Totally shocked @ NXEC price increases

[wavemaster]

I travel from Leeds to London about half a dozen times a year and have done for the last 3-4 years. I always book my tickets about 5-10 days in advance and nearly always buy 1st advance tickets online.

The last time I travelled was at the end of 2008, I bought the tickets 5 days in advance of travel via nationaexpresseastcoat's website and the prices were:

Journey: 1 Leeds. to London Terminals @ £95.70
(outward)ADVANCE 1ST £63.20 (1 @ £63.20)
(return)ADVANCE 1ST £32.50 (1 @ £32.50)

So just under £100 (outward+return), weekday travel. Depart 10:05, return same day 21:30.

Now today I go to the same website and try to book the same train, same times, same class for Monday 9th March (that's 5 days in advance of travel)...the prices are rather different to what they were merely a few months ago:

Journey: 1 Leeds. to London Terminals @ £215.50
ADVANCE 1ST £62.00
ADVANCE 1ST £153.50

Just incredible!!! More than twice the price. To makes things worse the train also takes 30+min longer on the return....

I tried changing the dates, thinking that day must be really busy but the prices barely change....the return prices are shot up a huge amount which seems very odd to me because every single time I've been on the 21:30(or later) train from Kings X to Leeds the 1st class carriages are virtually empty.

In order to get the prices even close to what I was paying last year I have to book *weeks* in advance. Even when booking *4 weeks* in advance the total price comes to £127.00, still way more expensive that I'm used to paying.

Can someone please explain these increases to me plz? Just seems ridiculous....

 

[glynn80]

I travel from Leeds to London about half a dozen times a year and have done for the last 3-4 years. I always book my tickets about 5-10 days in advance and nearly always buy 1st advance tickets online.

The last time I travelled was at the end of 2008, I bought the tickets 5 days in advance of travel via nationaexpresseastcoat's website and the prices were:

Journey: 1 Leeds. to London Terminals @ £95.70
(outward)ADVANCE 1ST £63.20 (1 @ £63.20)
(return)ADVANCE 1ST £32.50 (1 @ £32.50)

So just under £100 (outward+return), weekday travel. Depart 10:05, return same day 21:30.

Now today I go to the same website and try to book the same train, same times, same class for Monday 9th March (that's 5 days in advance of travel)...the prices are rather different to what they were merely a few months ago:

Journey: 1 Leeds. to London Terminals @ £215.50
ADVANCE 1ST £62.00
ADVANCE 1ST £153.50

Just incredible!!! More than twice the price. To makes things worse the train also takes 30+min longer on the return....

I tried changing the dates, thinking that day must be really busy but the prices barely change....the return prices are shot up a huge amount which seems very odd to me because every single time I've been on the 21:30(or later) train from Kings X to Leeds the 1st class carriages are virtually empty.

In order to get the prices even close to what I was paying last year I have to book *weeks* in advance. Even when booking *4 weeks* in advance the total price comes to £127.00, still way more expensive that I'm used to paying.

Can someone please explain these increases to me plz? Just seems ridiculous....

Ok, to start with Advance tickets are all subject to availability. They are allocated according to how busy they predict a particular service will be and thus you can never be guaranteed you will be able to obtain one.

Currently for the journey you wish to travel on there are six tiers of 1st Advance Singles:

OJS 153.50
OHS 125.50
OGS 100.00
OES 77.00
ODS 62.00
OCS 50.00
OBS 42.00


Now before the 02 January the 1st Advance fares Leeds to London Terminals were:

OGS 107.50
OES 88.00
ODS 71.00
OCS 54.00
OBS 36.50


Now the fares in my list do not correspond exactly to the £63.20 or £32.50 fares you have this could be because you have a railcard, if you still have the tickets I could explain that a little better. But in general terms National Express have introduced some higher priced 1st Advance Singles and perhaps reduced the availability of the lower priced 1st Advance Singles.

There are many reasons for fares rises like this but basically Advance fares are unregulated meaning that the Train Operating Companies can raise these fares by as much as they want or even withdraw them all together. This is as opposed to many of their fares which are regulated by the government on how much they are allowed to increase. If they feel they are not gaining enough revenue out of a particular flow they cannot raise the regulated fares but can the unregulated fares so these are usually subject to higher price rises than other fares.

 

[John @ home]

Can someone please explain these increases to me plz? Just seems ridiculous....

Yes, I'm afraid I'm not surprised. I wrote in this forum a few weeks ago that TOCs are reacting in different ways to the recession. Some, eg. Virgin, are making more Advance fares available in an attempt to attract more custom. Others, eg. EMT, Chiltern and TPE, continue to have good availability of Advance fares but I'm not in a position to know if this is more or less than previously. But XC drastically cut Advance fare allocations a few months ago and NXEC followed about a month ago. It will be very interesting to see which approach is more successful in surviving the recession.

There was a hint of a possible reason for the XC and NXEC approach at a recent meeting of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee. A representative of thetrainline said that the number of First Class tickets sold was still increasing but that there was a marked shift from full price to Advance tickets in First Class. More at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtran/uc233-i/uc23302.htm If this is so, it may not be surprising that XC and NXEC are adjusting First Advance quotas to seek to shore up revenue.

I travel frequently between Leeds and London, quite often with First Advance tickets, and I've reacted to this change by moving much of my custom from NXEC to EMT. For Monday 9 March, I would recommend:

Southbound: choose one of
0905 Leeds - Chesterfield 1021 / 1039 Chesterfield - St Pancras 1234
1005 Leeds - Chesterfield 1121 / 1139 Chesterfield - St Pancras 1334
1105 Leeds - Chesterfield 1221 / 1239 Chesterfield - St Pancras 1439
All these services currently offer First Internet Advance fares for £25.

Northbound:
1955 St Pancras - Leeds 2305
First Internet Advance currently £33.

These First Internet Advance fares are only available at http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/

To get them, search for Leeds to London, then go to "Advanced Options", then enter "via Barnsley". On the southbound trains, there is First Class accommodation only on the EMT leg, not on the Northern connection.

John
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Now the fares in my list do not correspond exactly to the £63.20 or £32.50 fares you have

This is because NXEC offered an 11% discount on their Advance fares if bought from their web site. This reduced the £36.50 fare to £32.50, and the £71 fare to £63.20. NXEC withdrew this discount in January 2009 except, I believe, for holders of their frequent traveller card. But you need to spend £1800 in 3 months on NXEC travel to qualify for one of those.

Using the NFM 02 CD, you can still see these fares by entering the discount code WEB.

EMT currently have a more modest £1 discount on some of their Advance fares when bought on their web site. See my post above.

John

 

[glynn80]

This is because NXEC offered an 11% discount on their Advance fares if bought from their web site. This reduced the £36.50 fare to £32.50, and the £71 fare to £63.20. NXEC withdrew this discount in January 2009 except, I believe, for holders of their frequent traveller card. But you need to spend £1800 in 3 months on NXEC travel to qualify for one of those.

EMT currently have a more modest £1 discount on some of their Advance fares when bought on their web site. See my post above.

John

Ah that was it John, I was trying lots of different discounts to see what the OP had!!

I think EMT is an option as it is pretty similar to NXEC first class in the level of service just slightly less refreshments. The longer journey time and fact you have to change trains does makes it less desirable but the marked decrease in price is obviously a big plus, so it looks like you may have a trade off between time and price.

 

[wavemaster]

Well, I emailed NXEC and got a generic cut and paste response:

"I am sorry to learn of your disappointment with the current pricing of our products. We seek to offer a wide range of fares providing a variety of journey opportunities to suit different pockets. We like to feel that we are successful in attracting passengers who travel for a variety of reasons and either frequently or infrequently.

Our pricing policy is designed to recognise that although certain train services are consistently busy, we have spare capacity at other times of the day. By adjusting our fares accordingly, we can make quieter trains more attractive in terms of price and so spread the number of customers travelling on each service throughout the day. This helps us to ease overcrowding.

We try to balance the contrasting requirements of those wanting cheaper fares and who are prepared to commit to being reserved to a single train during off-peak periods, with those wanting more flexibility. It is difficult to satisfy the needs of each individual but nevertheless a satisfactory ticket is usually available at most times.

Our fare structure is under constant review to meet changing demand. Changes are made in the interest of a majority of customers and are frequently done to attract more people during our off-peak periods."

 

[maddeningcrowds]

...reduced the availability of the lower priced 1st Advance Singles.

I have noticed quite a big change in the way they make the fares available. Basically there is a lot more variation now with some prices going up fast after tickets are released and others remaining static.

I think they must have changed the modelling they use to determine which are busy services.

As further evidence of a change you can now get the £12.50,STD/£42,1ST Leeds-->London on the peak business servives, 7.00,7.20,7.40 etc, which used to be impossible, but these fares go up rapidly i.e. in a matter of days after tickets released.

Using EMT etc. I do find it very frustrating that the different TOCs have different ticket release dates as it makes this kind of TOC-switching rather harder to plan. For Leeds->London via Chesterfield it seems a bit hit-and-miss whether you can get a reservation on the CrossCountry services between Leeds and Chesterfield. It can end up a gamble whether you buy NXEC early or wait for cheaper services on other routes.

 

[John @ home]

For Leeds->London via Chesterfield it seems a bit hit-and-miss whether you can get a reservation on the CrossCountry services between Leeds and Chesterfield.

It's the poor availability of Advance fares on XC that was the reason why I advised the OP to look for journeys via Barnsley rather than Sheffield or Leicester. This excludes the XC services and chooses the Northern route which is not reservable and so it has no limitations when used as part of an Advance ticket.

John

 

[yorkie]

Lets turn that from NXEC-speak to English!

"I am sorry to learn of your disappointment with the current pricing of our products. We seek to offer a wide range of fares providing a variety of journey opportunities to suit different pockets. We like to feel that we are successful in attracting passengers who travel for a variety of reasons and either frequently or infrequently."

TRANSLATION: "Waffle waffle waffle, people on the ECML have no alternative to us so we can do what we like!"

"Our pricing policy is designed to recognise that although certain train services are consistently busy, we have spare capacity at other times of the day. By adjusting our fares accordingly, we can make quieter trains more attractive in terms of price and so spread the number of customers travelling on each service throughout the day. This helps us to ease overcrowding."

TRANSLATION: "As people have no real alternative to us, we can put fares up as much as we want!"

"We try to balance the contrasting requirements of those wanting cheaper fares and who are prepared to commit to being reserved to a single train during off-peak periods, with those wanting more flexibility. It is difficult to satisfy the needs of each individual but nevertheless a satisfactory ticket is usually available at most times."

TRANSLATION: "Tough, we aren't listening to you! and we think you are making the problem up!"

"Our fare structure is under constant review to meet changing demand. Changes are made in the interest of a majority of customers and are frequently done to attract more people during our off-peak periods."

TRANSLATION: "We are constantly putting prices up to reflect less demand!"

And what they don't say is that they need a lot of high priced fares to help pay for those legal costs fighting Grand Northern/Grand Central/Hull Trains and moan at the ORR for not allowing them to run more trains, while at the same time being 2-faced and asking the DfT to make cutbacks!

 

[furryfeet]

in view of the select committee's findings that there has been a shift away from walk-on tickets to apex, then surely the conclusion that one has to reach is that NXEC's walk on fares, especially 1st class are way too high !

Have NXEC made any hint that they will reduce walk-on fares and hence maybe increase sales volume ? After all, an empty seat will pay nothing to the treasury !

As wavemaster suggests, putting up the apex fares may not be the answer, since there will be price resistance to this as well, especially in a recession.

Perhaps someone from NXEC can explain the thinking behind these rises.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Is it beyond DafT's powers to force TOCs to price in such a way as to ensure that the services are as full as possible (bit like airline yield management)?

 

[glynn80]

Is it beyond DafT's powers to force TOCs to price in such a way as to ensure that the services are as full as possible (bit like airline yield management)?

Your username reveals a lot it seems.

 

[voyagerdude220]

More at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtran/uc233-i/uc23302.htm If this is so, it may not be surprising that XC and NXEC are adjusting First Advance quotas to seek to shore up revenue.

I really hope that Virgin Trains alter their AP single prices on the Glasgow/Edinburgh/Preston- London and Birmingham routes ASAP, because they have simply rocketed since the VHF timetable change, particularly in First Class, where the levels of service offered on Pendolinos have been reduced greatly.

I've not travelled on a Pendolino since 2nd January this year, when I was offered an enhanced offer of sandwiches during the day, which were identical to what's being offered now, although they had festive Christmas fillings.

I had a sneak look at a Pendolino menu this Thursday, whilst waiting at Manchester Picc, and i'm very disapointed that the Pendolino's are almost inferior to Super Voyager's in First Class. Only the fact that Pendolino's still offer a cooked breakfast (all be it reduced compared to this time last year) and the smoked salmon and eggs option seperate the two.

 

[wavemaster]

I could book Manchester to London(roughly same distance), same times, 1st advance for £68 return.

This makes me so angry, anything I constructive I can do to get some reply from NXEC??

They've basically priced me out of my own cities' station. Even standard class tickets are ridiculous prices.

 

[yorkie]

No point sending their drones an email.

Why not email Virgin and ask if they are interested in introducing Virgin & Connections advances via Manchester?

 

[wavemaster]

It appears 1st class prices for the late night trains from London to Leeds have now seem their prices reduced to around £50, less than half of what they were when I posted this message.

Very odd pricing structure going on at NXEC

 

[andylloyd]

It appears 1st class prices for the late night trains from London to Leeds have now seem their prices reduced to around £50, less than half of what they were when I posted this message.

Very odd pricing structure going on at NXEC

Also NXEC have brought the 10% discount when you book online back too

 

[John @ home]

Very odd pricing structure going on at NXEC

A couple of days ago, NXEC sent me an email entitled John, our 10% online discount is back!

This included the words:

Leeds to London from £37.50 First Class* Book now [link]
* - All fares are one way and include the 10% online discount; terms and conditions apply; valid until 16 May 2009.

This seems to say that, in addition to an online discount on their "lowest Standard Advance fares" until 31 July 2009, NXEC are now offering (to me, at least) an online discount on their lowest First Advance fares until 16 May 2009.

But when I follow the link, the Standard fares are discounted but the First Class ones are not, with the lowest Leeds to London fare being £42 and not the £37.50 stated.

I have complained to NXEC. No doubt they will reply on 17 May.

John