Two Together Railcard

[yorksrob]

I thought Advance tickets were designed to fill Off-Peak capacity?

They are - but they're more suited to longer distance journeys by occasional travellers. A national railcard would extract maximum off peak travel from regular travellers.

 

[BestWestern]

I thought Advance tickets were designed to fill Off-Peak capacity?

They might have been once, but some TOC's have now cottoned on to the fact that they can fill several coaches even on the busiest services with Advance tickets, and sod everyone else who can't squeeze into what little space remains. The Advance fares essentially allow them to fill the train twice over, as it isn't the TOC's problem if the people they know will be using the service with walk-up tickets and no seat reservations can't get on

Railcards do have some restrictions of course, but generally they do offer far greater flexibility than Advance fares, albeit at less discounted prices.

 

[ainsworth74]

They might have been once, but some TOC's have now cottoned on to the fact that they can fill several coaches even on the busiest services with Advance tickets, and sod everyone else who can't squeeze into what little space remains.

It's also that they get just about all the revenue from advance tickets (obviously on tickets routed TOC & Connections some will go to the connecting TOCs). Rather than having to share it through ORCATs with other TOCs like they have to on most walk-up tickets (again obviously on tickets route TOC Only then that TOC gets all the revenue).

 

[BestWestern]

It's also that they get just about all the revenue from advance tickets (obviously on tickets routed TOC & Connections some will go to the connecting TOCs). Rather than having to share it through ORCATs with other TOCs like they have to on most walk-up tickets (again obviously on tickets route TOC Only then that TOC gets all the revenue).

Good point, also very true. Advance has become a nice little cash cow, rather than a way of simply filling empty seats

 

[ainsworth74]

True, an example of this is between Ely and Norwich, if buy your ticket from EMT website EMT get the money, if I purchase my ticket from Ely station Greater Anglia get a good portion

Though that still depends on exactly what ticket you buy. You can still buy the advance ticket that you can buy on EMTs website from Ely station and if you were to do that then the revenue distribution would be pretty much the same. Similarly if you were to buy a walk-up ticket on-line the revenue distribution again would be almost identical to if you'd bought it at the station.