Virgin Trains East Coast ticketing challenge

[firefox18]

Hello

I am seeking some advice and or guidance on recent trips from York to London on Virgin East Coast Trains.

The ticket price from York to Kings Cross was more expensive than the ticket from Newcastle to London on the same train so I booked 4 first class returns but I got on at York thinking that there would not be an issue as I was boarding 3 stops after the ticket was purchased for so no loss of revenue.

I had no problems until my last trip when the inspector said I cannot use the ticket as I did not board at the first station (Newcastle) and that I would have to purchase a new ticket to travel. Knowing it's not best practise to challenge and cause a scene I moved to second class and paid onboard for a single to London.

Before I write to Virgin to ask for a confirmation on what the inspector informed me was accurate I wanted to run it past all you knowledgeable people. I have the previous 3 tickets that I planned to send as part of my claim.

Is it worth challenging this and should I make a claim for the single to London that I bought onboard £167? Was the inspector correct in his actions?

Many thanks

Roland

 

[ainsworth74]

Assuming that you were travelling on an Advance Purchase ticket then the inspector was correct that your ticket was not valid for travel from York. The T&Cs require that you travel on the booked train only and do not permit break of journey or starting/finishing short of your origin/destination.

Also I know you say that VTEC haven't lost any revenue but, of course, they have as the York to London ticket (which you should have purchased) was more than the Newcastle to London ticket which you actually used.

I'm afraid to say that I do not feel that VTEC have done anything wrong here.

 

[najaB]

Is it worth challenging this and should I make a claim for the single to London that I bought onboard £167? Was the inspector correct in his actions?

Could you detail exactly what tickets you held? You said you had purchased return tickets, were they in fact a pair of singles per journey?

 

[34D]

If you do write, it may be prudent to not mention the three earlier incidents.

 

[firefox18]

Could you detail exactly what tickets you held? You said you had purchased return tickets, were they in fact a pair of singles per journey?

Thanks for the swift responses

Yes they were advance single first fares

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes they were advance single first fares

In which case I stand by what I said earlier. Unfortunately VTEC are in the right here.

 

[najaB]

In which case I stand by what I said earlier. Unfortunately VTEC are in the right here.

Agreed. My understanding is that staff have been instructed to only allow starting/stopping short on Advance tickets where there is no financial advantage - which there was in this case.

 

[34D]

Agreed. My understanding is that staff have been instructed to only allow starting/stopping short on Advance tickets where there is no financial advantage - which there was in this case.

Agreed. Though a letter may well produce a goodwill gesture.

 

[firefox18]

Oh well I still made a saving even after the £167 extra ticket. So lesson learned and thanks for the advise, I will hold my council on this occasion.

I may send a letter to VTEC enclosing my first single ticket to London and the onboard purchased 2nd class ticket explaining my ignorance and see what happens.

 

[yorkie]

The ticket price from York to Kings Cross was more expensive than the ticket from Newcastle to London on the same train...

Can you give examples of when this occurs? If it's occurring as a matter of course then I think there are some people who we might want to contact about that.

 

[Stats]

Can you give examples of when this occurs? If it's occurring as a matter of course then I think there are some people who we might want to contact about that.

Why? London to York 1st class is more popular than London to Newcastle so it makes sense that lower priced tier quotas for London to York sell out before Newcastle's. Indeed, there was one occasion where I had first class all to myself between York and Newcastle on a Friday evening train while standard was packed to the rafters.

 

[yorkie]

Why? London to York 1st class is more popular than London to Newcastle so it makes sense that lower priced tier quotas for London to York sell out before Newcastle's. Indeed, there was one occasion where I had first class all to myself between York and Newcastle on a Friday evening train while standard was packed to the rafters.

What London to York quota or London to Newcastle quota? That's not how Advance quotas work. If the quota is gone between London & York then it's not available for a journey from London to Newcastle. If the suggestion is that EC are blocking the lowest tiers from York to London then that is a cause for concern.

I wonder if the OP is simply booking Advance fares before they are opened for York to London journeys and is comparing walk-up fares from York to London with Advance fares from Newcastle to London...

 

[Starmill]

What London to York quota or London to Newcastle quota? That's not how Advance quotas work. If the quota is gone between London & York then it's not available for a journey from London to Newcastle. If the suggestion is that EC are blocking the lowest tiers from York to London then that is a cause for concern.

It's a cause for concern alright... for you. You can't stop them doing it, and we've been putting up with it for ages on West Coast!

 

[Stats]

What London to York quota or London to Newcastle quota? That's not how Advance quotas work. If the quota is gone between London & York then it's not available for a journey from London to Newcastle. If the suggestion is that EC are blocking the lowest tiers from York to London then that is a cause for concern.

Of course thats how quotas work. Why do you think there are restrictions on starting/finishing short? So you don't take advantage of better deals further along the line. How do you think they are able to offer an extended booking horizon to some destinations but not others? It would be grossly unfair if those with extended booking horizons were able to snap up all the lowest tier fares before they became available to the other stations in the normal booking horizon.

You don't really think they have one quota for the entire service to be used for any origin and destination pair? Commuter TOCs may operate advance fares that way but if I were a shareholder of any intercity TOC I would be very concerned if they used the most basic of revenue management models. Although its a Stagecoach operated TOC I would be very surprised if Virgin had let them revert back to the most basic of RM models. RM models are complex and sophisticated and for an intercity TOC will have many objectives, two of which will be to maximise revenue (including ancillary revenue) less costs and to balance train loads. Having one quota for any O&D pair will not meet these objectives.

I haven't checked for a while but East Coast used to have lower tier Advance Standard fares available around the time of GC departures on the London to York flow while on the same service Newcastle Standard Advances were a tier or more higher. At certain times of the year there are less Advances on the Inverness and Aberdeen services to Newcastle and stations south of, because they need the capacity for passengers travelling north of Edinburgh.

 

[island]

You seem to have been potentially overcharged. The correct action to deal with a passenger violating a break of journey restriction would have been an excess to the cheapest fare available for immediate travel (or a new ticket if somehow cheaper). What time of day were you travelling at and how much did you pay for your original ticket on the journey where you were charged up?

 

[Paul Kelly]

Of course thats how quotas work. Why do you think there are restrictions on starting/finishing short? So you don't take advantage of better deals further along the line. How do you think they are able to offer an extended booking horizon to some destinations but not others?

It's possible East Coast are doing something a bit different from other TOCs here, but it's certainly how quotas work in general - the train journey is divided up into a number of segments and quota needs to be available for the full chain of segments for a through advance fare to be available at a given tier. Nobody is suggesting there is only one quota for the entire train, but there certainly isn't a separate quota for every possible pair of origins and destinations - that would become completely unworkable for services with a large number of these, e.g. consider CrossCountry's daily service from Aberdeen to Penzance with 45 calling points. If there was a quota for every pair of stations that would be (45(45+1))/2 = 1,035 different quotas for each advance tier - that's quite unmanageable without loads of anomalies creeping in regarding booking from unpopular stations to get cheaper advances, which generally doesn't happen. There would be surely be lots of discussion of it on here if it did.

It would be grossly unfair if those with extended booking horizons were able to snap up all the lowest tier fares before they became available to the other stations in the normal booking horizon.

I thought that was how it did work. Maybe I am wrong. I guess they could have a separate quota bucket for journeys starting and ending at specific stations that have the extended booking horizon. But such arrangements are unusual rather than the norm, and similar unfairness definitely exists - there was an example on the forum a year or two of somebody making a journey from Edinburgh to Ely on an East Coast advance, but they weren't able to book it until EMT had opened reservations on their train from Peterborough to Ely, by which time the cheapest tier of advances had already sold out on the East Coast train between Edinburgh and Peterborough even though no advances from Edinburgh to Ely had actually been sold.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It would be grossly unfair if those with extended booking horizons were able to snap up all the lowest tier fares before they became available to the other stations in the normal booking horizon.

That is what is happening now.

I haven't checked for a while but East Coast used to have lower tier Advance Standard fares available around the time of GC departures on the London to York flow while on the same service Newcastle Standard Advances were a tier or more higher.

My understanding is that each journey is divided into segments, and to get the tier of advance tickets it must be available in all segments.

I'm sure the TOCs are able to set different quotas for each segment, which could mean you can still get the cheapest tiers for the York-London segment when the cheapest tier has already sold out for the Newcastle-York segment.

You can see this in action in two ways: XC and TPE advances are usually much cheaper than EC advances Newcastle-York (they can be as little as £6.80 on the XC trains that terminate at Newcastle), and it is sometimes possible to get an AP ticket at least one tier cheaper if you force the booking engines to put you on the Great Northern stopper from London to Peterborough (i.e. skipping the Peterborough-London segment quota entirely).

That shouldn't allow there to be cheaper tickets for Newcastle-London than York-London, though, as the York-London segment should be available to all passengers not just those with an origin of York.

 

[gray1404]

You seem to have been potentially overcharged. The correct action to deal with a passenger violating a break of journey restriction would have been an excess to the cheapest fare available for immediate travel (or a new ticket if somehow cheaper). What time of day were you travelling at and how much did you pay for your original ticket on the journey where you were charged up?

I wondered about this too. Although what would be the corect fare to excess to, a York to London or a Newcastle London. I think if we can get some more confirmation on this point before you write to East Coast then it may pay off.

 

[Starmill]

Given it would take an especially astute guard to notice what the OP was actually doing (how many guards are going to remember who was not there before? And who is likely to be looking for anyone doing that? How will they know wether or not you're saving any money?) I wonder if it could have been someone familiar to certain other forum members. It might not therefore be surprising if you were sold an Anytime Single when the correct course of action might have been an Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak single.

It's important that the OP remembers what time their train was I think.

 

[Eboordna]

That is what is happening now.



My understanding is that each journey is divided into segments, and to get the tier of advance tickets it must be available in all segments.

I'm sure the TOCs are able to set different quotas for each segment, which could mean you can still get the cheapest tiers for the York-London segment when the cheapest tier has already sold out for the Newcastle-York segment.

You can see this in action in two ways: XC and TPE advances are usually much cheaper than EC advances Newcastle-York (they can be as little as £6.80 on the XC trains that terminate at Newcastle), and it is sometimes possible to get an AP ticket at least one tier cheaper if you force the booking engines to put you on the Great Northern stopper from London to Peterborough (i.e. skipping the Peterborough-London segment quota entirely).

That shouldn't allow there to be cheaper tickets for Newcastle-London than York-London, though, as the York-London segment should be available to all passengers not just those with an origin of York.

While some of the above is correct, let's just say it's very simple to allow longer journeys to have lower fares buckets available than an overlapping shorter journey on the same train, or in fact, any journey. Even 1000 different journeys can be individually managed without too much trouble (it would take a couple of days to set up, but could then be applied to all trains on a route), if a TOC so desired. It is also becoming easier to manage these requirements.

Enough said.

 

[Starmill]

While some of the above is correct, let's just say it's very simple to allow longer journeys to have lower fares buckets available than an overlapping shorter journey on the same train, or in fact, any journey.

Absolutely. There are a significant number of examples where this is at play. I thought it was already fairly common knowledge!

 

[Merseysider]

I wondered about this too. Although what would be the corect fare to excess to, a York to London or a Newcastle London. I think if we can get some more confirmation on this point before you write to East Coast then it may pay off.

A Newcastle-London single would be the correct excess, possibly with a £10 admin fee. Conditions of Carriage are clear on the matter.

If you start, break and resume, or end your journey at an intermediate station when you are not entitled to do so, you will be liable to pay an excess fare. This excess fare will be the difference between the price paid for the ticket you hold and the price of the lowest priced ticket(s) available at a ticket office for immediate travel that would have entitled you to start, break and resume, or end your journey at that station on the service(s) you have used.

firefox18, please upload a photo or scan of all tickets involved with this incident. I would be most interested to see where this figure of £167 comes from, as the most expensive Standard Class single from Newcastle to London only costs £138, and for first class a single costs £212.

 

[Starmill]

Hmm thay would be the excess if it were done before the train were due to depart, no?

Onboard, there should be a new ticket at the appropriate price, no? No need for Admin Fees if that's all. I'm equally unsure what's actually been done here so I think we really must have a response from the OP in order to advise.

 

[bb21]

Looking at Excess Fare Procedures, the excess fare would be the same regardless of opportunities to pay before boarding, however most crucially, where Byelaw 18 is enforced, this would take precedence over charging an excess fare.

 

[firefox18]

Thanks again for the perspectives and comments.

I only found out about the price difference because our company's travel management company (American Express) flagged that this was a cheaper routing option. They do the same when I fly often routing me through Amsterdam's Schiphol only to find myself flying back through Heathrow and over to the US. Then on the return I don't take the final legs from LHR back to Schiphol then back to LHR (although recently BA have been clamping down on this practice) leaving an empty paid for seat on 2 legs.

The tickets purchased were for a specific mid morning train which I took on each day, the problem on the last day was the train was quite clearly very busy as my seat was taken and when I asked the passenger if I could have my seat he became unhappy and went to find the inspector and the rest is history as explained. I was unaware of the quota system I just assumed this is a quirk within the ticketing system and really did not feel that what I did was wrong but clearly it appears on the face of it I should have advised Amex to purchase the cheapest ticket from York.

The ticket I was issued was a full fare anytime single from York to London, I was not offered any other option other than which class I wanted to pay for. No mention of excess fare or penalty fare.

 

[causton]

For a travel management company, you would think they would ensure their clients were not breaking the law. That is something very dodgy they are doing there and while I cannot comment on whether that is fine for plane tickets, as it probably is, if there are a lot of people doing that with the train tickets they could get into a lot of trouble, especially if the TOCs found out it was repeatedly the same company deliberately avoiding the proper fare by suggesting these!

 

[gray1404]

firefox18 Please can you upload copies of all tickets involved and can you also provide details of the exact train (date/time) that you traveled on. It would be really helpful if you could please do this! I a not yet convinced that you saved money by getting an Advance from Newcastle rather then York.

From what you have said, I think asking the person who had taken your seat to move, given you'd joined the train late, might not have been the best course of action. It surely resulted in the guard becoming aware of what had happened and thus your problem.

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

Given it would take an especially astute guard to notice what the OP was actually doing (how many guards are going to remember who was not there before? And who is likely to be looking for anyone doing that? How will they know wether or not you're saving any money?) I wonder if it could have been someone familiar to certain other forum members. It might not therefore be surprising if you were sold an Anytime Single when the correct course of action might have been an Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak single.

It's important that the OP remembers what time their train was I think.

This is exactly what I though. I think the said person needs dealing with by their employer because (as you say) selling an Anytime ticket when I (Super) Off Peak should be sold is clearly a cause for concern if this is indeed happening. I speak in general terms here and not with reference to this specific case given we are still waiting for futher information from the OP

 

[najaB]

...selling an Anytime ticket when I (Super) Off Peak should be sold is clearly a cause for concern if this is indeed happening...

The OP has said it was a mid-morning train so the Anytime may have been appropriate.

 

[bb21]

I don't think anyone knows what was sold yet.

The ticket I was issued was a full fare anytime single from York to London, I was not offered any other option other than which class I wanted to pay for. No mention of excess fare or penalty fare.

That fare is £112, or £182.50 in First Class, not £167. You really do need to upload a picture so we can work out exactly what you were charged for, as it is all getting very confusing.

 

[gray1404]

The OP has said it was a mid-morning train so the Anytime may have been appropriate.

Correct, hence needing more info from the OP. Hopefully he'll provide that soon. Although I was speaking in general terms there in reply to Starmill's comment.