.

 

[AlterEgo]

I would say that even a ticket office isn't, as they are not obliged to offer a cheaper alternative via split tickets unless the customer specifically asks for the relevant splits (and indeed knows precisely what to ask for).

A ticket office is an impartial point of sale under the TSA. No retail outlet, anywhere, is *obliged* to root around anomalies for splits. Not all tickets will be on sale from ticket offices but those that are available are bound to be offered by dint of the TSA where they are the most appropriate tickets for the passenger’s journey.

 

[Essingen]

Seems like this has been going on for years........

Rail ticket machines still don't give you the cheapest deals

Travellers could save as much as a third of the cost on some routes, simply by paying for their travel at a booking office or another ticket machine yards away but operated by a rival train company.

www.dailymail.co.uk

This was in 2015.....

"The firms agreed to publish a new code of practice requiring machines to tell customers if a cheaper fare is available and direct them to a ticket office. The code was published last month, but the survey of 12 train operating companies last week found only VTEC appeared to be abiding by it. The company, which operates services between King’s Cross and Edinburgh, has put stickers on its machines at the London terminus, and 16 other stations, advising that they do not sell some discounted fares.

The latest investigation, by the Sunday Times, also found Great Northern’s machines at King’s Cross were offering standard anytime single tickets to York for £124,50. Passengers could buy the same fare for £83.10 using VTEC machines or the booking office, saving £41.40 - a third of the original price.

It was a similar story at London’s Victoria station, where Southern’s ticket machines do not advise about discount fares available from the booking office. One family travelling to Gatwick on Friday paid £61.10 for four single tickets using the machines, which could have been bought for £40.60 at the office.

Southern said it was ‘sorry’ the family had a ‘disappointing experience’ and promised that on-screen messages would be introduced on its machines within the next month."

 

[hexagon789]

A ticket office is an impartial point of sale under the TSA. No retail outlet, anywhere, is *obliged* to root around anomalies for splits. Not all tickets will be on sale from ticket offices but those that are available are bound to be offered by dint of the TSA where they are the most appropriate tickets for the passenger’s journey.

Not offering the absolute cheapest fare when staff will be aware of what split ticketing is, isn't entirely impartial.

I'm not saying staff should offer to split or that they should know any splits to make, but choosing not to offer any unless specifically asked is still making an active decision not to offer the cheapest fare - that's not impartial.

 

[CyrusWuff]

That used to be the case but it has been available at TVMs for a long time. I think the problem in this case is that there is no Off Peak ticket and the time restriction for GroupSave can't be applied correctly without a journey planner interface.

Can't check as the new version of Knowledgebase is hopeless, but I have a vague memory that GroupSave could only be applied to Anytime (Day) Singles (SOS/SDS) and Anytime Day Returns (SDR) where there was no Off-Peak ticket for the flow, but it could never be applied to an Anytime Return (SOR.)

 

[island]

There is no ticket office at Gatwick

There is, it’s a single desk halfway along the TVMs which one of the roaming ticket hall staff can sign into when there is a need.

 

[XAM2175]

Not offering the absolute cheapest fare when staff will be aware of what split ticketing is, isn't entirely impartial.

I'm not saying staff should offer to split or that they should know any splits to make, but choosing not to offer any unless specifically asked is still making an active decision not to offer the cheapest fare - that's not impartial.

No, they are required to be impartial across competing TOCs. Offering the cheapest through ticket that meets the passenger's needs fulfils this.

This is the definition of impartiality from the ORR's Retail Market Review in 2014:

4.10: The obligation on retailers to provide advice on an impartial basis is designed to protect passengers (given the perceived complexity arising from the fact that there are different TOCs operating different flows with varying fares and restrictions) and to offer them convenience (given the fact it mitigates the need for passengers to identify which TOC is the relevant one for their journey). It is also designed to minimise the potential scope for retailers to discriminate in favour of their (or their affiliated) services when selling tickets.

ATOC's Retail Standard Guide, which is to the best of my knowledge no longer officially available but still reproduced in part in older posts here, put it as:

This is the most important requirement and is necessary because Retailers will be selling tickets or giving information about different TOCs.

Retailers at impartial Points of Sale must therefore act fairly and impartially between TOCs and any information that is provided must be factual, accurate and impartial (TSA clause 6-30(1)(a)).

Impartiality simply means providing the customer with information or a ticket that is the most suitable for their needs. Retailers must not favour their own train services, or those of any TOC over others in providing information or selling the ticket.

Edited to add: it's also described at numerous points in the schedules of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement.

 

[Essingen]

There is, it’s a single desk halfway along the TVMs which one of the roaming ticket hall staff can sign into when there is a need.

Yes, I think that maybe I saw that. Infact there might be more than one of those.
However, the roaming staff have absolutely no clue. That isn't to say that they aren't pleasant; I had a fairly long discussion with a very pleasant member of staff. When I said that I intended to write in and ask why they don't sell the cheapest tickets he wondered if I could let him know the answer, as he would also like to understand.

What this is is some smart arse who has realised that there is huge earnings potential for the company at this particular destination by not offering the cheapest tickets. It is quite simply legalised theft. They neither provide the customer with the cheapest tickets nor do they provide information that they are not doing so.

 

[island]

Yes, I think that maybe I saw that. Infact there might be more than one of those.
However, the roaming staff have absolutely no clue. That isn't to say that they aren't pleasant; I had a fairly long discussion with a very pleasant member of staff. When I said that I intended to write in and ask why they don't sell the cheapest tickets he wondered if I could let him know the answer, as he would also like to understand.

What this is is some smart arse who has realised that there is huge earnings potential for the company at this particular destination by not offering the cheapest tickets. It is quite simply legalised theft. They neither provide the customer with the cheapest tickets nor do they provide information that they are not doing so.

It could be worse, they could uninstall all the ticket machines and charge an extra £7.30 for a paper ticket, which SJ* is planning to do.

Edited to add: *Svenska Järnvägar (Swedish railways)

 

[Essingen]

It could be worse, they could uninstall all the ticket machines and charge an extra £7.30 for a paper ticket, which SJ is planning to do.

I didn't know that! Is it worse to find a machine that rips you off or not to find a machine at all? I think that could be discussed but agree that SJ's proposed change is another scandal. The world is going crazy.

 

[MrJeeves]

There is, it’s a single desk halfway along the TVMs which one of the roaming ticket hall staff can sign into when there is a need.

Yes, I think that maybe I saw that. Infact there might be more than one of those.

There are two

Usually staff are happy to help and sell tickets from the desks, but some staff are a bit more unwilling to do so and direct you to the TVM. I used to get PlusBus day tickets from here when I had weekly seasons.

 

[redreni]

In a perfect world I'd agree it's a scandal and suggest that the industry needs a proper regulator that won't pretend to be stopping operators ripping off passengers when in fact they're writing the rules very carefully to allow operators to rip off passengers.

As it is I fear the more pressure is exerted on the industry and regulator to do this, the more they will cut services or increase fares across the board to replace the income they currently get from ripping people off. It's a complex picture - I don't know to what extent more people would use the railways if it wasn't so expensive and so difficult to avoid being overcharged. So I don't know to what extent these practices do in fact boost revenue overall. But I can see that there's a certain advantage to being able, with a little knowledge and effort, to travel at a cheaper rate than the average adult passenger, thereby effectively benefiting from a cross-subsidy.