Is it fair that Advance tickets have no value when the train is missed?

[Max]

(Split from Hilarious explanation for wrong train with Advance single )

[In reference to the fact that an AP ticket holds no value when the train is missed and a brand new ticket should be purchased, as reported on Watchdog]

:roll: Well I'm sure all these people are going to be rushing to travel by train again...

 

[Nym]

(Split from Hilarious explanation for wrong train with Advance single )
Still travelling without a valid ticket, there isn't any excuse unless a connecting TRAIN was delayed.

Does EZY let pepole on the next flight when they turn up after the aircraft has left? (If they miss check in it's free, if they miss the SDT it's charged). I Can tell you for a fact that if somone missed an AF flight they got charged for a whole new flight on that sector, and if they where to miss any ongoing ones charged for changing that booking aswell.

You know you're ment to be on a spesific train, don't be late. Why is it pepole are alergic to being on time in this world?

 

[ralphchadkirk]

:roll: Well I'm sure all these people are going to be rushing to travel by train again...

Of course. We should all be pandering to the people who break the terms of their tickets just in case they get all upset and don't travel by train again. Perhaps shops should let people shoplift just in case they loose the person as a customer? Should airlines allow people to travel at whatever time they like regardless
of when they've booked for?

Get real. If this was business to business rather than business - customer then one side would probably sue for breach of contract.

 

[WelshBluebird]

You know you're ment to be on a spesific train, don't be late. Why is it pepole are alergic to being on time in this world?

1 - Previous train being delayed. I know this is supposed to be fine with advance tickets, but I have had to argue like hell once or twice about it. Someone who doesn't travel as much as I do would have just given in and paid the money.

2 - Other transport being late (buses etc). Not the railways fault, true. But its not always in the passengers control. Especially if the bus route is one that isn't regular. And especially when the same parent company controls both the bus company and the TOC (if its First's fault I am late to the station, then surely First should be ok with that).

3 - General confusion. Especially at busier / larger stations. And especially if a train has a platform alteration at the time it is due (a few weeks ago I was at Bristol Temple Meads waiting for the Cardiff train, the train was due on platform 5, but as it came in, it was announced that it would be on platform 13. If you are disabled / elderly / carrying a lot of luggage, then IMO it would have been quite easy to miss the train).

In the ideal world, I would think there should be a bit of flexibility with advance tickets to account for different situations that are in no way the fault of the passenger. Of course though, that isn't really possible because of the people who would then take advantage of the system.

 

[Nick W]

Does EZY let pepole on the next flight when they turn up after the aircraft has left? (If they miss check in it's free, if they miss the SDT it's charged). I Can tell you for a fact that if somone missed an AF flight they got charged for a whole new flight on that sector, and if they where to miss any ongoing ones charged for changing that booking aswell.

I was about to say - I don't know about Rynanair, but EasyJet will always let someone who's just missed their plane fly on the next one with space! Even the infamous low-cost airlines offers superior customer service than a higher-cost (per mile on average railway).

 

[mumrar]

I was about to say - I don't know about Rynanair, but EasyJet will always let someone who's just missed their plane fly on the next one with space! Even the infamous low-cost airlines offers superior customer service than a higher-cost (per mile on average railway).

We're talking about Advance tickets, so higher cost per mile average doesn't really come into it. I have a £15 Carlisle-London Advance single, do the airlines do similar inclusive of taxs?

 

[island]

I second mumrar's post; there is a wide-ranging tendency for people to compare Anytime and Off-Peak rail fares with the bargain-basement heavily-restricted low cost fares. I do wish they wouldn't.

 

[stut]

We're talking about Advance tickets, so higher cost per mile average doesn't really come into it. I have a £15 Carlisle-London Advance single, do the airlines do similar inclusive of taxs?

You can get from Stansted to Gdansk for £19 (yes, all-in) on several dates in June...

 

[gordonthemoron]

and Gdansk's much nicer than Stansted

 

[trickyvegas]

I think the point people are trying to make with the airline comparisson is that an airline ticket is for a specific flight, rather then being on a turn-up & go basis.

As the stories listed prove, the majority of passengers do know the restriction as they have a got a ready-made (albiet badly thought-out) cover story.

If they have failed to build in a redundancy into their travel plan, i.e. connecting bus or traffic, that is not the TOCs fault. I went down to Wembley for a cup semi final and opted for an open return rather than a cheaper advance ticket as I had to allow for the possibility of the game going into extra time as well as the uncertainty of how long it would have taken me to get back into central London with crowds.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

 

[LexyBoy]

The problem with "someone on the platform told me..." is that, whilst a lot of the time it is just an excuse/attempt to sound credible, it is the case that a lot of duff information is given out. All railway staff should be able to answer straightforward questions (like "is this ticket valid on a different train") and more importantly be able to say when they don't know the answer (or look it up).

The other day I was on the 0741 off Paddington and the Guard pointed out to an Australian woman, who had just arrived into Heathrow, that her (Off-Peak) ticket wasn't valid. She pointed out that she had been sold the ticket and been told by the ticket seller as well as someone (don't know who, presume information stand) at Reading to get the 0741. I really don't think she was "trying it on" or indeed would have had the first idea about the validity of the ticket. Not really sure what I think should be done in these circumstances, just illustrates that there are some genuine cases of people getting misleading or just wrong information.

I second mumrar's post; there is a wide-ranging tendency for people to compare Anytime and Off-Peak rail fares with the bargain-basement heavily-restricted low cost fares. I do wish they wouldn't.

There also seems to be a wide-ranging tendency for people to only consider bargain-basement Advance fares when many AP fares are in fact only slightly cheaper than walk-on fares.

XC in particular appear to have an inexhaustible supply of AP tickets priced slightly cheaper than the equivalent walk-on fare. For example, Reading to Manchester on Friday, all evening fares are £52.50 AP or £65.60 Off-Peak.

My view on this (as we've had the discussion many a time before), is that it should be possible to excess an AP before travel time to the equivalent walk-on ticket without penalty or with a small admin fee if after the booked travel time. Travelling on the wrong train should be excess with a hefty admin fee, or sold a new Off-Peak ticket. This would have the effect of making the penalty for missing your train proportionate to the fare originally paid, whilst still discouraging people from trying it on.

Apologies for rant! And I do rather like mumrar's original tale - if you're going to make up an excuse, at least spend half a second thinking it up first!

 

[43167]

Wrong advice can be given though. My brother and his GF's dad are going to london for the cup final on saturday. My mum rang up EC and the advice was very strange, they could book now for outbound journey, but were told they would have to book their return journey on arrival at KX. I thought it was very wrong, so went to the booking office in Harrogate to do it for them. No surprises, both out and return booked.

 

[DarloRich]

Wrong advice can be given though. My brother and his GF's dad are going to london for the cup final on saturday. My mum rang up EC and the advice was very strange, they could book now for outbound journey, but were told they would have to book their return journey on arrival at KX. I thought it was very wrong, so went to the booking office in Harrogate to do it for them. No surprises, both out and return booked.

Should have got themselves to THE cup final last Saturday!

It is a problem that advice form the station staff is sometimes wrong BUT often it is not the advice but the question which is the problem:

It is not: is the 0837 train to Kings Cross but is this the train to Kings Cross.

It is not: is this ticket (shown to staff) valid on this train but is this the trai nto Kings Cross

it is all in the question, yes staff sometimes give the wrong information, whether through ignorance or just not caring (and there are some like that , a minority, but some) and the passenger either asking a question they know to be wrong OR asking the wriong question.

 

[Max]

Of course. We should all be pandering to the people who break the terms of their tickets just in case they get all upset and don't travel by train again. Perhaps shops should let people shoplift just in case they loose the person as a customer? Should airlines allow people to travel at whatever time they like regardless
of when they've booked for?

Get real. If this was business to business rather than business - customer then one side would probably sue for breach of contract.

My point is that mistakes can happen, incorrect advice can be given out. There is such a thing as dicretion, a word which some guards don't seem to understand. I'm not saying it's correct in all cases but guards can come down very hard on passengers - it's hard for 'expert' people such as ourselves to understand the rules, so how is the average passenger supposed to cope? And the whole culture of calling customer stupid behind their backs is, all in all, a bit unprofessional.

 

[Ferret]

So then Max, how would you deal with blatant dishonesty as outlined in my example? Bearing in mind what she was doing actually constituted at the very least a byelaw offence, I'd say she got off lightly with buying a new ticket for 30odd quid.

 

[Max]

So then Max, how would you deal with blatant dishonesty as outlined in my example? Bearing in mind what she was doing actually constituted at the very least a byelaw offence, I'd say she got off lightly with buying a new ticket for 30odd quid.

To be fair, a new ticket would probably be the most appropriate course of action in this case. The second case is more debatable because it seems as if the railways gave out inaccurate advice. It's not the action that irritates me, it's more the "let's have a laugh at people behind their back"/"squeeze every last penny out of them" mentality that I take some offence to.

 

[island]

The other day I was on the 0741 off Paddington and the Guard pointed out to an Australian woman, who had just arrived into Heathrow, that her (Off-Peak) ticket wasn't valid. She pointed out that she had been sold the ticket and been told by the ticket seller as well as someone (don't know who, presume information stand) at Reading to get the 0741. I really don't think she was "trying it on" or indeed would have had the first idea about the validity of the ticket. Not really sure what I think should be done in these circumstances, just illustrates that there are some genuine cases of people getting misleading or just wrong information.

The first thing would be to check whether the ticket was sold from a TVM or a window, and proceed from there!

 

[ainsworth74]

What I don't get is what would be the harm in just excessing an invalid advance up to the appropriate anytime single for the passengers journey? As to me it seems that one of the things that really gets on the passengers nerves (or at least it would be the main thing that annoyed me) in this situation is being forced to buy an entirely new ticket rather than being able to 'upgrade' to a valid ticket. I don't see the harm in doing that is as the TOC still protects it's revenue and the passenger is perhaps slightly less irritated at the situation.

 

[Mojo]

What I don't get is what would be the harm in just excessing an invalid advance up to the appropriate anytime single for the passengers journey? As to me it seems that one of the things that really gets on the passengers nerves (or at least it would be the main thing that annoyed me) in this situation is being forced to buy an entirely new ticket rather than being able to 'upgrade' to a valid ticket. I don't see the harm in doing that is as the TOC still protects it's revenue and the passenger is perhaps slightly less irritated at the situation.

Agreed. The ''penalty'' for travelling on an Off-peak ticket on a train for which it is not valid is to pay the fare you should have paid in the first place, including Railcard discounts, even in a penalty fares area.

I can understand why someone may be irritated to end up paying for the full single fare, plus the fare of their Advance ticket. Perhaps if it were possible to excess at the ticket office there would still be some incentive for those to avoid chancing it and getting on whilst removing the irritation factor.

 

[Yew]

Surely there should be Like an excess+admin fee to change trains?

If the 7 O'clock train is £15.80
and the 8 O'clock Train is £17.20
(both at the time of booking an advance)

Couldnt there be an excess then say mayve a fiver. or an excess between the difference in price when advances go off sale?

 

[Ferret]

Unfortunately not that simple at all. Quite common to see TOCs selling Advance tickets at higher prices than the walk on fare for the same journey.

I reckon out of the hundreds of thousands of Advance tickets I've seen, that has happened once. I'd hardly call that common!

 

[sheff1]

Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff1
Unfortunately not that simple at all. Quite common to see TOCs selling Advance tickets at higher prices than the walk on fare for the same journey.

I reckon out of the hundreds of thousands of Advance tickets I've seen, that has happened once. I'd hardly call that common!

Fair enough, if that is your experience. But a very quick search shows travel Sheffield to London and back this Weds being offered for £63.50 walk on return but £79 for Advance tickets using the same trains. If you then happen to miss your booked train. or travel earlier, you would have to pay again even though you have paid more than the walk on passenger in the first place.

 

[yorkie]

Fair enough, if that is your experience. But a very quick search shows travel Sheffield to London and back this Weds being offered for £63.50 walk on return but £79 for Advance tickets using the same trains. If you then happen to miss your booked train. or travel earlier, you would have to pay again even though you have paid more than the walk on passenger in the first place.

Indeed, that's a major flaw with the system.

I'll give Virgin some credit here; they sell Off Peak Singles (SVH) at half the price of the Off Peak Return (SVR) when sold online in combination with an Advance ticket in the opposite direction. If all TOCs participated in such a scheme, and if all booking sites offered them, this would go a very long way to ensure no customers are ripped off.

 

[ian13]

Indeed, that's a major flaw with the system.

I'll give Virgin some credit here; they sell Off Peak Singles (SVH) at half the price of the Off Peak Return (SVR) when sold online in combination with an Advance ticket in the opposite direction. If all TOCs participated in such a scheme, and if all booking sites offered them, this would go a very long way to ensure no customers are ripped off.

I have bought one of these more-than-half-the-walkup-return advance singles just because I wanted to travel only one way (York to Birmingham on XC). Some sites (FGW when I last checked) have become very misleading when suggesting buying singles for a journey when return fares would be cheaper by far.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Air tickets (especially with the "legacy" airlines like BA/KL/LH) often have a range of fares depending on the degree of restriction, and the more expensive ones can be changed/upgraded en route for a fee (eg to change a return date/time). The rail equivalent has gone for just the lowest fare/highest restriction version with no changes/refunds.

eg "Advance" currently automatically means fixed train/seat, but why not have a dearer "Advance Plus" (but still cheaper than off-peak) which simply means you have bought an off-peak ticket in advance and can travel any time within the off-peak window, upgradeable to anytime for a fee?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

eg "Advance" currently automatically means fixed train/seat, but why not have a dearer "Advance Plus" (but still cheaper than off-peak) which simply means you have bought an off-peak ticket in advance and can travel any time within the off-peak window, upgradeable to anytime for a fee?

What you describe sounds like an off-peak ticket (!) However, perhaps they should be subject to a 10% discount if purchased ahead of the day of travel.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What you describe sounds like an off-peak ticket (!) However, perhaps they should be subject to a 10% discount if purchased ahead of the day of travel.

Exactly! Maybe 20%.

And while they are at it they can issue singles at half return rates.
You can do this on Virgin but only if you book both ways.
A "half-SVR" or "half-CDR" single would revolutionise the market.
Plenty of walk-on journeys could be made one way by train and the other by air/car share, and currently most folk would avoid the train because of the high one-way fare.

 

[CompactDstrxion]

Returns being priced only slightly higher than singles is deliberate. The return journey is thrown in almost for free, is the thinking.

I was thinking that Advance tickets should be excessable, but then it dawned on me that the reason they can't is obvious. How would the revenue be apportioned? One TOC has already taken all the revenue from the Advance.

 

[Minilad]

When anyone purchases any ticket they come with terms and conditions.
If you don't like the terms and conditions of the ticket then don't buy it. Simple really.
The cheaper the ticket then the more restrictions placed upon it. Trouble is people seem to want these cheap fares but don't want the restrictions they carry with them

 

[WelshBluebird]

When anyone purchases any ticket they come with terms and conditions.
If you don't like the terms and conditions of the ticket then don't buy it. Simple really.
The cheaper the ticket then the more restrictions placed upon it. Trouble is people seem to want these cheap fares but don't want the restrictions they carry with them

The point is that its not always the passengers fault that they miss the train they are supposed to get. How is it fair to penalise them when it wasn't their fault?