XC Advances from Gloucester/Cheltenham - how does this work?

[Ivo]

Looking at getting an Advance from somewhere south of Birmingham on Sunday, heading north towards Liverpool, I've come across this distinct anomaly in Advance fares. How can XC justify this - or, alternatively, how has it slipped through the net?

Gloucester to Stafford, changing at Brum; Sun 28th Oct @ 12:14 = £10.50
Cheltenham Spa to Stafford changing at Brum; Sun 28th Oct @ 12:26 £25.00

It's the same two trains involved in both cases, with one being from one station further back along the route. Yet the longer version is almost 60% cheaper! How does this work - even before the fact that the former is ludicrously cheap for an XC Advance is considered?

On a different note, why is it timetabled to take 72 minutes from Cheltenham to Birmingham?

 

[Tomnick]

There's a 29' engineering allowance shown here between Ashchurch and Abbotswood Jn, although the booked route beyond there is still main line. Possibly Single Line Working?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Looking at getting an Advance from somewhere south of Birmingham on Sunday, heading north towards Liverpool, I've come across this distinct anomaly in Advance fares. How can XC justify this - or, alternatively, how has it slipped through the net?

Gloucester to Stafford, changing at Brum; Sun 28th Oct @ 12:14 = £10.50
Cheltenham Spa to Stafford changing at Brum; Sun 28th Oct @ 12:26 £25.00

It's the same two trains involved in both cases, with one being from one station further back along the route. Yet the longer version is almost 60% cheaper! How does this work - even before the fact that the former is ludicrously cheap for an XC Advance is considered?....

Advance fares are managed by predicted demand. Gloucester-Stafford and Cheltenham-Stafford have the same prices on the various advance fares bands. As the fares are purchased the price goes up. Assuming the same number of advance fares were available for each journey when they went on sale, Cheltenham-Stafford has simply had more sales.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Advance fares are managed by predicted demand. Gloucester-Stafford and Cheltenham-Stafford have the same prices on the various advance fares bands. As the fares are purchased the price goes up. Assuming the same number of advance fares were available for each journey when they went on sale, Cheltenham-Stafford has simply had more sales.

That is not how advance availability normally works. It is independent of the actual origin/destination on the ticket and based on availability on each segment of the train journey. Normally if all the quota was used up for Cheltenham to Birmingham there would be no quota available for Gloucester to Birmingham; as you are travelling on the same train between the same station-to-station segments it all comes out of the same quota.

In this case though, it seems CrossCountry have got a bit muddled. There obviously is cheap quota available on that train between Gloucester and Birmingham New Street, otherwise the fare wouldn't have been offered. But it seems they are blocking availability of cheap advances from all the normal stations they usually call at on that day, and have forgotten to program in Gloucester as a barred origin.

But this wouldn't be necessary if they just removed the cheap quota on the train. It isn't even available for journeys through to Glasgow Central, so I don't know why they have it there.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Hmmm, that's not how it was explained to me last, nevermind.

 

[calc7]

That is not how advance availability normally works. It is independent of the actual origin/destination on the ticket and based on availability on each segment of the train journey. Normally if all the quota was used up for Cheltenham to Birmingham there would be no quota available for Gloucester to Birmingham; as you are travelling on the same train between the same station-to-station segments it all comes out of the same quota.

In this case though, it seems CrossCountry have got a bit muddled. There obviously is cheap quota available on that train between Gloucester and Birmingham New Street, otherwise the fare wouldn't have been offered. But it seems they are blocking availability of cheap advances from all the normal stations they usually call at on that day, and have forgotten to program in Gloucester as a barred origin.

But this wouldn't be necessary if they just removed the cheap quota on the train. It isn't even available for journeys through to Glasgow Central, so I don't know why they have it there.

I concur with this.
"Rigging" of origin/destinations to inflate the fare paid for an Advance on what some TOCs see as "business" or "premium" flows happens all over the network. The less said about it on here, the better.

 

[neilmc]

I concur with this.
"Rigging" of origin/destinations to inflate the fare paid for an Advance on what some TOCs see as "business" or "premium" flows happens all over the network. The less said about it on here, the better.

Surely the MORE said about it on here the better? I can't think of a better forum on which to sensibly and knowledgably discuss rail fare pricing.

 

[yorkie]

Surely the MORE said about it on here the better? I can't think of a better forum on which to sensibly and knowledgably discuss rail fare pricing.

Depends on what it is. Sometimes TOCs will read on here that people are using a particular loophole and then take immediate steps to remove it. Sometimes they can't remove it, sometimes it takes a while.