Interesting. I would routinely use the xx38 to allow extra time to change, and - money aside - it is annoying that LNER (and many others) don't permit it, especially now Northern locals are CP-reservation.
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LNER fare not bookable on...LNER
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Kite159
Veteran Member
I've come across this issue a couple of times in the past, I call them "train split specials". I.e. on a XC service from York to Reading it forced a change at Burton to a 170 operated service to Birmingham then onto the same Bournemouth service to save money compared to staying on the same train all the way to Birmingham.
Or even London to Glasgow where it found the cheapest route was London to Crewe on a Chester train then a Glasgow train which went via the West Midlands. Something you wouldn't be able to get elsewhere due to a fast London -Glasgow train going nonstop through Crewe during the fester [and a later London - Crewe service]. So for the OP, you have to either book the cheaper fare via Trainsplit/the forum booking website or book the tickets separately to get the 20% discount & cashback via the LNER website
Or even London to Glasgow where it found the cheapest route was London to Crewe on a Chester train then a Glasgow train which went via the West Midlands. Something you wouldn't be able to get elsewhere due to a fast London -Glasgow train going nonstop through Crewe during the fester [and a later London - Crewe service]. So for the OP, you have to either book the cheaper fare via Trainsplit/the forum booking website or book the tickets separately to get the 20% discount & cashback via the LNER website
Discussion about retailers selling tickets with shorter connection times across London, and pass through to retailers from NationalRail.co.uk to ticketing websites has been split into a separate thread:
NationalRail.co.uk not allowing choice of ticket retailers when booking journeys to enable shorter connection times
Split from: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lner-fare-not-bookable-on-lner.261697/ The forum site can't sell many tickets I use as it doesn't allow shorter cross London journey times.. unlike nat rail which has this option. The issue with the new nat rail site is that it insists I buy from...
www.railforums.co.uk
But if the is a LNER-set Advance fare, they presumably must have thought there is sufficient interest in the flow to be worth offering it in the first olace?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
The problem arrives due to non availability of the product on a non LNER service.
It was available because trainsplit offered it! My promised 20% birthday discount never worked anyway despite enquiries to LNER so I just booked the fare on trainsplit in the end.
Yes but if it's not available on the fastest itineraries they aren't interested in showing it.
If LNER wanted to show slower, cheaper itineraries, they could easily do so; if their current supplier doesn't offer that, there would be nothing to stop them using the same supplier that the forum's site uses (FastJP).
Yes but LNER aren't interested in offering slower itineraries which involve 'stepping back' may be cheaper, so although the cafe was available, LNER don't offer the itinerary that the fare is available for.
But why set the fare in the first place then? (Just curious!)
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Just because the fare level doesn't have an allocation on one third party TOC's connecting service you think LNER should remove the fare? Are you aware how the revenue management of Advance fares works?
Haywain
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The problem arises because the LNER website doesn't offer the ability to set an extended change time at a via point, whilst it is seemingly being overlooking that this would be the same with many other retailers.
There are absolutely loads of fares set for things you in general won't be able to buy though. For example an Advance on CrossCountry only from Leicester to Derby or Avanti West Coast only from Stoke-on-Trent to Liverpool. Rarely these will come up.
D6700
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Indeed, that is the problem. I am pretty certain one of the previous versions of their website (long before it was renamed LNER) did have an option to extend interchange times, which would be very useful for many reasons, not just the one in this thread.
Style over substance is the order of the day, sadly.
Indeed, the great value flexible tickets from Manchester to London, for travel with TFW and WMR/LNR, don't show up on many TOC websites, thanks to their over-simplistic design.
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Actually I do, as I work with performance ticketing, but there's no reason to be rude and no reason for me not to ask the question even if I didn't haven awareness of how revenue management works. And if you'd read the posts properly you'd have seen this hasn't anything to do with allocations (I have now bought the ticket) and everything to do with LNER's 'simpler' booking engine.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Ah ok I thought because the allocation had sold out on the relevant ScotRail service that was the root of the problem but now I know better sorry.
To be fair, there's little evidence to suggest the customer really wants the ability to do set extended interchange times at granular detail. Instead they want to be able to press a button and see slightly cheaper options presented to them for consideration. There is of course such a button on the LNER website, so I can understand enormous frustration on the part of the customer that said button doesn't do, in this instance, the thing that is reasonably expected of it.
The cheaper itinerary involves a 41-minute wait at Aberdeen (and obviously letting the earlier train go). Out of interest, how big a wait would people expect a website to show if it was cheaper, before it doesn't bother? 1 hour? 2 hour? 4 ? How long an "unnecessary" wait will Trainsplit allow?
Genuinely curious.
317 forever
Established Member
I had an example of this the other day when I looked up a London King's Cross to Sheffield via Doncaster journey, with the feeder train being TPE.
That idea was overtaken by events, namely a good First Class fare with EMR from London St Pancras.
Sounds like in this case the difference is departure at 0847 rather than at 0911. As the arrival time at the destination is the same for both, this means an extension to journey time of 24 minutes. The best possible time for this journey by rail appears to be slightly under 7h 30m (?), with journey time to London on the 0911 departure at 7h 37m. Therefore, for 24 minutes extra, we're talking somewhere between 5.0% and 5.5% longer journey time.
I will let someone else suggest how long exactly trainsplit can take, but I believe if the cheap button is used it's looking at extending by a fairly small proportion. If you do manual extensions you can get far further, but the problem there is that you would need to keep manually incrementing the connection time by 5 or 10 minutes to check for the cheapest fares. I do not do this because I simply wouldn't have the patience, and one person doing hundreds of manual queries would likely be a little antisocial. Also for longer journeys you may find that cheap needs the "intensive search" option to be selected in the search parameters, this is done to stop very slow responses from their results (although sometimes I wish the user could set that to be on by default as a preference if they're price-sensitive above all else - admittedly that'd take work and lead to more resource-intensive queries being made, all costing good money).
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I recognise that is the case but the puzzling aspect is, since TOCs don't share Advance ticket revenue with other TOCs on the line of route (except where the ticket includes a connecting journey on another TOC), surely LNER has a strong financial incentive to ensure systems offer such fares?
D6700
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In this case, the original poster knew exactly what they wanted, but was unable to purchase it from the LNER website, due to their search engine not being up to the job.
The German DB website enables such combinations to be found very easily - and from a search box that takes up less screenspace than the over-simplified LNER one!
Base values are set by default, but it is very easy to extend connection times. Furthermore, it is also possible to specify stopovers (genuine breaks of journey) on a single Advance type ticket - something not allowed in this country. There is also a quick option to switch off "Show fastest connections".
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The way the TOCs see it is that they show the fastest itineraries (slower ones are often only shown if they are a direct train with no changes) and then the relevant fare(s) for the itineraries are shown.
They are not interested in showing slower itineraries that involve stepping back; if the customer isn't happy with the price then the TOCs know that most people will simply pay the extra for a more expensive ticket.
Some people (a minority) will choose to either not travel at all or take another mode of transport; companies like LNER know that they do not have enough capacity to accommodate everyone who would travel if the fares were great value, so they rely on putting at least some passengers off.
The forum's site operates in a completely different way; the suppliers and the people who work for those suppliers are people who actually travel by train themselves and have no vested interest in maximising TOC revenue or putting some prospective passengers off rail or anything like that; on the contrary they want to encourage people to travel by rail and offer the best possible price, including offering itineraries which are 'overtaken' and/or involve 'stepping back', as well as combinations of tickets and all sorts of other stuff the TOCs aren't interested in providing.
It costs a lot of money to provide the level of service the forum site provides, however it won't cost the customer more than booking the same journey with the TOC and will often be cheaper!
Some TOCs aren't happy and accuse us of "distorting the market" (!) by offering lower prices, as well as placing loads of adverts trying to get as many people as possible to "book direct" and numerous other tricks to deter people booking with us.
People on this forum are made aware, through various threads, of the key differences in the approach and can make an informed choice of who to purchase tickets from.
If LNER wanted to offer the same service to customers they could easily do so, by switching to the same supplier (FastJP). But they choose not to, for the reasons stated above.
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