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Where to buy tickets

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MrPIC

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Hey, I keep seeing adverts for the trainline website, and am wondering what the benefits or advantages are of buying rail tickets from them are? I usually buy tickets from a booking office or the TOC directly.
The tickets are no cheaper surely?
 
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MarlowDonkey

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The tickets are no cheaper surely?

They are actually more expensive as a booking fee is charged which doesn't apply when you pay at a station or book online from a TOC website. You don't even need to use the TOC that you are travelling with, although sometimes there's an incentive when you do.
 

Fawkes Cat

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Hey, I keep seeing adverts for the trainline website, and am wondering what the benefits or advantages are of buying rail tickets from them are? I usually buy tickets from a booking office or the TOC directly.
The tickets are no cheaper surely?

What you need to bear in mind is that what you are seeing are adverts, rather than public information announcements. So while under British law adverts need to be 'legal, decent, honest and truthful' they don't necessarily have to point out that other vendors of the same product are available.
 

hkstudent

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And, some TOCs do offer loyalty club points, which is more attractive to buy train tickets from them.
 

Journeyman

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The key thing to remember is that all UK train ticket sales are driven off the same fares database. All any of them do is present the information differently. So...you can buy the same tickets, for the same trains, on any website, and any site that charges a booking fee should be ignored immediately.

The only times it's worth using a TOC-specific site is if (a) they're running special offers you can't get elsewhere or (b) you want to reserve a specific seat where this facility is available.

But...never use the Trainline, because they charge fees. Somehow they've managed to convince people that their tickets are cheaper than all other websites, which is nonsense. I also think they're being dishonest in saying "this ticket was X% cheaper than buying at the booking office" because they're comparing walk-ups with advances, and advances can also be purchased at booking offices.

A lot of people don't understand the difference between Anytime, Off-Peak and Advance tickets, and get confused because you can buy Anytime and Off-Peak tickets in advance, if you see what I mean.
 

londonbridge

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I use The Trainlnie to check timetables and plan an itinerrary, but when it comes to buying the actual ticket I go to a TOC-specific website or use a TVM/ticket officewindow.
 

kieron

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The key thing to remember is that all UK train ticket sales are driven off the same fares database. All any of them do is present the information differently. So...you can buy the same tickets, for the same trains, on any website
That's a bit of an exaggeration.

For instance, if I wished to travel tomorrow from Kirby Cross to Bromley Cross, and return one day in December, but didn't want mandatory reservations, I could buy tickets for this on thetrainline for £121.90+charges. gwr.com would charge me £241.80 (with no additional charges, although I would need to visit a ticket machine somewhere before my journey), as the cheaper price involves tickets they simply don't sell. There are a number of other retailers who do sell these tickets, of course. nre.co.uk gives a list of them when you select a journey like this on their site.

There are other tickets which are available on two different sites, but small differences in the way two sites interpret the data in the database mean that only one shows the journeys for which the ticket is valid (however you fiddle with the via/avoid options on the other one), or only one considers a ticket to be valid on the selected trains.

Working out whether this sort of issue affects a journey is not straightforward. I don't personally know of a situation where buying from tretrainline is the cheapest option, though.
 

yorkie

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I agree with @kieron they it's not as simple as @Journeyman suggests...
Hey, I keep seeing adverts for the trainline website, and am wondering what the benefits or advantages are of buying rail tickets from them are? I usually buy tickets from a booking office or the TOC directly.
The tickets are no cheaper surely?
...but to give good advice, it would be useful if you could give examples of some of the journeys you make most often.
 

Joe Paxton

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...
A lot of people don't understand the difference between Anytime, Off-Peak and Advance tickets, and get confused because you can buy Anytime and Off-Peak tickets in advance, if you see what I mean.

Advance
was a poor choice of name for said tickets. Even more so now that on selected routes you can buy Advance tickets on the day of travel (even up to 15 mins before travel for a few routes).

(And of course the rail industry prefers - and often requires - passengers to buy a ticket before travelling anyway, i.e. 'in advance of travelling'.)
 

alistairlees

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Advance was a poor choice of name for said tickets. Even more so now that on selected routes you can buy Advance tickets on the day of travel (even up to 15 mins before travel for a few routes).

(And of course the rail industry prefers - and often requires - passengers to buy a ticket before travelling anyway, i.e. 'in advance of travelling'.)
Agreed. I have said many times that they should be called “Fixed” or something similar. And it would be easy to implement too.
 

Joe Paxton

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Agreed. I have said many times that they should be called “Fixed” or something similar. And it would be easy to implement too.

Yes, "Fixed" is the best descriptive name I can think of, though arguably it's somewhat dull. The alternative would be some sort of suggestive, invented or 'empty vessel' name - off the top of my head, say "Tangerine Ticket". All sorts of possibly issues with that approach too though, such as the name becoming dated, or getting the assemblage of different TOCs to first agree on a name, and then to promote its meaning.

(RDG, if you're reading, you can do better than "Tangerine ticket"!)
 

PeterC

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Advance was a poor choice of name for said tickets. Even more so now that on selected routes you can buy Advance tickets on the day of travel (even up to 15 mins before travel for a few routes).

(And of course the rail industry prefers - and often requires - passengers to buy a ticket before travelling anyway, i.e. 'in advance of travelling'.)
I can just imagine how my late mother would have soundly told me that I was talking nonsense if I told her that the full price tickets that she had bought in advance weren't advance tickets.
 
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