Virgin Trains 'removes peak fares' from Euston on Friday afternoons between 20 Jul and 31 Aug 2018

[All Line Rover]

Marketing blurb: This summer on Virgin Trains, Friday afternoon peak restrictions are a thing of the past. After 9.26am, you can travel Off-Peak out of London to loads of great destinations... T&Cs: Friday Summer Peak restrictions removal T&Cs. 1. Afternoon peak restrictions (15:01 – 18:45) will be lifted every Friday from 20/07/2018 until 31/08/2018 departing from London Euston. 2. ...

https://www.virgintrains.co.uk/summer

Rather than stemming from generosity of spirit, I suspect the decision to allow London to Manchester ticket holders (for example) to travel on any train on the afternoons of Friday 20/27 Jul and 3/10/17/24/31 Aug has more to do with this:

Due to extensive engineering works on the West Coast route, London Euston will be closed with no services to or from the station on 18-19 August 2018 [Sat/Sun], 25-27 August 2018 [Sat/Sun/Mon] and 1-2 September 2018 [Sat/Sun].

Virgin's marketing blurb, and even T&Cs, give the impression that afternoon peak restrictions will be removed from all tickets. How are they able to guarantee this for tickets they do not price, such as Hereford to London (valid via Birmingham, priced by GWR)? Will Virgin's guards and ticket inspectors be instructed to accept tickets on the basis of this promotion which, technically, are invalid?

 

[island]

Virgin are welcome to unilaterally not enforce ticket restrictions on their trains should they choose to do so, irregardless of who prices the fare.

 

[Mag_seven]

Rather than stemming from generosity of spirit, I suspect the decision to allow London to Manchester ticket holders (for example) to travel on any train on the afternoons of Friday 20/27 Jul and 3/10/17/24/31 Aug has more to do with this:

I suspect its's everything to do with that as the removal of these restrictions is mentioned in VT's leaflet about the closures!

 

[bnm]

Virgin are welcome to unilaterally not enforce ticket restrictions on their trains should they choose to do so, irregardless of who prices the fare.

Regardless or irrespective? One or the other.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Virgin are welcome to unilaterally not enforce ticket restrictions on their trains should they choose to do so, irregardless of who prices the fare.

Indeed that's how the "Railcard easement" used to work.

 

[All Line Rover]

It isn't. The railcard 'easement' was mentioned in Virgin's restriction codes and did not apply to tickets not priced by Virgin which did not adopt Virgin's restriction codes.

EDIT: Bletchleyite might well be right about the earlier years of the railcard easement, the details of which I can't recall. In the later years of the easement, on the other hand, I wouldn't have advised anyone to use a ticket which was invalid according to the restriction code in the hope that the ticket would still be accepted.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It isn't. The railcard 'easement' was mentioned in Virgin's restriction codes and did not apply to tickets not priced by Virgin which did not adopt Virgin's restriction codes.

I'm pretty sure that was a later implementation, and earlier on VT simply disregarded any Off Peak restrictions for any fare.

 

[AlterEgo]

It isn't. The railcard 'easement' was mentioned in Virgin's restriction codes and did not apply to tickets not priced by Virgin which did not adopt Virgin's restriction codes.

That wasn’t how it was applied in practice in the vast majority of cases.

 

[ag51ruk]

Isn't this more to do with the reduction in business travel during the school holidays, and helping to spread out the usual Friday night crush onto earlier trains - which will have more capacity than usual.

 

[Kite159]

Don't Virgin do this most of the time during the school holidays to help spread out the Friday night travellers so that the first off-peak trains are not super rammed with families heading away for a holiday?

 

[swt_passenger]

They haven’t actually “removed peak fares” at all though have they, as per the title. They’ve removed offpeak restrictions, or alternately they’ve extended offpeak validity...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The small print says Super Off Peak and Advance restrictions still apply.
It's only for Off Peak tickets (ie SVS/SVR).
Plenty of scope for misunderstanding...

 

[AnkleBoots]

Are the Super Off Peak restrictions more restrictive than 15:01 – 18:45?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Are the Super Off Peak restrictions more restrictive than 15:01 – 18:45?

The main ones which Virgin control, SS and SN to/from Birmingham/the West Midlands, very much are! During the week you cannot leave Euston before 11:00, or after 13:40 until 20:15. During the weekend you cannot leave Euston before 10:30, or after 16:30 until 18:30.

This is despite the fact that Virgin's existing (and regulated) Off-Peak tickets have restrictions and prices more akin to the Super Off-Peak tickets controlled by other operators such as East Midlands Trains, GWR and LNER. So really Virgin's Super Off-Peak tickets are more like Ultra Off-Peak tickets - and their Off-Peak renamed Super Off-Peak, with a new real Off-Peak ticket introduced at a price between the current Off-Peak and Anytime ticket.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is despite the fact that Virgin's existing (and regulated) Off-Peak tickets have restrictions and prices more akin to the Super Off-Peak tickets controlled by other operators such as East Midlands Trains, GWR and LNER. So really Virgin's Super Off-Peak tickets are more like Ultra Off-Peak tickets - and their Off-Peak renamed Super Off-Peak, with a new real Off-Peak ticket introduced at a price between the current Off-Peak and Anytime ticket.

The reason for this goes right back to the 1990s, where VT removed the SuperSaver ticket (not valid Fridays and summer Saturdays) and in doing so reduced the price of the Saver tickets on the WCML. As this remained in place the new reduced prices eventually became regulated, so now they're stuck with them.

The ECML (GNER as was) is different again, though - they did something similar but then introduced a Business Saver, that I recall originally had no evening restriction. So their Saver became the Super Off Peak and their Business Saver the Off Peak, resulting in a yet higher price than most other TOCs.

VT chose not to do the latter as they preferred the idea of smoothing the peak by way of Advance tickets - the present single-fare-based concept of which was pioneered by them in a time when other TOCs still did things like Apex Returns which required the same quota to be available in both directions.

 

[Starmill]

Indeed that's how the "Railcard easement" used to work.

Nope. Those were shown in the booking engine, although it may have been one of the things that had to be engaged manually at each provider. It was a while ago now in any case.

In the case of Off Peak (not Super Off Peak) tickets priced by Virgin Trains, this relaxation also appears to be accurately shown in the current data. It is much easier to deal with though because it just involves removing part of the restrictions on certain days only.

 

[Starmill]

So really Virgin's Super Off-Peak tickets are more like Ultra Off-Peak tickets - and their Off-Peak renamed Super Off-Peak, with a new real Off-Peak ticket introduced at a price between the current Off-Peak and Anytime ticket.

They're a relatively new product which came about following a much discussed job advert for new yield management experts. At the time VT had recieved significant negative publicity over their queuing system at London Euston on Friday nights to board the 1900 and 1903 services. The other advent of this was to add a warning on NRE imploring people to choose an alternative train (despite the fact that the only way to do so for most people would be to pay twice the price for an Anytime ticket to use the 1840 or 1843).

To be honest, I always got the impression that they don't really mind if very few are sold and they clearly have no intention of making them less restrictive. They are only available for a very small number of flows anyway. They did not even bother to add them for Nuneaton to London, so if you are travelling from there at the permitted times for SS it is cheaper to buy a ticket from Birmingham.

In the old timetable, the first train that these tickets can be used on leaving London Euston was the 2023 - a 5 car!