View Full Version : Rail Tickets Price Discrepancy Hunt
The purpose of this thread is to identify any rail tickets when it is cheaper to buy a return ticket from B to A than one from A to B.
For example:
Hull to Sheffield - Standard Day Return £21.40
Sheffield to Hull - Standard Day Return £18.80
Stockport to Sheffield - Standard Open Return £15.90 (SDR not available)
Sheffield to Stockport - Standard Day Return £15.60
Chelmsford to London Terminals - Standard Day Return £20.20
London Terminals to Chelmsford - Standard Day Return £12.10
Harlow Town to London Terminals - Standard Day Return £13.70
London Terminals to Harlow Town - Standard Day Return £9.30
Please post here any other journeys that anyone is aware of with similar price discrepancies.
rdwarr
23-03-2007, 4:18 PM
...
Please post here any other journeys that anyone is aware of with similar price discrepancies, so that we can buy the cheaper version of the tickets and use the return portion to go out and the outward portion to come back.
Is that actually allowed?
Is that actually allowed?
Yes it does! See example 7 for a morning peak hour single journey from Chester to London in the following article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6442947.stm
Voyager2002
23-03-2007, 5:53 PM
Nice idea, but it will only work if you are going there and back on the same day. The outbound half MUST be used on the date printed on the ticket: the return half only begins to be valid on that date.
The examples that I found are all Standard Day Return tickets which is of course only valid on the same day. However, there will be many passengers not holding season tickets making frequent day trip journeys. The principle is that passengers should not be paying a higher price for a return ticket from A to B than one from B to A, which are in essence the same two journeys.
If enough passengers realise this unfair practice and start buying the cheaper version of these tickets, using the return portion to go out and the outward portion to come back, hopefully this will stop the train companies from setting two prices on the same ticket in future.
moonrakerz
24-03-2007, 10:47 PM
If enough passengers realise this unfair practice
It's not really an "unfair practice", it is the law of supply/demand and the rail companies trying to spread the load across the day. A train into London at 8:30 in the morning will always cost more than a train leaving London at 08:30.
If you look at it another way, when more passengers board a train into London in the morning, the train company is actually getting more revenue by the increased ticket sales.
As long as the timetable is in place, they will have to run that particular service regardless of the number of passengers getting on. So the net cost of running a peak hour service into London is actually lower after taking into account the increased ticket sales from the higher number of passengers.
By increasing the price of a return ticket into London is not going to make an office worker with a standard 9 to 5 working pattern to suddenly start working an afternoon shift or a night shift pattern. This law of supply/demand is simply another excuse for the rail companies to rake more money from the poor passengers in addition to the inflation-busting fare increases year after year.
Is that actually allowed?
No it's not actually allowed. To use an outward ticket you have to be able to produce (if requested) an unused return half.
They rarely request it, but will do so if suspicious - eg an outward portion of a day return being used late in the evening, or outward portion of a standard return being used after the date of issue.
The return half being used unfeasibly early could also arouse suspicion but I'm not sure what action they could take.
Just seen AP's post - that is different, it's not using the outward half at all so isn't a problem.
moonrakerz
25-03-2007, 1:36 PM
If you look at it another way, when more passengers board a train into London in the morning, the train company is actually getting more revenue by the increased ticket sales.
Only if it charges the extra passengers a higher fare than if they use another train at midday.
As long as the timetable is in place, they will have to run that particular service regardless of the number of passengers getting on. So the net cost of running a peak hour service into London is actually lower after taking into account the increased ticket sales from the higher number of passengers.
By increasing the price of a return ticket into London is not going to make an office worker with a standard 9 to 5 working pattern to suddenly start working an afternoon shift or a night shift pattern. This law of supply/demand is simply another excuse for the rail companies to rake more money from the poor passengers in addition to the inflation-busting fare increases year after year.
The major problem with morning trains into London is the gross overcrowding, the differential fares are an attempt to spread the load. If you think that by letting everyone get the early morning train the result will be lower fares - dream on !
No railway company is going to cut fares for it's "captive market", if it can attract extra trade by offering discounted fares during the day when the rolling stock is empty, all to the good.
You seem to be saying that the discounted fares should be available to everyone on every train !
The railway companies all run at a loss, the only "profit" they return is from the massive subsidies doled out by central government. Why should someone living in the Isles of Scilly pay more Income Tax to enable you to get a cheaper ticket on the 09:00 into Waterloo?
To use a well worn expression "what a way to run a railway !"
Let me just clarify a few points here:
1. I do not think that by letting everyone get the early morning train the result will be lower fares. All I am saying is by charging a higher Standard Day Return fare for morning trains into London is not going to solve the overcrowding problem, as people have to go to work at that time of the day if the company they work for does not have a flexible-hour working pattern. They do not have a choice to travel outside the peak hours.
2. I am quite happy for the morning peak fare to be higher than the off-peak fare, as long as it is the same in both directions. The example journeys that I quoted in my earlier post all (except Sheffield to Hull) have a Cheap Day Return ticket at a lower fare for travel outside peak hours. The Standard Day Return ticket is already a higher fare for travel during peak hours with which I have no problem. What I am not happy with is the even 'higher' Standard Day Return fare for travelling in one direction than the same Standard Day Return fare for travelling in the opposite direction between exactly the same two places. This is what I mean by 'unfair practice' in the first place.
[QUOTE=AP;4703061]
1. They do not have a choice to travel outside the peak hours
2. I am quite happy for the morning peak fare to be higher than the off-peak fare, as long as it is the same in both directions. QUOTE]
1 They have a choice of employment. If the fare goes high enough they will look elsewhere.
2. But (in the London area anyway) the morning peak is uni-directional. So you want the counter-flow fares increased in price?
MarkyMarkD
25-03-2007, 4:14 PM
AP
Your view of what is unfair doesn't make sense, for the reasons expressed by others already. Most peak service demand is uni-directional - mainly into major cities and away from suburbia/rural areas. So it makes sense for prices to reflect that.
You claim that making the inbound leg more expensive than the outbound doesn't free up space on the trains. But of course it does - it deters non-essential travellers from travelling.
moonrakerz
25-03-2007, 5:37 PM
Let me just clarify a few points here:
1. I do not think that by letting everyone get the early morning train the result will be lower fares. All I am saying is by charging a higher Standard Day Return fare for morning trains into London is not going to solve the overcrowding problem, as people have to go to work at that time of the day if the company they work for does not have a flexible-hour working pattern. They do not have a choice to travel outside the peak hours.
I agree, charging a higher Standard Day return fare for morning trains will not solve the overcrowding, BUT it will prevent (to some extent) it being worse. The main point is not that they are not charging a higher fare at peak times - they are offering a reduced fare at off peak times.
L
2. I am quite happy for the morning peak fare to be higher than the off-peak fare, as long as it is the same in both directions. The example journeys that I quoted in my earlier post all (except Sheffield to Hull) have a Cheap Day Return ticket at a lower fare for travel outside peak hours. The Standard Day Return ticket is already a higher fare for travel during peak hours with which I have no problem. What I am not happy with is the even 'higher' Standard Day Return fare for travelling in one direction than the same Standard Day Return fare for travelling in the opposite direction between exactly the same two places. This is what I mean by 'unfair practice' in the first place.
You seem to think that "peak" and "off peak" are fixed times on all routes - they are not.
Peak time from, say, Reading to Paddington could be from 07:00 to 09:30; this same time from Paddington to Reading is most definitely off peak. This is why the fares are different between two points, travelling in different directions and at different times.
It may not make sense at first glance, but there are some bargains to be got.
Last year my daughter wanted to spend the whole day in London. The cheapest ticket from our nearest station to Paddington was over £60, from another station (just 5 miles further away on a different line into Paddington (and at the same time 08:30) cost her £22 ! She was happy with the deal she got, not complaining that both fares should have been £22 !
Can we have the opinions of either Barry Doe or Alex Nelson, the consultants of rail travel, on this issue please?
At the end of the day, I do not live anywhere near London. If commuters from the London area are happy with this price discrepancy in rail ticketing, i.e. charging a higher fare for the same return journey from A to B than one from B to A, it is not up to me to tell them otherwise as it is not my money that is going to be spent on these 'extra' train fares.
Perhaps the Office of Fair Trading might want to have a look at this issue and consider if they are happy with such practice from the train operating companies.
MarkyMarkD
25-03-2007, 10:39 PM
At the end of the day, AP, it doesn't matter in the slightest if you are happy with what you consider a price discrepancy. It's pricing based on supply/demand in both cases, and there's nothing wrong with it.
Roland
29-03-2007, 12:08 AM
The National Rail Conditions of Carriage are quite clear on this subject.
In section 17 it states that the outward portion of a ticket is only valid if the ticket is unused. Therefore the reverse usage of a return ticket is not allowed.
The PDF document with the full conditions can be found on the link below at the bottom of the central column.
http://nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/nrcc/
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