Booking train tickets with FirstTransPennine

Murphy_The_Cat

For the last year or so, I've been booking long distance trips on the FirstTransPennine website, for maybe 1-3 trips per month.

At first, I thought that I was was mistaken, but now that I've repeatedly done the exercise, FirstTransPennine consistently gives lower fares (sometiomes much lower fares) & more options than National Rail, , Raileasy, EastCoast, Virgin, my train tickets, crosscountry.

As a good example, in June, myself & my daughter with a F&F railcard are having dayout to Inverness from our home in the Lake District. I've just run the trip through all of the above websites for another date in June and these are the results.
FTP to Inverness FIRST CLASS £42.00
FTP Inverness to home 2nd class £40.65

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total £82.65
or FTP to Inverness 2nd class return £81.25

National Rail £81.25 or an extra £221.75 if I do like for like with 1st class
East Coast, £81.25 return, or £42.00 to Inverness 1st Class & £73.01 back home 2nd class.
Virgin to Inverness £73.10 2nd class
Inverness - home £40.65 - £113.75
Raileasy £81.25 2nd class return, £303 first class return (unable to mix and match)
My train tickets £81.25, no first class option for the to Inverness leg.
cross Country £81.25 return, or an additional £221.75 for First Class one way.

All of the above fares are for the same trains, in either direction.


I don't imagine for a minute that FTP fares ALWAYS work out the cheapest, but for me, for the last year, I reckon that in over 60% of the trips that I've taken, they do !

Livingthedream

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I don't imagine for a minute that FTP fares ALWAYS work out the cheapest, but for me, for the last year, I reckon that in over 60% of the trips that I've taken, they do !

I always shop around for my train tickets and have accounts with numerous Train Companies and see which one is going to be the cheapest for a set journey with set caveats.

Normally use East Coast due to their superior booking engine and 10% off their advance fares, Virgin trains for their credit card discounts, Scotrail for their kids go free fares but one I've just joined is Redspottedhanky for the Tesco clubcard discount.

I avoid ones which charge debit/credit card fees or other booking fees ie trainline and raileasy.

Murphy_The_Cat

Livingthedream wrote: »

I always shop around for my train tickets and have accounts with numerous Train Companies and see which one is going to be the cheapest for a set journey with set caveats.
Scotrail for their kids go free fares but one I've just joined is Redspottedhanky for the Tesco clubcard discount.

I may be wide of the mark here, but when I book tickets with my F&F card, its cheaper for me to travel with a little'un, than it is to travel on my own. With the Scotrail kids go free promo, wouldn't that leave you on the wrong side of the deal - assuming that you have a F&F card.

Livingthedream

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I may be wide of the mark here, but when I book tickets with my F&F card, its cheaper for me to travel with a little'un, than it is to travel on my own. With the Scotrail kids go free promo, wouldn't that leave you on the wrong side of the deal - assuming that you have a F&F card.

No your right, it is cheaper to buy using your F&F card than the 'Kids go free' deal. However, I only buy my F&F railcard when there's a 25% discount offer, so when my old railcard runs out and until the next 25% discount code, I buy 'Kids go free' tickets.

geordieracer

I believe ( and havent checked) its because all First group companies give a discount for using their site when you are in the majority using their trains - just like East coast do if your travelling with them. And more so lately South Eastern are giving 20% or something off ALL fares booked through them.. Again I could be wrong but I just dont use the web to buy my tickets.

All website HAVE to offer the same fare for all trains and they are mainly all powered by the same software but a lot like to give extra discounts which they are allowed to do for fares themselves will set.

Dont worry about it being mind boggling though - it is for the ticket staff in offices too

Murphy_The_Cat

geordieracer wrote: »

I believe ( and havent checked) its because all First group companies give a discount for using their site when you are in the majority using their trains - just like East coast do if your travelling with them.
Dont worry about it being mind boggling though - it is for the ticket staff in offices too

Your possibly right, but the fares have consistently been cheaper/more choices throughout the country.
I don't know why this should be, but FTP have saved me a small fortune in the last year:D.

as an aside, when you log onto the different websites, you can soon 'feel' which ones are powered by the same software, & for some unusual reason FTP still offer more compertive/wider choice of fares.


strange, but true :beer:

geordieracer

Well then your looking into who sets the fare for the longer part of your journey - As your in the lakes then it is they who will in the main be the ones who set the fares for your journeys so they can just about always offer it cheaper as your booking through them. Its just patronage bonus really and they all do it.

Yorkie could tell you more(probably even point out if im wrong)

Murphy_The_Cat

geordieracer wrote: »

Well then your looking into who sets the fare for the longer part of your journey - As your in the lakes then it is they who will in the main be the ones who set the fares for your journeys so they can just about always offer it cheaper as your booking through them. Its just patronage bonus really and they all do it.

Yorkie could tell you more(probably even point out if im wrong)

& very nice it is to
For my Inverness trip, by some huge distance Scotrail (owned by First) is covering me for most of this particular trip and they were considerably more expensive than FTP.
But even on trips where I've not been on FTP metal (e.g Virgin), FTP have still usually undercut Mr Bransons fares by a reasonable amount & on a recent trip from Bournemouth to the North West, using Southern & Virgin, they were considerably cheaper than any other operator :eek:

If Yorkie could put some flesh on the bones, it would be quite interesting

yorkie2

geordieracer wrote: »

Well then your looking into who sets the fare for the longer part of your journey - As your in the lakes then it is they who will in the main be the ones who set the fares for your journeys so they can just about always offer it cheaper as your booking through them. Its just patronage bonus really and they all do it. Yorkie could tell you more(probably even point out if im wrong)

haha, thanks. If people want my opinion they're better off posting on Railforums.co.uk though! (or, if there's someone given really bad advice on here, someone can always send me a message there and I'll come over and do a load of corrections )

Each flow has a particular TOC that sets the inter-available walk-on fare. Other operators that operate on that flow may set their own TOC-specific walk-on fares.

But for Advance tickets, this pretty much goes out the window! For example, for Sheffield to Newcastle, you can get XC Only, EC & Connections and TPE & Connections fares. On the XC site you would be able to get 25% off on their current offer, for a non-Railcard holder that might be the best deal. But TPE often do 50% off deals for certain Railcard holders, while East Coast offer 10% off (or more for groups of 3 or more). In each of these three cases the offer is only available when you book the ticket priced by that TOC and on the same TOC's website. Which deal will be cheaper will vary depending on number of passengers, Railcards held, and the time of travel!

Other than the discounts for booking on the same website as the train operator, it shouldn't be the case that the exact same ticket type is cheaper on one website, than another, as they all use the same central reservation system, in other words if you book an EC ticket, you will get it cheaper on the EC website but other than that the price should be the same on all other websites. However the prices shown can vary if the last ticket has just been placed into someone's basket; the other websites may not see this change immediately giving the false impression that the other site is cheaper (but when you try to actually book it at the lower price, you will get an error).

In general I always book with EC, as many of my journeys are with EC, and I like to keep my bookings in one place, also they operate my station and the machines so less complications if problems do occur. However I will make exceptions where there are decent savings to be had by booking with the operator I am travelling with in order to benefit from their savings.

Murphy_The_Cat

yorkie2 wrote: »

But for Advance tickets, this pretty much goes out the window! For example, for Sheffield to Newcastle, you can get XC Only, EC & Connections and TPE & Connections fares. On the XC site you would be able to get 25% off on their current offer, for a non-Railcard holder that might be the best deal. But TPE often do 50% off deals for certain Railcard holders, while East Coast offer 10% off (or more for groups of 3 or more). In each of these three cases the offer is only available when you book the ticket priced by that TOC and on the same TOC's website. Which deal will be cheaper will vary depending on number of passengers, Railcards held, and the time of travel!

Other than the discounts for booking on the same website as the train operator, it shouldn't be the case that the exact same ticket type is cheaper on one website, than another, as they all use the same central reservation system, in other words if you book an EC ticket, you will get it cheaper on the EC website but other than that the price should be the same on all other websites. However the prices shown can vary if the last ticket has just been placed into someone's basket; the other websites may not see this change immediately giving the false impression that the other site is cheaper (but when you try to actually book it at the lower price, you will get an error).

ref Advance Tickets, I should have made that clearer in my first post that the tickets were Advance Tickets.:beer:.

The next time that I'm booking a 'decent' trip, and TPE once again come out cheapest, I'll post the details on here and you'll be able to see what I can see, but more importantly, you have the wherewithall to tell me/us why :)