SWR - Advance Ticket Availability

[rp13g10]

Hi,
I've been regularly commuting up to London 2 days a week for ~18 months, with the price of the return journey generally being in the £30-40 region with advance tickets. This is generally along the SWR main line, from Southampton Airport Parkway to London Wayerloo. Peak time trains in both directions.
As of the price updates on the 1st, I'm now seeing prices of ~£60 for the same journey. Having checked a few other stations, it seems that there are no advance tickets available at all in some cases. Farnborough Main to Waterloo for instance is only showing anytime tickets, even looking ahead to May.
Is this to be expected after an update to pricing? I'm hoping that this is temporary rather than the new status quo, but can't find any information online to confirm what's happened.

 

[Alex C.]

I'm seeing the same on the route Portsmouth -> London - usually can get them for £25 even the day before (and then a network railcard single back for another £25) but I can't see any advances (other than the very top tier which save £1) on the peak trains even a few weeks ahead.

 

[akm]

Seeing the same here. By contrast the return leg seems to still have the as-before spread of cheap Advances (eg I can see 9.70 for evening peak journeys Waterloo to Fratton, later this month). I do hope this isn't some awful new DfT mandate...

 

[embers25]

They've lowered some late peak advances but removed most early peak ones meaning a huge fare hike on empty trains. This wasn't part of the fare review according to Wallsendmag, so its just SWR whacking up fares at a time they hope no-one notices.

 

[olyreed]

I have also noticed this, I do hope they get the advance single ticket prices sorted as they have priced themselves out of my budget. It's gone up almost £10 a day

 

[Hadders]

Advance tickets are unregulated and there is no transparency whatsoever with them. Train companies are free to make them available and price them as they see fit.

Train companies generally want to move to Advance and Anytime only tickets (see recent changes on LNER). This only ever results in fares increasing.

 

[Kite159]

Trying to stop those part-time commuters from trying to save money with an advance fare in the morning and a flexible railcard discounted "evening out" single on the return?

If so, it's got the mark of the DfT trying to raise revenue written over it. SWR won't care so much as all the revenue goes to the DfT, they will get paid regardless if they are carrying 5 passengers paying £10 for an advance or 1 passenger paying £60.

 

[Alex C.]

Following the story from Twitter on this, it looks like they've now confirmed that they've removed almost all peak advance tickets from sale Tuesday-Thursday.

Financially, probably a good move to bring more revenue in to the treasury. They are justifying it on the back of demand returning to pre pandemic levels so I'm just waiting for the announcement that they're restoring the timetable to pre pandemic levels as well...

 

[embers25]

But they are gone on Monday too?? And can we get our peak service frequency back then too

 

[akm]

As mentioned by Alex C, this does now appear to be policy. Here is a tweet , but I think we will soon be seeing the exact same words pasted across many replies (it's already on one more)


Quoted with followup:

Hi, In line with standard commercial practice, advance purchase availability is by its very nature subject to demand and may change at any time. The cheapest fares are still available on our quieter services, but we have made some changes to their availability on our busiest 1/2

peak trains. However, the availability of reduced advance purchase fares remains much higher than it was before the pandemic and advance fares will still be cheaper than a single ticket bought on the day of travel ^RC 2/2

As a commenter says:

Translation = via the back door you’ve just whacked up the average cost of travelling with you. Got it.

 

[embers25]

Actually that isn't even a true statement from SWR. The advance has been withdrawn completely from most peak services, not increased in price, and so the advance fare is not cheaper than a single ticket bought on the day of travel as the advance fare does not exist any more!!

 

[FenMan]

To put the boot on the other foot, I'd imagine travellers from Basingstoke, Fleet and Farnborough to Waterloo would love to have the opportunity to purchase Advances in the peaks, however SWR have never offered them.

The Basingstoke - Waterloo Anytime Day Return VIA WOKING is £52.20, so fares of ~£60 from Southampton Airport Parkway are in the right ballpark and, arguably, the cheaper advances previously available were exceptionally good value and probably undermined their flexi-season offer.

 

[DanielDeronda]

Actually that isn't even a true statement from SWR. The advance has been withdrawn completely from most peak services, not increased in price, and so the advance fare is not cheaper than a single ticket bought on the day of travel as the advance fare does not exist any more!!

 

[Haywain]

Actually that isn't even a true statement from SWR. The advance has been withdrawn completely from most peak services, not increased in price, and so the advance fare is not cheaper than a single ticket bought on the day of travel as the advance fare does not exist any more!!

Which part of this isn't true?

we have made some changes to their availability on our busiest peak trains

 

[akm]

Actually that isn't even a true statement from SWR. The advance has been withdrawn completely from most peak services, not increased in price, and so the advance fare is not cheaper than a single ticket bought on the day of travel as the advance fare does not exist any more!!

I'm seeing top-tier advances (the ones just a few pounds cheaper than the Anytime Single) on the routes I look at, making the SWR claim technically correct... which routes are you looking at?

 

[Bishopstone]

Not good for the OP or others caught-up in this, but when there were a spate of stories circa 2021 about folk having sold-up in London and moved to Somerset/Yorkshire (etc), relying on bargain Advances to commute back to the capital two days per week, I thought it was a risky strategy, and so it's proving.

My feelings on the specifics depend upon whether those travelling from Winchester and Basingstoke, on Anytimes and Seasons, were able to find seats on the trains concerned.

 

[Alex C.]

The tickets typically weren't available to London (some may have been but that's not my experience on the Portsmouth route) - lots were available to Woking, and generally there are enough seats between e.g Portsmouth and Woking.

I suspect one of the issues is Trainline now doing split save means lots of people will have cottoned on to splitting at Woking with an advance for half and an anytime for the rest is much cheaper than a through ticket. Looking today, I can actually see plenty of advances available via London Waterloo to far flung destinations during the morning peak which are cheaper than the anytime fares if booked a few weeks in advance. Whilst it's technically against the conditions I'm not sure how they could detect it when breaking at Waterloo (although as an avid reader of disputes and prosecutions I'm not planning on doing this just cutting down on the number of days I travel in)

 

[embers25]

I'm seeing top-tier advances (the ones just a few pounds cheaper than the Anytime Single) on the routes I look at, making the SWR claim technically correct... which routes are you looking at?

That's because the advances have started to reappear weirdly and at the same prices as before. Certainly there were none available on any weekday on the two routes I use as of 1pm and they have all reappeared this evening for any time 2 weeks ahead. Curious given SWRHelp's comment on X earlier.

 

[Kite159]

The tickets typically weren't available to London (some may have been but that's not my experience on the Portsmouth route) - lots were available to Woking, and generally there are enough seats between e.g Portsmouth and Woking.

I suspect one of the issues is Trainline now doing split save means lots of people will have cottoned on to splitting at Woking with an advance for half and an anytime for the rest is much cheaper than a through ticket. Looking today, I can actually see plenty of advances available via London Waterloo to far flung destinations during the morning peak which are cheaper than the anytime fares if booked a few weeks in advance. Whilst it's technically against the conditions I'm not sure how they could detect it when breaking at Waterloo (although as an avid reader of disputes and prosecutions I'm not planning on doing this just cutting down on the number of days I travel in)

Used to happen a lot more during the days of Virgin Trains with the "Virgin Trains + Connections" tickets [on both SWR & South Eastern] where you could get an advance ticket from say Andover to Stockport for less than the cost of an anytime single to London with passengers simply throwing away the Virgin trains element of the journey, knowing the odds of getting caught are close to zero.

-------

I guess the issue with commuters from Winchester is that splits are more limiting due to the nature of the skip-stop pattern of fast trains (i.e. Winchester - Basingstoke - (Clapham) - London & Winchester - Woking - London) so a split at say Basingstoke will limit them to using the train which calls at Basingstoke [compared to say a commuter from Salisbury whom can use Basingstoke as a split point as every train from Salisbury calls at Basingstoke]

 

[Alex C.]

One last update on this - I am genuinely surprised to see SWR reverse on this (given the hand of the DfT was clearly involved), and very quickly.

Good news for @SW_Help passengers. The operator has had a change of heart on selling cheap Advance fares Tue-Thu peak. They were ditched from 1 March, so some paid 50% more to travel. They have been restored! Fewer than before though (3% of seats instead of 5%) - book quickly!

Paul speculates further in the thread that SWR were surprised by the backlash, hence the climbdown. They've made some sensible alterations but overall a great result.