Story in Daily Mail

[MarlowDonkey]

There's a story in the Daily Mail about ticket prices

Passenger quoted over £1,000 for trains from London to Newcastle

Lee Williscroft-Ferris, who was pricing up the approximately 550-mile round trip yesterday, couldn't believe the final cost that he was quoted.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Checking the forum's ticket site shows numerous cheaper options with Advance tickets and splits.

But why should the "average" traveller have to go to this trouble? For the record, the price quoted is 4 Anytime Singles at £ 195.70 each. Whatever ticket engine he used, directed him to that fare. The forum's ticket site has to be talked into finding this fare. First of all you have to specify an early morning departure, switch off Split tickets and Fixed Time and ignore any Lumo only offers.

I think LNER would deserve any bad publicity they may get. It was them who withdrew return tickets after all.

A Brit has been left speechless after being quoted an eye-watering £1,049 for two return tickets from Newcastle to London.

Lee Williscroft-Ferris, who was pricing up the approximately 550-mile round trip yesterday, couldn't believe the final cost that he was quoted.

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) were looking for a whopping £786 for a standard return journey and an even more ludicrous £1,049 for first-class.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

But why should the "average" traveller have to go to this trouble? For the record, the price quoted is 4 Anytime Singles at £ 195.70 each. Whatever ticket engine he used, directed him to that fare. The forum's ticket site has to be talked into finding this fare. First of all you have to specify an early morning departure, switch off Split tickets and Fixed Time and ignore any Lumo only offers.

This rather raises the question of whether *any* ticketing site will offer 4 x £195.70 straight out of the box - or has the Mail’s correspondent started from the cost of an open single per BRfares and then ‘encouraged’ a site to offer it?

 

[rg177]

That screenshot is the LNER app - which only does a very occasional fudge of split tickets (where an eVoucher is applied for the value of the saving). Basically, it's one of the least likely candidates to try and offer you a better deal!

As a regular Newcastle to London traveller, I'll reiterate that I'm fed up of us being the DfT guinea pigs for their daft trials - even if for now I know of plenty of workarounds to ensure that the daft Anytime fare is never due.

 

[Snow1964]

The article says it was for a return trip, week ahead, out on Tuesday, back on Thursday

So not a last minute fare

 

[Starmill]

This rather raises the question of whether *any* ticketing site will offer 4 x £195.70 straight out of the box - or has the Mail’s correspondent started from the cost of an open single per BRfares and then ‘encouraged’ a site to offer it?

Lee Williscroft-Ferris isn't a Mail correspondent:

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