RE: The Struggle to get an Advance fare from Basingstoke...

[SirBroccoli]

Hi all,

With the government on the verge of announcing a five day break where up to three households can meet indoors between the 23rd and 27th of December, I am now looking to organised and book my travel to meet my parents and brother. I am now based in Basingstoke, and will need to travel to either Wakefield or Leeds. Don't mind which route, as long as it's a good value fare.

Now at the time of writing, LNER and Crosscountry haven't released their advance fares, but EMR via Central London have. So I search for a through fare on EMR to Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester and Nottingham and I get nothing nothing except the walk on fares.

But if I start my journey at the next station on the line towards London Waterloo, which is Hook, I can see an advance single to Nottingham on Christmas Eve for £30.50. Does anyone know why or if there's a way I can get a through advance ticket from Basingstoke? I normally use the GWR booking engine...

Cheers,
Alex

 

[JonathanH]

Hi all,

With the government on the verge of announcing a five day break where up to three households can meet indoors between the 23rd and 27th of December, I am now looking to organised and book my travel to meet my parents and brother. I am now based in Basingstoke, and will need to travel to either Wakefield or Leeds. Don't mind which route, as long as it's a good value fare.

Now at the time of writing, LNER and Crosscountry haven't released their advance fares, but EMR via Central London have. So I search for a through fare on EMR to Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester and Nottingham and I get nothing nothing except the walk on fares.

But if I start my journey at the next station on the line towards London Waterloo, which is Hook, I can see an advance single to Nottingham on Christmas Eve for £30.50. Does anyone know why or if there's a way I can get a through advance ticket from Basingstoke? I normally use the GWR booking engine...

Cheers,
Alex

Select a train which doesn't have counted reservations from Basingstoke - essentially one which stops at the intermediate stations. This can be done on the mixing deck by putting in the normal inputs for Basingstoke to Nottingham then pressing "Timetables Only" and putting 'Services which call at Fleet". The problem is that SWR haven't released their quotas for 24 December on the faster trains. You could also go via Slough into Paddington as GWR reservations are released.

 

[SirBroccoli]

Select a train which doesn't have counted reservations from Basingstoke - essentially one which stops at the intermediate stations. This can be done on the mixing deck by putting in the normal inputs for Basingstoke to Nottingham then pressing "Timetables Only" and putting 'Services which call at Fleet". The problem is that SWR haven't released their quotas for 24 December on the faster trains. You could also go via Slough into Paddington as GWR reservations are released.

View attachment 86328View attachment 86327

Getting the results I want now by including Fleet, so thanks very much. I assume that as SWR don't enforce reservations that I can still jump on a fast train to Waterloo from Basingstoke?

 

[JonathanH]

Getting the results I want now by including Fleet, so thanks very much. I assume that as SWR don't enforce reservations that I can still jump on a fast train to Waterloo from Basingstoke?

No, you can't automatically make that assumption - the terms of an advance fare are that you should follow the booked itinerary.

A reservable train is exactly what it is, if you have an advance fare you must have a reservation to travel on it. SWR's reason for not releasing a quota may legitimately be to not allow advance fares to be used on that service.

There may and have been views expressed to the contrary including in this message https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...idity-of-advance-tickets.184880/#post-4075872 or this https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/advanced-tickets-and-connections.177152/#post-3843987

 

[cactustwirly]

No, you can't automatically make that assumption - the terms of an advance fare are that you should follow the booked itinerary.

A reservable train is exactly what it is, if you have an advance fare you must have a reservation to travel on it. SWR's reason for not releasing a quota may legitimately be to not allow advance fares to be used on that service.

There may and have been views expressed to the contrary including in this message https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...idity-of-advance-tickets.184880/#post-4075872 or this https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/advanced-tickets-and-connections.177152/#post-3843987

But if they're counted place reservations, I don't see how that rule can be enforced.

 

[Haywain]

But if they're counted place reservations, I don't see how that rule can be enforced.

Seems simple to me - if you are on the train with an Advance ticket you must have a reservation, otherwise your ticket isn’t valid.

 

[Hadders]

Seems simple to me - if you are on the train with an Advance ticket you must have a reservation, otherwise your ticket isn’t valid.

'We' understand that terminology because we have a detailed understanding of the fares system but how is the average man on the street supposed to know the difference between a reservable and non-reservable train?

 

[JonathanH]

'We' understand that terminology because we have a detailed understanding of the fares system but how is the average man on the street supposed to know the difference between a reservable and non-reservable train?

The 'average man on the street' knows what was on the schedule they booked, even if it isn't marked on their ticket coupons. I note that the full schedule is shown on an e-ticket itinerary.

 

[cactustwirly]

The 'average man on the street' knows what was on the schedule they booked, even if it isn't marked on their ticket coupons. I note that the full schedule is shown on an e-ticket itinerary.

But if it's an "& connections" ticket most people would think they could get any train to Basingstoke from London Waterloo. Seeing as you can't physically reserve a seat then the average "man on the street" would also think that those services are not reservable.

Obviously this is different if you're intending to travel on a GWR IET of something like that, where the seats are clearly reserved.

 

[Haywain]

But if it's an "& connections" ticket most people would think they could get any train to Basins from London Waterloo. Seeing as you can't physically reserve a seat then the average "man on the street" would also think that those services are not reservable.

‘We’ might know that but the average man on the street has no such idea.

 

[Watershed]

Seems simple to me - if you are on the train with an Advance ticket you must have a reservation, otherwise your ticket isn’t valid.

That is far from always being the case. It is common practice for the shorter part of a multi-leg Advance journey to be non-reservable.

But even in the circumstances described in this thread, most TVMs would spit out four items of ticket stock - the Advance ticket from A to B, the specific seat reservation for the main part of the journey, a "coach X seat XX" or "no specific seat" reservation for the connecting part, and a collection receipt.

John Smith is likely to throw away the latter reservation on the basis it's just as useless as the paperweight collection receipt. This is only further reinforced by the typical Advance wording of "valid on booked train and required connections" - i.e. that the connections are a subsidiary, unreserved part of the journey.

It's an utter railway-ism that some people in the industry think you can enforce an unclear reservation-only policy on trains without marked reservations!

 

[JonathanH]

John Smith is likely to throw away the latter reservation on the basis it's just as useless as the paperweight collection receipt.

Seriously? The ticket wouldn't appear to be valid without that reservation coupon even if it says no specific seat.

If the ticket says 1 of 3 and you don't have three coupons it would appear not to be valid.

It's an utter railway-ism that some people in the industry think you can enforce an unclear reservation-only policy on trains without marked reservations!

Are you suggesting that counted place reservations don't have a place on the railway at all?

I guess this issue might go away once the whole itinerary is in the Aztec code and there is no argument about what was booked in the first place.

 

[cactustwirly]

Are you suggesting that counted place reservations don't have a place on the railway at all?

Yes, they serve no purpose other to create confusion.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Yes, they serve no purpose other to create confusion.

On the contrary. Counted place reservations:

• Allow TOCs to offer Advance tickets on flows where it would otherwise be difficult to do so (e.g. due to short turnarounds at terminal stations, stock not being able to have reservations applied and not having label printers and staff trained on their use).
• Reflect what generally happens on board, with people occupying a different seat to the one they've reserved.

 

[cactustwirly]

On the contrary. Counted place reservations:

• Allow TOCs to offer Advance tickets on flows where it would otherwise be difficult to do so (e.g. due to short turnarounds at terminal stations, stock not being able to have reservations applied and not having label printers and staff trained on their use).
• Reflect what generally happens on board, with people occupying a different seat to the one they've reserved.

Then those ToCs shouldn't offer advance tickets then.
My experience of counted places has been on a turbo out of Paddington with no actual seat reservations. This service is not normally reservable nor does it have advances. My ticket was part of a longer journey which used an Intercity train into London. It was basically a waste of paper.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Then those ToCs shouldn't offer advance tickets then.
My experience of counted places has been on a turbo out of Paddington with no actual seat reservations. This service is not normally reservable nor does it have advances. My ticket was part of a longer journey which used an Intercity train into London. It was basically a waste of paper.

Chiltern is one such TOC. Turnarounds at Marylebone are fairly tight, particularly in the peaks, and the 165s don't have anywhere to put reservation slips (though the rest of the fleet does).

With Marylebone - Birmingham Advances being available from £5.40, I suspect an increase to at least £32.20 wouldn't go down well if they were removed.

 

[JonathanH]

Then those ToCs shouldn't offer advance tickets then.
My experience of counted places has been on a turbo out of Paddington with no actual seat reservations. This service is not normally reservable nor does it have advances. My ticket was part of a longer journey which used an Intercity train into London. It was basically a waste of paper.

If your only experience of counted place reservations is a Turbo out of Paddington, then I don't think it is reasonable to comment on whether such reservations should be available on other routes. Why should it only be the traditional InterCity routes with advance purchase fares and why does a reservation have to come with an actual seat?

 

[yorkie]

Hi all,

With the government on the verge of announcing a five day break where up to three households can meet indoors between the 23rd and 27th of December, I am now looking to organised and book my travel to meet my parents and brother. I am now based in Basingstoke, and will need to travel to either Wakefield or Leeds. Don't mind which route, as long as it's a good value fare.

Now at the time of writing, LNER and Crosscountry haven't released their advance fares, but EMR via Central London have. So I search for a through fare on EMR to Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester and Nottingham and I get nothing nothing except the walk on fares.

But if I start my journey at the next station on the line towards London Waterloo, which is Hook, I can see an advance single to Nottingham on Christmas Eve for £30.50. Does anyone know why or if there's a way I can get a through advance ticket from Basingstoke? I normally use the GWR booking engine...

Cheers,
Alex

There is a lot of text here but can you state what journey you are looking for please? i.e.
From:
To:
Outward day/time:
Return day/trime:
Passengers and railcard details:

Also have you tried Trainsplit in "Cheap" mode?

Getting the results I want now by including Fleet, so thanks very much. I assume that as SWR don't enforce reservations that I can still jump on a fast train to Waterloo from Basingstoke?

My strong advice is to stick to the itinerary you are given; if you wish to take an earlier train then ask staff for permission before boarding.

You can tweak the itinerary using a website that allows advanced options and additional interchange time, but if the itinerary you want has no availability at the price you want, I wouldn't chance it without prior permission to board without the relevant reservation.

 

[Paul Kelly]

My experience of counted places has been on a turbo out of Paddington with no actual seat reservations. This service is not normally reservable nor does it have advances.

As far as I can think, it must have been shown as reservable in the timetable and set up as such in the NRS otherwise you couldn't have been given a counted place reservation. Was it a service to Oxford? A lot of Paddington to Oxford trains have had advances available for a few years now.

 

[Deerfold]

My strong advice is to stick to the itinerary you are given; if you wish to take an earlier train then ask staff for permission before boarding.

Unfortunately, the advantage to the OP would be to be able to get a *later* fast train.

 

[SirBroccoli]

Unfortunately, the advantage to the OP would be to be able to get a *later* fast train.

In the end, I booked XC via Birmingham. £26.60 single with split tickets. Coming back via London though, changing at Tamworth...