Plenty of split ticketing sites...but is there a "long buying" site that identifies cheaper tickets to further along the line of route?

[ExToC]

Er, said it all in the title really....

 

[Haywain]

No, there isn't.

 

[Kite159]

A bit like how TOC X prices tickets from A to B at a 'premium' but TOC Y (or even X) prices A to C which goes via B as less due to various factors so anybody going A to B can save money by buying to C and stopping short.

I doubt the full list will be made public as those cheaper tickets will either get increased to be the same as A to B or have 'break of journey' restrictions added.

 

[Gaelan]

Needless to say, if you intend on doing this note that it's only valid to do so on tickets without a "break of journey" restriction, which excludes all advances.

My understanding is that the ticketing accreditation rules prohibit a ticket retailer from offering such tickets. In principle a third party could offer a search tool using the publicly available fares data, but as @Kite159 notes people tend to get (justifiably) annoyed when their local fare irregularity gets too publicized and fixed.

 

[Deafdoggie]

No there isn't, but it's fairly niche anyway & a lot (most?) split journeys involve an advance that you can't stop short on anyway, it's even more unlikely

 

[Watershed]

Some people have created tools that can identify such fares, but you can be sure that if they were made public, they would be "corrected" (inevitably in one direction) very quickly.

Unlike split ticketing, which cannot realistically be abolished and which is becoming increasingly popular, there is no prospect of a site like this being introduced. Aside from the aforementioned problem, it would also be too niche, as most people wouldn't understand why they're being sold a ticket for what they might think is the "wrong journey".

 

[akm]

People who know of such situations don't like them being publicised, which would inevitably happen if there was a handy website to find them. Here's a thread from last year where the question was discussed; there are no doubt other threads.

 

[Adam Williams]

As @Gaelan has pointed out... I don't think an accredited retailer would be permitted to do this?

 

[Haywain]

As @Gaelan has pointed out... I don't think an accredited retailer would be permitted to do this?

Even if you were allowed to do it (which I'm sure you're not), how would you explain to the unwitting punter who tries to buy a ticket from Newark to Peterborough that you're selling them a ticket from Metheringham to Stamford* to cover their journey? There's a fair possibility that they will never have heard of Metheringham and won't know that getting to Stamford by train involves going via Peterborough!


*Just a random set of stations that, some years ago, did provide such a loophole.

 

[Adam Williams]

Even if you were allowed to do it (which I'm sure you're not), how would you explain to the unwitting punter who tries to buy a ticket from Newark to Peterborough that you're selling them a ticket from Metheringham to Stamford* to cover their journey? There's a fair possibility that they will never of heard of Metheringham and won't know that getting to Stamford by train involves going via Peterborough!


*Just a random set of stations that, some years ago, did provide such a loophole.

Yes, quite. It's difficult enough explaining why TrainSplit sells some of the tickets it does (or applies/doesn't apply some of the discounts it does/doesn't!)

 

[infobleep]

I like the idea but appreciate why it doesn't happen.

I mostly figure this stuff out by playing around with booking sites and National Rail Enquiries. Using this info combined with something like this forum's split ticketing site saves you even more! I like to think of it as a partnership working. Both are useful but when combined, even more powerful.

Not all of the starting short or finishing short tickets are long existing tickets either. Sometimes TOCs introduce new tickets that just happen to undercut other fares from elsewhere.

I agree though it is niche and you need to understand how the tickets work so you travel within the validity of the ticket. For example if you had a super off peak day return from one station that was cheaper than an off peak day return from another, you need to ensure you travel when the super off park day return is valid, even though you night be only looking up trains from the station you are starting from. If that makes sense.

 

[kieron]

Even for a customr who is happy to travel according to the itinerary, there's the problem that, as far as I know, there isn't a web site which can reliably validate an itinerary for the sort of complicated journey this proposal may involve.

With regard to it being niche, though, everything is niche until the Trainline starts doing it.

 

[RJ]

The old National Rail Enquires website did this round 2012/13, but I only saw it happen once then never again.

If there isn’t a website, best to ask someone who knows and is happy to spend their time finding bespoke solutions for your journey. It’s complicated though as there are several reasons why an overdistance ticket is cheaper for a specific journey, so there won’t really be a single source of truth to find them consistently.

If I’m undertaking a new journey, I’ll find a load of examples within a couple of minutes just using information put in the public domain by the TOCs and RDG, but I don’t know of a website that will do that on anybody’s behalf. Some of them take literally seconds to find and others take a bit more digging, it all depends on what causes the anomaly.

 

[JB_B]

Even for a customr who is happy to travel according to the itinerary, there's the problem that, as far as I know, there isn't a web site which can reliably validate an itinerary for the sort of complicated journey this proposal may involve.

That's a good point. It wouldn't be an unreasonable ask for a decent retail site to optionally expose all the via points on the itinerary (or at least timing points) since they'd be needed internally anyway to validate the journey. That should be sufficient in most cases ( together with the absence of a BoJ restriction ) to evidence the overall validity for start-long/stop-short.

With regard to it being niche, though, everything is niche until the Trainline starts doing it.

I understand that the standard view is that some of the things Trainline "gets away with" are basically an abuse of its dominant market position. That doesn't change the commercial realities. As mentioned up-thread, it's a small and potentially self-annihilating market with non-negligible start up costs and (almost certainly) disproportionately large ongoing customer service costs. So I think it's unlikely that Trainline will start explicitly searching for cost-saving start-long/stop-short tickets.

 

[yorkie]

Er, said it all in the title really....

Not publicly available; if they were, the results would be useless almost immediately, as the prices of the cheaper fares would either go up, or you'd see 'negative easements' introduced.

You are not going to see Brighton to Bournemouth offered, when searching for Clapham Jn to Bournemouth, any more than you are going to see journeys such as Dublin to New York via London offered in place of London to New York (and yes I appreciate the air industry is much more easily able to prevent starting short than rail companies are!)

 

[bspahh]

https://citymonitor.ai/transport/ju...et-london-almost-everywhere-else-country-4363 has a map that shows the cost of a day return ticket from London to stations around the country. It uses ticket data from 2019.


If you hover over a point it gives the name of the station and the (2019) ticket price. It highlights some places where there is a big change in the ticket price. For example the prices in the maps are London to Corby for £29.10, and London to Market Harborough for £51.50.

The 2023 prices for Super Off-Peak Day returns on Saturday to Corby and Market Harborough are £34.40 and £60.40.

It doesn't show split ticket prices, discounts from railcards or special offers. I guess the outlier tickets are likely to be from minor stations and not London terminals.

 

[lnerazuma]

Pricing managers have entered the chat.

In short, no and better keep this under the table but I know where are you coming from. Previously for ECML journey you could buy a London Newcastle single 50% cheaper than a London Durham single.

 

[silvercar]

I have done exactly this with flights, though in the case of flights, you need to make the journey rather than just buy the ticket. Or at least outbound if not return.

So you buy a ticket Dublin - New York via Heathrow. You buy a separate ticket London to Dublin. You then fly London - Dublin (on ticket 2), Dublin - Heathrow, Heathrow- New York, New York- Heathrow. Can be cheaper than direct, depending which airline you book with and flying class.

 

[Gaelan]

any more than you are going to see journeys such as Dublin to New York via London offered in place of London to New York

There are, in fact, sites selling “skiplagged” flight tickets, consisting of A-B via C when the customer intends to travel A-C. Airlines take a very dim view of it, apparently - which makes it surprising they get away with selling tickets that way!

 

[mangyiscute]

Yeah I find usually it comes down to spending a bit of time with brfares and the routeing guide to try and find some fares that are permitted by certain routes that they probably shouldn't be, and therefore undercut the normal fares on that route - often it involves looking for fares set by different TOCs as well. However, this can take hours of research for savings along the lines of a few pounds, which unless you are going to really enjoy doing this, it isn't worth it for most. And as mentioned, people aren't going to bring up their tickets that they've found, since when made public, there's a good chance that the fare will be changed to get rid of the loophole.

I recently found a ticket from the Oxford area to the South Wales area which is valid via London in the routeing guide but not via Reading, and it brought up a super weird anomoly where you couldn't use the ticket to travel Oxford - Reading - South Wales, but you could use it to do Oxford - London Paddington - South Wales (national rail enquires gave me an itinerary doing this route). The ticket had the 8A no break of journey permitted restriction code on it, so you couldn't just break your journey at Reading.

 

[Wolfie]

Even if you were allowed to do it (which I'm sure you're not), how would you explain to the unwitting punter who tries to buy a ticket from Newark to Peterborough that you're selling them a ticket from Metheringham to Stamford* to cover their journey? There's a fair possibility that they will never have heard of Metheringham and won't know that getting to Stamford by train involves going via Peterborough!


*Just a random set of stations that, some years ago, did provide such a loophole.

.... and then said punter, fearing that they have been ripped off, contacts the TOC.... bye bye loophole fare....

 

[infobleep]

Yeah I find usually it comes down to spending a bit of time with brfares and the routeing guide to try and find some fares that are permitted by certain routes that they probably shouldn't be, and therefore undercut the normal fares on that route - often it involves looking for fares set by different TOCs as well. However, this can take hours of research for savings along the lines of a few pounds, which unless you are going to really enjoy doing this, it isn't worth it for most. And as mentioned, people aren't going to bring up their tickets that they've found, since when made public, there's a good chance that the fare will be changed to get rid of the loophole.

I recently found a ticket from the Oxford area to the South Wales area which is valid via London in the routeing guide but not via Reading, and it brought up a super weird anomoly where you couldn't use the ticket to travel Oxford - Reading - South Wales, but you could use it to do Oxford - London Paddington - South Wales (national rail enquires gave me an itinerary doing this route). The ticket had the 8A no break of journey permitted restriction code on it, so you couldn't just break your journey at Reading.

I have certainly spent hours and I enjoy doing it.

However, if you found something for a journey you took regularly you could save more than just a few pounds over time.

 

[yorkie]

I recently found a ticket from the Oxford area to the South Wales area which is valid via London in the routeing guide but not via Reading, and it brought up a super weird anomoly where you couldn't use the ticket to travel Oxford - Reading - South Wales, but you could use it to do Oxford - London Paddington - South Wales (national rail enquires gave me an itinerary doing this route). The ticket had the 8A no break of journey permitted restriction code on it, so you couldn't just break your journey at Reading.

It may be an error on the part of NRE or a misapplied easement; you'd likely not get through the barriers at Paddington with such a ticket.

 

[mangyiscute]

It may be an error on the part of NRE or a misapplied easement; you'd likely not get through the barriers at Paddington with such a ticket.

Yeah for sure the staff at Paddington would give you a really odd look too, but since you can get an itinerary for it, they would have to allow it I guess.

 

[yorkie]

Yeah for sure the staff at Paddington would give you a really odd look too, but since you can get an itinerary for it, they would have to allow it I guess.

I've been made aware of numerous instances of Paddington gateline refusing to allow tickets being used in conjunction with a valid itinerary.

 

[trebor79]

Not publicly available; if they were, the results would be useless almost immediately, as the prices of the cheaper fares would either go up, or you'd see 'negative easements' introduced.

Yep, which is exactly what happened with the Diss to Cuffley ticket I used to use. Now only valid "via Cambridge".

 

[TUC]

Needless to say, if you intend on doing this note that it's only valid to do so on tickets without a "break of journey" restriction, which excludes all advances.

My understanding is that the ticketing accreditation rules prohibit a ticket retailer from offering such tickets. In principle a third party could offer a search tool using the publicly available fares data, but as @Kite159 notes people tend to get (justifiably) annoyed when their local fare irregularity gets too publicized and fixed.

Isn't it arguably anti-competitive if the accreditation rules prevent perfectly valid tickets being offered?

 

[yorkie]

Isn't it arguably anti-competitive if the accreditation rules prevent perfectly valid tickets being offered?

We're talking going well beyond that!

 

[MrJeeves]

you'd likely not get through the barriers at Paddington with such a ticket

Honestly, you're quite likely to not get through the barriers at Paddington even with a perfectly valid ticket either!

 

[infobleep]

Yeah I find usually it comes down to spending a bit of time with brfares and the routeing guide to try and find some fares that are permitted by certain routes that they probably shouldn't be, and therefore undercut the normal fares on that route - often it involves looking for fares set by different TOCs as well. However, this can take hours of research for savings along the lines of a few pounds, which unless you are going to really enjoy doing this, it isn't worth it for most. And as mentioned, people aren't going to bring up their tickets that they've found, since when made public, there's a good chance that the fare will be changed to get rid of the loophole.

I recently found a ticket from the Oxford area to the South Wales area which is valid via London in the routeing guide but not via Reading, and it brought up a super weird anomoly where you couldn't use the ticket to travel Oxford - Reading - South Wales, but you could use it to do Oxford - London Paddington - South Wales (national rail enquires gave me an itinerary doing this route). The ticket had the 8A no break of journey permitted restriction code on it, so you couldn't just break your journey at Reading.

Once you get to Paddington, how do you get to South Wales without passing through Reading?