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Special Offers Discussion

Iskra

Iskra

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Thanks for that :) Got a nice reasonably priced 1st Advance ticket booked now!
 
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roversfan2001

roversfan2001

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Booked £5 each way Advances from Leeds to Kings Cross and back. So much for the sale only being between York and Edinburgh...

Sent from my HTC Desire 530 using Tapatalk
 
CaptainHaddock

CaptainHaddock

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JakeF said:
Shall we just stop buying VTEC advances under the assumption that there'll be a £5 sale every weekend? :lol: ;)
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I wouldn't be so sure; the Hot Cakes promo seems to be appearing every weekend at the moment (albeit under a different link each week), but I wouldn't expect such cheap fares to be freely available over the school holiday weekends throughout July and August. "Hot Cakes" tickets first appeared in January and February this year, disappeared completely for a couple of months then unexpectedly returned round about Easter time and has been run most, but not all weekends since.

woody505 said:
cheers there was no sign of this on their fb wall where they usually advertise. I asked virgin today if they where doing hot cakes this weekend and they said no.
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I think VTEC Customer Relations must have been told not to advertise Hot Cakes as they're technically "invitation only" promotional fares. For example, for the weekend just gone, the only place the deal was mentioned was on the Donxcaster Rovers website - hardly one the average punter is likely to chance upon by accident!

https://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk...ng-offers-for-rovers-fans-with-virgin-trains/

I've tweeted VTEC twitter each week asking if the Hot Cakes fares are running for the coming weekend and have either been ignored or had a reply along the lines of "if it is, our marketing department will email you".
 
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C

Cletus

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On Virgin Red today, there's an offer for West Coast tickets. Can't link to it currently, I'm sure someone else can though.
 
Merseysider

Merseysider

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Cletus said:
On Virgin Red today, there's an offer for West Coast tickets. Can't link to it currently, I'm sure someone else can though.
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What's the offer? I can't see anything on mine other than group discount, fam discount and free wifi.
 
D

dfurn

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Cletus said:
On Virgin Red today, there's an offer for West Coast tickets. Can't link to it currently, I'm sure someone else can though.
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I find Virgin Red annoying as the offers they have they redirect you to the relevant site (East or West coast) but use some sort of internal browser that the app launches and hence tricky to work out the URL of the offer. Also not possible to see if you are signing in to a secure site come to think of it. That's unless anyone knows of a way to work out the URL?
 
Kite159

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Nothing on my Virgin Red, other than a competition for a month's free parking, usual free WiFi & the usual family/group discounts
 
C

Cletus

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JakeF said:
What's the offer? I can't see anything on mine other than group discount, fam discount and free wifi.
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It's gone from mine now.
IIRC it was £5 offer open for about a week starting in a few days, but tickets until December.

Hopefully it wasn't one of those one-offf things.
 
L

lfc84

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dfurn said:
I find Virgin Red annoying as the offers they have they redirect you to the relevant site (East or West coast) but use some sort of internal browser that the app launches and hence tricky to work out the URL of the offer. Also not possible to see if you are signing in to a secure site come to think of it. That's unless anyone knows of a way to work out the URL?
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This worked for me a couple of weeks ago for the East Coast 20% off discount.

When in the app on the relevant page disable your wifi and mobile data. Then click on "get offer" or "take me to virgin trains" - whatever is in red at the bottom of the app.

It will then report an error for the url it can't connect to.

You can then use the same url in a web browser on a pc.
 
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Mojo

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I'm just getting 20% off East Coast and 20% off West Coast, as well as the family ticket.
 
Deerfold

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CaptainHaddock said:
I think VTEC Customer Relations must have been told not to advertise Hot Cakes as they're technically "invitation only" promotional fares. For example, for the weekend just gone, the only place the deal was mentioned was on the Donxcaster Rovers website - hardly one the average punter is likely to chance upon by accident!

https://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk...ng-offers-for-rovers-fans-with-virgin-trains/

I've tweeted VTEC twitter each week asking if the Hot Cakes fares are running for the coming weekend and have either been ignored or had a reply along the lines of "if it is, our marketing department will email you".
Click to expand...

I saw the advert for last week's Hot Cakes on a pinned tweet on the VTEC twitter feed. I managed to buy on the Friday despite the page saying the tickets were only available until the Thursday.
 
Starmill

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Does this mean this weekend will not see a "Hot Cakes" promotion hahahah?
 
roversfan2001

roversfan2001

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Merseysider said:
VTEC must be feeling either extremely generous, or extremely desperate.
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Having travelled on this route twice on Saturday using this offer, I can testify that the trains are empty. Even with 2 coaches worth of reservations the coach I was in on the KGX-LDS leg had a large number of empty seats.
 
Kite159

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Virgin West Coast Sale starts tomorrow (according to MSE)

From 00.01am on Thu 6 Jul until 11.59pm on Tue 11 Jul, Virgin Trains* is having an up to half-price sale across selected peak and off-peak routes on its West Coast network (see full map), including one-way standard advance adult tickets available between London and Birmingham for £5 each way, and between London and Manchester for £11 each way. You can also get some cracking first class fares with this offer (see below).

Tickets are for travel from Fri 21 Jul to Fri 8 Dec, with a few exclusions (see below). You can book the discounted fares via the Virgin Trains* site or its app – there's no booking fee.

What discounted fares can I get?

Virgin Trains says there are one million discounted standard and first class advance single tickets available. Discounted seats are randomly spread across the network and sale period, with most availability on off-peak services and limited availability during weekday peak times – so it will involve a bit of trial and error to find the cheaper fares. In the past, this has been very popular, so you'll need to 'make tracks' and be flexible on times and dates to get the cheapest tickets.

Virgin Trains told us you'll be able to get up to 50% off advance single tickets (if you want a return you'll need to book two singles), including the below examples of discounted fares:
•£5 London to Birmingham each way (norm cheapest advance single £8, on-the-day single £30ish)
•£11 Manchester to London each way (norm cheapest advance single £22, on-the-day single £80ish)
•£18 London to Glasgow each way (norm cheapest advance single £30, on-the-day single £140ish)

Tickets in this offer are only valid for the specific train and seat reserved online, and are non-refundable. Unfortunately, no further discounts are available with a railcard.

It excludes Sat 26 Aug to Mon 28 Aug on all routes, all Saturdays and Sundays from 30 Sep onwards, and when journeys are affected by engineering works. There are also no promotions on Liverpool services between Fri 29 Sep and Mon 23 Oct, nor on Holyhead and Chester services between Thu 7 Sep and Mon 11 Sep.
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D

dfurn

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roversfan2001 said:
If anyone from VTEC is reading this a sale for York to Edinburgh would go down nicely for next weekend... :lol:
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York to Edinburgh Hotcakes are £10. For instance origin York, 00:42 Destination Edinburgh, 08:01 on 08/07/2017 with a four hour stop-off in Newcastle. Not the easiest of journey I'll give you. There might have been others but they might have sold.
 
Starmill

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roversfan2001 said:
Having travelled on this route twice on Saturday using this offer, I can testify that the trains are empty. Even with 2 coaches worth of reservations the coach I was in on the KGX-LDS leg had a large number of empty seats.
Click to expand...

This will be because demand is still ramping up after almost doubling the number of trains in May!

I am surprised it hasn't increased more though with these fares, especially because before the timetable some of the trains were very overcrowded.
 
roversfan2001

roversfan2001

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dfurn said:
York to Edinburgh Hotcakes are £10. For instance origin York, 00:42 Destination Edinburgh, 08:01 on 08/07/2017 with a four hour stop-off in Newcastle. Not the easiest of journey I'll give you. There might have been others but they might have sold.
Click to expand...

I was more leaning towards next weekend (15/16th); and that journey really doesn't sound nice at all :lol:
 
D.K.TAYLOR

D.K.TAYLOR

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roversfan2001 said:
The availability of these Virgin sale tickets on weekends is appalling :cry:
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Afraid they go like hot cakes I have the offer through my phone so get straight on it, Have managed 4 return trips 2 on Saturday 1 midweek 1 Sunday Coventry Euston £4 singles also a Sandwell & Dudley Edinburgh £10 each way Saturday, If you register with them you can tick the offers box to be informed first hope this helps
 
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