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LNER have announced a two year ‘trial’ called Simpler Fares on selected routes. (between London and Newcastle/ Berwick/ Edinburgh).
A new ’70 minute flex’ fare is being introduced, £20 (ish) higher than an Advance, which might appeal to some. But the dramatic news is that Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak tickets will go.
A walk-up ticket from London-Newcastle is currently £83.80 for large chunks of the day, and all-day at weekends. From February, that’ll be a staggering £192.80 for an Anytime. One way.
With the ceiling price of £83.80 removed, they can jack up Advance prices by another £100.
Workarounds are to buy a ticket to Manors or Haymarket, which are still available at the current prices (for now). But it’s idiotic, and will drive people off trains.
This sounds nothing like a trial; this is clearly an enhancement!
Cue game of whack-a-mole with splits, starting/finishing short of final destination, rovers & seasons, SailRail, etc.
Is LNER actually so busy (north of Leeds/York/Doncaster) that this sort of increase is called for?
It seems to be about pushing people towards airline-style pricing. Book early, and stick to your train. Pity anyone who values flexibility. Or you can wait and try to book last-minute, with no knowledge of what the price might be, or if the train will even be reservable.
That and extracting a great deal more revenue out of people now that there’s no £83 ceiling.
I’ll be doing all the above, plus making a nuisance of myself. I’ve already written to the MD asking how I can best sabotage the trial.
Someone has to pay for all the cashback in recent years!
With the ceiling price of £83.80 removed, they can jack up Advance prices by another £100.
I presume thats just pure speculation from yourself?
I’m all in favour of them trying to reform the fares structures – they really are overcomplicated in the UK, as can be seen from the number of people I see being told they have the wrong ticket for a particular train, but it does look like they havent really got it right on this attempt, so I expect they’ll change things at some point in the trial.
It’s speculation indeed, but I’ll eat my hat if Advance fares don’t creep up towards £193.
Not straight away, they’re not that stupid. But after the trial.
Today you often see Advances priced up to £80.50 alongside the £83.80 Super Off-Peak. An hour later when the SOP isn’t available, Advances are in the £125 – £150 range, or not available at all.
It seems to be about pushing people towards airline-style pricing. Book early, and stick to your train. Pity anyone who values flexibility. Or you can wait and try to book last-minute, with no knowledge of what the price might be, or if the train will even be reservable.
Yep agreed the industry has long wanted to move in the direction of airline-style pricing.
Insidiously, the industry is also shifting ticket vending machines at stations to use the same back-end journey planners as online booking sites and apps, which means they can mark a train as “full” in the back-end and prevent flexible tickets for being sold for it *even when they would be valid*. You can’t just say “I want an super off peak single from X to Y” with such sites/apps/machines, you are forced to give date and time.
Of course such tickets must still be sold on demand by ticket offices (a dying breed), and if you’re unable to buy then you’re legal to board…but the administrative hassle and threats of court action on being found without ticket are very substantial even when you are nailed-on in the right.
For canny Scots, it seems like Haymarket – Edinburgh Waverley – London will still be under the old regime.
Sure there must be similar stations in Newcastle and York.
Someone has to pay for all the cashback in recent years!
Genuinely LOLing at that!
For canny Scots, it seems like Haymarket – Edinburgh Waverley – London will still be under the old regime.
Sure there must be similar stations in Newcastle and York.
There are.
This is called “starting long” (getting on after your ticket’s starting station) or “stopping short” (getting off before your ticket’s last station) and whether it is legal depends on the “break of journey” provision on the ticket you hold. The current anytime/offpeak tickets permit this so all is well but look for them to chip away at this as well.
Advances do not permit this and if you (for example) buy a Kings Cross to Newcastle advance and get off at York, you have travelled without a valid ticket and committed an offence. Your ticket may not open the barriers (yes I know York isn’t barriered – the barriers could be rail staff with BTP); electronic tickets may register that the journey was completed unlawfully; you may leave a paper trail (if you do this lots) in your trainline/lner/etc account that a future prosecution could use to show a pattern of fare evasion.
There are grey areas around this and it has not been the practice of the rail industry to enforce this, but as with skiplagging there are risks which are not obvious to normal passengers.
Just looked today at any Anytime first-class return
midweek in Feb. from Oxford to Newcastle for 1 adult, 1 child:£1,121.85.
Almost exactly the same as our 3 return flights to JFK at Easter.
For canny Scots, it seems like Haymarket – Edinburgh Waverley – London will still be under the old regime.
Sure there must be similar stations in Newcastle and York.
Yes, for Newcastle I think it would be Manors or Metrocentre, but of course you need to know about this and most people don’t.
The ticket offices have been instructed to only sell an Anytime ticket to the destination you ask for, and not to proactively suggest Haymarket or Manors.
Is LNER actually so busy (north of Leeds/York/Doncaster) that this sort of increase is called for?
No, but increasing prices is a way to reduce (future) demand as the government doesn’t want to invest in rail.
I’m all in favour of them trying to reform the fares structures – they really are overcomplicated in the UK, as can be seen from the number of people I see being told they have the wrong ticket for a particular train, but it does look like they havent really got it right on this attempt, so I expect they’ll change things at some point in the trial.
Making things more complicated is not the answer. The government, who is the instigator of this “reform”, would like to see everyone using contactless for short journeys and only two types of tickets, anytime and advance for long journeys, but clear delineation between Regional and Intercity trains does not exist in the UK unlike somewhere such as Germany (where regional trains are nearly always covered by daily/weekly unlimited tickets).
I am not sure why a “trial” needs to last 2 years. Scotrail is doing a trial of making off-peak tickets valid all day (i.e. reducing the price of anytime tickets to the off-peak price) for 6 months, which is a positive thing.
The ticket offices have been instructed to only sell an Anytime ticket to the destination you ask for, and not to proactively suggest Haymarket or Manors.
This is not new though.
Remember LNER isn’t a normal train operator.
It’s actually owned by the government and managed by part of the Dept of Transport.
Didn’t mean one shouldn’t “start long”. (A new phrase to me, thanks!)
Haymarket is just a four-minute ride on the train – or 10-12 minute on the bus (which is free with my bus pass!) from Waverley.
Not so much of a hardship as doing a back-to-back to Dublin or Amsterdam!
(ps. we actually enjoy our night in another country on an ex-Continental Europe BA long haul!)
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Now, to I get bonus HfP points for taking the tram from Edinburgh Airport to Gateway, and then “starting short” on the train from there to Inverness because a) buying a ticket from Haymarket (the previous stop) to Inverness was cheaper than Gateway to Inverness and b) we saved UK APD by starting in Inverness (now no more due to RFS on long haul)!Remember LNER isn’t a normal train operator.
It’s actually owned by the government and managed by part of the Dept of Transport.
The DfT is now responsible / liable for the vast majority of train ticket revenue under the new style of management contracts. I haven’t thoroughly researched this announcement yet but it’s only marginally easier for them to do this at LNER than say TPE, Avanti etc.
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