VTEC Christmas and New Year tickets

[Denzo]

Been watching the trainline ticket alerts page for a few days and the VTEC advanced tickets has been stuck on Wednesday 21 December (even though it usually runs to a given Friday)

I want to travel London to Edinburgh either on the evening of Friday 23rd after work or early morning on christmas eve, although I'm aware that the latter option will require me to wait until 12 weeks before

Any reason why the Friday tickets aren't out yet?

 

[telstarbox]

Usually there's some major engineering work over Christmas so until the timetable has been finalised the tickets can't be released.

 

[Romilly]

The standard 12-week booking window means that Advance tickets are generally available on VTEC for travel on or before Friday 30 September.

The VTEC extended 24-week booking is, as the OP says, currently open for booking certain VTEC-only Advances for Monday-Friday travel on or before Wednesday 21 December. There are currently no advances for weekends later than 24/25 September. At present, VTEC weekend advances are only being released 12 weeks ahead. It's anyone's guess, but there is a chance that the same will happen for Advances for some Christmas/New Year travel.

The best thing for the OP to do is to sign up on the VTEC website for email notification of when Advances become available for 23 December.

 

[Denzo]

The standard 12-week booking window means that Advance tickets are generally available on VTEC for travel on or before Friday 30 September.

The VTEC extended 24-week booking is, as the OP says, currently open for booking certain VTEC-only Advances for Monday-Friday travel on or before Wednesday 21 December. There are currently no advances for weekends later than 24/25 September. At present, VTEC weekend advances are only being released 12 weeks ahead. It's anyone's guess, but there is a chance that the same will happen for Advances for some Christmas/New Year travel.

The best thing for the OP to do is to sign up on the VTEC website for email notification of when Advances become available for 23 December.

It's a weekday ticket I'm after (Friday night)

 

[Romilly]

Indeed, but weekdays close to public holidays, especially those close to Christmas/New Year, often seem to be treated in the same way as weekends/bank holidays for the purposes of releasing Advance tickets.

 

[Denzo]

Disappointing that tickets are now being sold up to 6th January but NOT including 22nd December-2nd January

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Disappointing that tickets are now being sold up to 6th January but NOT including 22nd December-2nd January

As has been noted, Christmas and New Year is a particularly busy period for engineering work.

I'm sure you can appreciate that you would not be happy if you bought a ticket for London to Edinburgh on a mid afternoon through train and turned up on the day, in time for your train, to find out that, due to engineering work going on, buses were replacing trains for part of the route and you couldn't actually get to Edinburgh that night.

For this reason, Advance tickets would not usually be released until the extent of any works are known, and a timetable established.

 

[Denzo]

As has been noted, Christmas and New Year is a particularly busy period for engineering work.

I'm sure you can appreciate that you would not be happy if you bought a ticket for London to Edinburgh on a mid afternoon through train and turned up on the day, in time for your train, to find out that, due to engineering work going on, buses were replacing trains for part of the route and you couldn't actually get to Edinburgh that night.

For this reason, Advance tickets would not usually be released until the extent of any works are known, and a timetable established.

Any idea when the engineer works are usually announced? I have to wonder if I might be better flying.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Engineering works should be confirmed 12 weeks ahead of time, timetables must be confirmed atleast 8 weeks ahead, but it's usually done 11 or 12 weeks ahead.