Variable Price of Advance tickets

[MarlowDonkey]

A poster on a more general consumer discussion site pointed out to FGW that the price for a specific train was about 30% higher on the FGW site than on trainline. The reply was that FGW's quota had run out. Surely it isn't true that you should have to check individual company websites for the best price? You might expect a small variation for discounts and booking fees, but nothing massive.

I did try checking for myself. A vanilla lookup on the National Rail Enquiries site showed the cheaper price. A dummy attempt to purchase at that price on FGW or Chiltern would have failed, but appeared to succeed on Cross Country. I'm aware there are only a handful of different booking software engines, with FGW and Chiltern looking the same and Cross Country looking different. So are there separate quotas for the different engines or is it FGW just making it up to excuse a software problem?

The specific train quoted was the 18.00 departure from Paddington on 6th Feb 2015, looking for an Advance First to Cippenham with the prices being
Train line = £74.40
FGW = £102.80

 

[Kristofferson]

So much for "they all use the same booking engine, they're all the same price".

 

[Merseysider]

Advance tickets come in 'tiers' of expensiveness, with the cheaper ones selling out as you approach the date of travel. In addition, selecting tickets but not finishing the purchasing process causes them to be unavailable to anyone else for a couple of hours.

In this case, £74.40 is the price of seventh cheapest tier 1st advances routed "Great Western Only".
The advances priced at £102.80 are the tier more expensive. These will be offered on whichever booking site you use if the last tickets in the cheaper tier are held in someone's, or your own, basket. The Trainline is never the cheapest place to buy tickets.

 

[Greenback]

Could it be that the price on the Trainline was the last at that price, and when going to the FGW site afterwards the next tier of pricing was displayed?

If so, then it could have happened in reverse as well. I wonder how many people go tot eh Trainline first, then realise they will be paying extra fees, so go to the TOC site instead?

Edit: Jake F has explained it better!

 

[Bletchleyite]

So much for "they all use the same booking engine, they're all the same price".

They certainly should be (except TOC special offers from that TOC's site).

On this one, what I've noticed from a very quick play is that all the Mixing Desk planners (including fGW, LM) show £105, while all the Trainline planners (Trainline itself, VT) show £76.

Why this is I have no idea... I'm a bit busy with work to follow it up, but it might be worth someone tweeting FGW and asking for an investigation, because I know no reason why that *should* be the case.

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Could it be that the price on the Trainline was the last at that price, and when going to the FGW site afterwards the next tier of pricing was displayed?

Actually not... try doing fGW first as I did and you still get the cheaper fare from any Trainline based planner (not just Trainline itself, but also VT, and I'd bet any other one as well).

Neil

 

[greatkingrat]

The new fares for 2015 have only just been uploaded, so possibly there was some problem with the upload for WebTis sites meaning some fares are missing?

 

[Greenback]

Actually not... try doing fGW first as I did and you still get the cheaper fare from any Trainline based planner (not just Trainline itself, but also VT, and I'd bet any other one as well).

Neil

Interesting. I wonder if the lower is actualyl available if you proceed to a dummy booking?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The new fares for 2015 have only just been uploaded, so possibly there was some problem with the upload for WebTis sites meaning some fares are missing?

Maybe there has been a glitch in one of the systems connected to the upload? It might not necessarily be missing fares, just gremlins!

 

[MarlowDonkey]

They certainly should be (except TOC special offers from that TOC's site).

On this one, what I've noticed from a very quick play is that all the Mixing Desk planners (including fGW, LM) show £105, while all the Trainline planners (Trainline itself, VT) show £76.

Why this is I have no idea... I'm a bit busy with work to follow it up, but it might be worth someone tweeting FGW and asking for an investigation, because I know no reason why that *should* be the case.

Neil

That's exactly the point. It isn't to do with the last quote locking the quota or the loading of new fares because an initial investigation was a week ago.

But given there is a quota of fares at a particular price for a particular service, how does this work? With two booking engines, how do they share data? Are there in fact separate "Mixing Desk" quotas and "Trainline" quotas? If so that's valuable advice for those seeking cheaper Advances, that if one system doesn't have any for sale, try the other one.

 

[cuccir]

I think this has been discussed in the past and the conclusion is that the existence of 1 remaining Advance ticket within a price-bracket can cause different prices to appear at different sites, and for fares to appear/disappear as people add a ticket into a basket and then do/don't buy it.

There can also be anomalies depending upon a booking engine's interpretation of the '& connections' tickets, though I think these are now less common.

 

[Hadders]

Looking in NFM19 for London-Chippenham there are two sets of Advance fares - 'Great Western Only' and 'AP Slough'.

Is it the case that there is actually two quotas - the 'GW' one is only for sale through FGW's website (and possibly by association other sites too) and the rest selling 'AP Slough'?

I can see why they might do this as it would be a way of FGW offering different fares for booking trough their website.

 

[Greenback]

There are no separate quotas for each booking engine. They all access data from the central reservations and fares database, which is what causes the problems when its the last couple of fares available in a tier and people are accessing them at the same sort of time.

Hadders has hit on something, there, I think.

 

[SickyNicky]

But given there is a quota of fares at a particular price for a particular service, how does this work? With two booking engines, how do they share data? Are there in fact separate "Mixing Desk" quotas and "Trainline" quotas? If so that's valuable advice for those seeking cheaper Advances, that if one system doesn't have any for sale, try the other one.

There is one quota for the whole industry. These are stored on the NRS computer and all booking engines can access them. If a booking engine reserves any of the quota temporarily (for example, whilst they are in your basket), that quota is unavailable to other booking engines. It must be released if not sold, however.

 

[Greenback]

When you make a booking but before you pay, there's usually a message on FGW saying how long this booking will be held for. If you don't pay by that time, the booking is cancelled and the fare released back to the quota.

 

[SickyNicky]

Looking in NFM19 for London-Chippenham there are two sets of Advance fares - 'Great Western Only' and 'AP Slough'.

Is it the case that there is actually two quotas - the 'GW' one is only for sale through FGW's website (and possibly by association other sites too) and the rest selling 'AP Slough'?

I can see why they might do this as it would be a way of FGW offering different fares for booking trough their website.

That's an intriguing idea. In this particular case, the fare codes for the First Great Western advances are W?S and we are authorised to sell them, so they're not restricted to FGW only. But there may be other circumstances where there are.

 

[CyrusWuff]

The "GW only" fares are, unsurprisingly, only valid on GW services (even if changed to a flexible ticket before travel), whereas the "AP Slough" ones are valid on other operators where appropriate.

There is no restriction on the sales of either route, but I suspect you may have to choose "Show slower routes" to get them on WebTIS sites.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is no restriction on the sales of either route, but I suspect you may have to choose "Show slower routes" to get them on WebTIS sites.

That's quite a serious bug, as they should show them if they are valid on the trains shown.

Neil

 

[Greenback]

There have been other instances where different engines display fares differently.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There have been other instances where different engines display fares differently.

I agree. The problem here though is that these fares are apparently not showing at all, even on trains where they are valid.

This is a rather bad thing, if only because it adds weight to Trainline's usually false claims that they are cheapest.

Neil

 

[Greenback]

I agree. The problem here though is that these fares are apparently not showing at all, even on trains where they are valid.

This is a rather bad thing, if only because it adds weight to Trainline's usually false claims that they are cheapest.

Neil

Quite! I'm sure there's a bit more to this than may appear. Every other time there's been a report of fares not being shown it's turned out to be either something the user has done by way of personalising their search, a different interpretation of the search parameters and restrictions by the engine, a temporary glitch in some software or simply a problem with the quotas being used up then released again.

I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be anything else.

 

[SickyNicky]

WebTIS is definitely selling this ticket type, so it must be something else.

Edit: At the same tier level, AP Slough is always more expensive, so it should never show.

Edit2: It's also interesting to note that tickets marked "GREAT WESTN ONLY" are in fact valid on any TOC provided they have at least one leg on FGW - at least according to the underlying data at BRfares

 

[greatkingrat]

I believe the AP SLOUGH fares are about 50p more expensive than the equivalent FGW ONLY fare and are sold where the journey involves a connecting TOC.

If you look at London - Swansea, you can see the booking engines offer the FGW only fare for the direct trains, and the AP Slough fare for journeys that change onto ATW at Cardiff.

In the case of London - Chippenham, there isn't any reason to use another TOC so the AP Slough fares are superfluous.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be anything else.

So going back to the original question, when FGW said their quota was used up, they were fobbing off the questioner as the balance of evidence suggests some form of software failure possibly connected with duplicated fares for a journey on a single train without changes.

 

[Greenback]

So going back to the original question, when FGW said their quota was used up, they were fobbing off the questioner as the balance of evidence suggests some form of software failure possibly connected with duplicated fares for a journey on a single train without changes.

FGW's reply makes no sense. I don't know why whoever it was that said it, did so, but ignorance of the way the booking system and fares in general work could be one answer. Or it could be that the reply was simply a badly articulated way of trying to explain a complex issue in simple terms.

 

[Paul Kelly]

It's also interesting to note that tickets marked "GREAT WESTN ONLY" are in fact valid on any TOC provided they have at least one leg on FGW - at least according to the underlying data at BRfares

In practice of course, the "GREAT WESTN ONLY" restriction on the actual fare will override the more general restriction on the ticket type.

Here is a stab in the dark at an explanation: although the £74.40 and £102.80 fares are adjacent tiers, there is quite a large gap between them compared to other adjacent tiers. And the restriction codes are different too. The £74.40 fare (and cheaper tiers) has restriction code QF (GWR ADVANCE in the fares data), whereas the £102.80 fare (and the more expensive tier) has restriction code ZI (GWR AP BUSINESS DEDIC 1ST in the fares data).

The suggests to me that prior to fares simplification in 2008 the top two tiers were a separate category of tickets, a kind of "budget business" first class fare rather than a "premium leisure" first class fare (as the cheaper tiers are).

It seems logical to me that FGW would not want any cheap leisure first class passengers on a prime Friday 18:00 departure from Paddington, and that they would restrict availability of first advances on that departure to the budget business tiers.

And this is where it's really a random guess - maybe they've tried to do this in the national reservations system, but have not completely implemented it. And maybe WebTIS sites submit their queries in a slightly different way to Trainline sites, which manages to catch the bar on the cheaper tiers that FGW have perhaps put in, but the way the Trainline submits reservation queries doesn't trigger the bar. Perhaps it could be something along the lines of erroneously specifying the origin fares location as "London Paddington" instead of "London Terminals".

 

[blackfive460]

Just out of curiosity I had a look to see if I could find variations on a journey that I make from time to time looking at FGW and VT.
£50+ difference in favour of VT.
Even ticking the 'via Slough' option under slower routes doesn't show the cheaper fare.
I'll check carefully in the future...

 

[bb21]

This thread does seem to highlight an implementation issue I believe between the different booking engines. I have noticed something along similar lines before but always put it down to luck or that it was due to the ticket being the last in the price tier.

There is no question that the same database was accessed as there is only one nationally, but the interpretation of fares conditions by different booking engines vary, hence the differing results. This in a sense is no different to different booking engines implementing differing preferred routes / connections / interchange stations for a particular journey, but the end results are all the same, ie. different booking engines can indeed offer different fares.

I am not sure how this can be resolved. Different programmers will have their own ideas as to how to generate an itinerary given a particular set of criteria due to the complex nature of our railway network. As long as we have more than one player in the market, it will always be an issue.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Just out of curiosity I had a look to see if I could find variations on a journey that I make from time to time looking at FGW and VT.

The route chosen is via Bristol and involves a change there to Cross Country. National Rail enquiries shows the cheaper fare with the condition AP Slough. Direct trains are FGW only as one would expect.

Like the Cippenham fare, you don't seem to be able to book the lower fare through the "mixer desk" engine.

On the premise that National Rail enquiries is the definitive source, then those sites offering the cheaper fare are correct and the others are overcharging.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am not sure how this can be resolved. Different programmers will have their own ideas as to how to generate an itinerary given a particular set of criteria due to the complex nature of our railway network. As long as we have more than one player in the market, it will always be an issue.

But in this case they are generating the *same* itinerary, and selecting the fares incorrectly. It would appear all the Mixing Desk planners are overcharging, and all the Trainline ones are charging the correct fare.

(not a reason to use Trainline itself, of course - best book this one via VT! )

Neil

 

[bb21]

But in this case they are generating the *same* itinerary, and selecting the fares incorrectly. It would appear all the Mixing Desk planners are overcharging, and all the Trainline ones are charging the correct fare.

Yes, they are in this case. That comment was more about the general situation with the different booking engines.

In this case, I suspect a differing interpretation of fares conditions, but of course it could be anythign.

(not a reason to use Trainline itself, of course - best book this one via VT! )

Neil

Indeed in this case I compared Southern and Virgin for impartiality.

 

[blackfive460]

The route chosen is via Bristol and involves a change there to Cross Country. National Rail enquiries shows the cheaper fare with the condition AP Slough. Direct trains are FGW only as one would expect.

Except both web sites offer the exact same trains for the journey I highlighted, the only difference is the fare...