LNER Group Booking including other operators

[jamesontheroad]

Hello. I'm trying and failing to get a quote from LNER for a group booking (15 adults) from Norwich to Glasgow.

Outbound is on a weekday, NRW-PBO on East Midlands Trains, then PBO-GLC on the 16:18 train direct to GLC. Inbound is a few days later is GLQ-EDB-PBO-NRW.

LNER Group Booking line claimed they couldn't book more than 9 people; bounced me to an offshored telesales centre, where the best quote was 15 x the Anytime Return fare.

Can anyone give advice on how to get an accurate quote for the group fare for this journey? Or are group booking fares limited to just one operator - i.e. will I have to make a group booking NRW-PBO with EMT and then another PBO-GLC/GLQ with LNER?

Thanks!

 

[221129]

Most if not all group bookings need to be done with the TOC you travel with. So in this case EMT, LNER and Scotrail will need to be done separately unless you can find a travel agent or similar to do it for you.

 

[Haywain]

Most if not all group bookings need to be done with the TOC you travel with. So in this case EMT, LNER and Scotrail will need to be done separately unless you can find a travel agent or similar to do it for you.

Exactly this. Another of the 'benefits' of the franchise system.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Exactly this. Another of the 'benefits' of the franchise system.

There could really do with being a nice simple national scheme based on GroupSave - 1/3 off all fares for a group of 3 or more adults or children would be about right.

 

[Haywain]

There could really do with being a nice simple national scheme based on GroupSave - 1/3 off all fares for a group of 3 or more adults or children would be about right.

I don't agree but there should be a means of booking multi-TOC journeys for larger groups, as there was many years ago in BR days.

 

[Haywain]

Can anyone give advice on how to get an accurate quote for the group fare for this journey? Or are group booking fares limited to just one operator - i.e. will I have to make a group booking NRW-PBO with EMT and then another PBO-GLC/GLQ with LNER?

It looks like you will have to contact the separate TOCs for fares for each part of the journeys. In view of this I wonder if you have considered travelling via London and using Virgin Trains to get from Euston to Glasgow and back? It's entirely possible you will get a better price that way without a significantly longer journey time. Obviously that brings Anglia and Virgin into play, but Anglia may do a better deal on quieter trains, and in my experience Virgin services to Scotland tend not to be heavily loaded either.

 

[yorkie]

There could really do with being a nice simple national scheme based on GroupSave - 1/3 off all fares for a group of 3 or more adults or children would be about right.

Please do not post such ideas in the middle of threads for advice; the best thing to do is to create a new thread, with appropriate title and link back to the original thread. Thanks.