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rail fares

Grumpy Old Lemons Like You
scotia
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rail fares

#104611

Postby scotia » December 16th, 2017, 10:00 pm

Myself and my wife planned to drive up to Aviemore to join the granddaughters and parents on the Santa Special - a privately operated Steam train. But dire weather warnings changed our plans - we decided to travel by ScotRail from Dunblane to Aviemore and return. Checking online, we discovered that the offpeak day return in standard class was £49.30 per person. On arriving at the ticket office, this was the fare quoted - but the ticket issuer kindly said "I'll see what I can do". After punching a few buttons attached to a screen he said "I can do it for £35 each - I'll give you separate fares from Dunblane to Perth and then from Perth to Aviemore - and that reduces the fare, even though you are travelling on the same train for the complete journey".
Now the ticket issuer's action was extremely laudable - but what is the logic behind such an arcane price structure? Common sense would suggest that a single longer journey should have a cost per mile lower than two shorter journeys - not the opposite.
Common sense also made sure that we said thank you and accepted the lower fare.
And now - leaving my grumpy old tag behind, I should say that I had a great time on the Santa Special - all six of us had a beautifully restored first class compartment, and we were plied with prosecco and mulled wine, with Santa Claus presenting presents to the kids. The kids behave remarkably well, but there seems to be a general feeling that I possibly was a bit too full of bonhomie and mulled wine. Great day out.

Alaric
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Re: rail fares

#104616

Postby Alaric » December 16th, 2017, 10:07 pm

scotia wrote: Common sense would suggest that a single longer journey should have a cost per mile lower than two shorter journeys - not the opposite.


Common sense departed from rail and air transport pricing many years ago. The word used is demand management.

There are websites which look to exploit pricing anomalies.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: rail fares

#104620

Postby AleisterCrowley » December 16th, 2017, 10:27 pm

https://www.splitticketing.com/

Slough <> Kidderminster is about £67
If I buy Slough<>Hanborough and Hanborough<>Kidderminster it's under £47. Same trains, same journey, same route.

staffordian
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Re: rail fares

#104623

Postby staffordian » December 16th, 2017, 11:03 pm

Try buying a ticket for the Virgin service departing London Euston at 1643 on Monday next.

Buy a ticket to Preston and it will cost you £175.50.

However, if instead of getting off at Preston, you need to travel a further 20 odd miles to Lancaster, a ticket on the same train, from Euston to Lancaster will only cost you £92.20

That's the logic of the modern railway :D

scotia
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Re: rail fares

#104684

Postby scotia » December 17th, 2017, 11:31 am

Many thanks for all of the replies. Its a long time since I travelled by rail, and so I am clearly out of touch with the machinations of purchasing appropriately priced rail tickets. When to my astonishment the kindly ticket issuer said "I can do it for £35 each" (instead of £49.30 each) I wondered for a moment if I was in the surreal word of those Bargain Hunt programs where the printed ticket price bears no relation to reality, and you have to engage in haggling to find out what the actual price is. Maybe its all a secret policy to improve our entrepreneurship - but my ticket issuer clearly took pity on a pair of old duffers.


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