No advance ticket for a more stopping service ?(Great Anglia)

[KentishT1860]

Looking for return ticket between Stratford and Ipswich, 2 advance tickets are price £13.20 (with RC) , that only calls at Chelmsford, Colchester, manningtree and service continue to Norwich. However if I take the all stations trains terminate at Ipswich, only £27.60 off peak return tickets are available. Is that mean advance tickets are only available for a faster service ?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Looking for return ticket between Stratford and Ipswich, 2 advance tickets are price £13.20 (with RC) , that only calls at Chelmsford, Colchester, manningtree and service continue to Norwich. However if I take the all stations trains terminate at Ipswich, only £27.60 off peak return tickets are available. Is that mean advance tickets are only available for a faster service ?

The stopping service doesn't carry seat reservations. It is thus impossible (well, it should be, but I'm sure an error has allowed it at one point or another) to obtain an Advance which uses just this unreservable service. OK, there are certain types of Advances which are not really Advances at all as they do not tie you to a specific train, but it is difficult to retail a ticket that is tied to a specific train without making it reliant on a reservation. They could, of course, do the Northern, Southern, Southeastern, WMT etc. spiel of having reservations without specific reserved seats but that's a hack that's poorly executed IMO.

So yes - for that journey you will generally only be able to obtain Advances on the "quick" train.

 

[Sleepy]

Advance tickets used to be available for Ipswich all shacks - as these are operated DOO mostly perhaps people twigged and were using Advance tickets as cheap Anytime given lack of ticket inspections so withdrew them ?

 

[yorkie]

Looking for return ticket between Stratford and Ipswich, 2 advance tickets are price £13.20 (with RC) , that only calls at Chelmsford, Colchester, manningtree and service continue to Norwich. However if I take the all stations trains terminate at Ipswich, only £27.60 off peak return tickets are available. Is that mean advance tickets are only available for a faster service ?

There is no Advance quota on the stopping trains; they are completely non-reserveable.

Advance fares require at least one leg in a journey to be on a "reserveable" service.

 

[AM9]

There is no Advance quota on the stopping trains; they are completely non-reserveable.

Advance fares require at least one leg in a journey to be on a "reserveable" service.

Surely, there's the LM option (now taken up by LNW), of issuing Advances for travel on specific trains with seat Nos. shown as ***. The 350s flying up and down the WCML don't have reservable seats, but the train-specific Advance tickets are plentiful.

 

[yorkie]

Surely, there's the LM option (now taken up by LNW), of issuing Advances for travel on specific trains with seat Nos. shown as ***. The 350s flying up and down the WCML don't have reservable seats, but the train-specific Advance tickets are plentiful.

They have that option but these trains are in the system as completely unreserveable, with no quota.

On the plus side, if your journey is a longer one between any of the stations and further afield e.g. to York, you only have to worry about the quota on the other train.

It's swings and roundabouts, and it is good to have the choice on any given line. This is the sort of thing we can cover at fares workshops.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Surely, there's the LM option (now taken up by LNW), of issuing Advances for travel on specific trains with seat Nos. shown as ***. The 350s flying up and down the WCML don't have reservable seats, but the train-specific Advance tickets are plentiful.

Plenty of TOCs have taken on that option. It's a bit of a bodge in my view, though I think it's more of an issue with which trains are designated reservable but without having specific seats reservable, rather than the system as a whole. Local Northern services shouldn't really be reservable in my view, for example. It doesn't seem right to have a long-distance Advance and then to be tied to a specific local service - perhaps the rules should be officially relaxed so that it's permitted to take any service for which specific seats aren't reservable, as well as the currently non-reservable services, on unreserved portions of journeys.

 

[cactustwirly]

Looking for return ticket between Stratford and Ipswich, 2 advance tickets are price £13.20 (with RC) , that only calls at Chelmsford, Colchester, manningtree and service continue to Norwich. However if I take the all stations trains terminate at Ipswich, only £27.60 off peak return tickets are available. Is that mean advance tickets are only available for a faster service ?

This is correct, TOCs generally only offer advances on intercity services (fast Ipswich train in this case)

 

[youngpete]

Southeastern make them available on services to both Victoria and STP and neither could be called Intercity and there are no seat reservations although they are train specific.

 

[yorkie]

Each TOC does its own thing basically.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

There is data to say which is the main TOC for a ticket type (and optionally fare restriction), this could be used to only require the reservation on the principal leg, but there may be cases where this gives unexpected results, perhaps where the "and connections" is longer. At the moment, the connecting TOCs have an undue, and probably unwanted, influence on ticket availability where their legs are reservable.

 

[yorkie]

There is data to say which is the main TOC for a ticket type (and optionally fare restriction), this could be used to only require the reservation on the principal leg, but there may be cases where this gives unexpected results, perhaps where the "and connections" is longer. At the moment, the connecting TOCs have an undue, and probably unwanted, influence on ticket availability where their legs are reservable.

No, good idea but it doesn't work like that.

 

[Paul Kelly]

There is data to say which is the main TOC for a ticket type (and optionally fare restriction), this could be used to only require the reservation on the principal leg, but there may be cases where this gives unexpected results, perhaps where the "and connections" is longer. At the moment, the connecting TOCs have an undue, and probably unwanted, influence on ticket availability where their legs are reservable.

Yes, that's a very good idea. I don't think there is any guidance from RDG on which parts of the journey should be considered the main and connecting TOCs, but as you say there are some cases where it is very obvious indeed and maybe journey planners could relax the requirement for a reservation on the connecting TOC in those cases.

 

[Starmill]

This is correct, TOCs generally only offer advances on intercity services (fast Ipswich train in this case)

This was true in the past, but it's no longer a particularly useful distinction. For example Northern will offer customers travelling from Leeds to Dewsbury an Advance ticket, even though it's a journey of less than 20 min and the Anytime Day Single is £4.60, but they won't offer a York to Manchester Advance ticket which is a far longer journey with a far higher SDS fare of £30.30.

 

[cactustwirly]

This was true in the past, but it's no longer a particularly useful distinction. For example Northern will offer customers travelling from Leeds to Dewsbury an Advance ticket, even though it's a journey of less than 20 min and the Anytime Day Single is £4.60, but they won't offer a York to Manchester Advance ticket which is a far longer journey with a far higher SDS fare of £30.30.

That's why I said generally that was the case (which is true for most TOCs), obviously Northern are the exception (quite why someone would want an advance for such a short distance, I don't know)