Offering the cheapest rail ticket - any rules?

wealdroam

macliam wrote: »

Thank you. I don't like being called a liar - particularly by someone who has no evidence to support it.
I have actually used RSH regularly since they came on the scene and tried them first for this offer - so I have plenty of experience with using their site.
Unfortunately, my wife had already been told about the £10 deal (which WAS a special) .... that's why I tried the Trainline.
So everything I said was true - except in your opinion.......

Macliam, I also responded to your post of nearly three months ago...

wealdroam wrote: »

I find it difficult to believe that RSH's price for exacly the same ticket was over twice as much, but as you haven't given any details it is impossible to comment further.

Any more details available?

macliam

wealdroam wrote: »

Macliam, I also responded to your post of nearly three months ago...

Any more details available?

As far as I am aware it was a Xmas/New Year offer. So if nobody had the deal, I would not have been surprised.

However I had credit with RSH so tried them first - and the cheapest option available was as stated. I tried theTrainline out of interest and they did have the £10 deal, but the "extras" made it more expensive than buying direct.

I don't know the mechanics, the whys or the wherefores and I don't actually give a monkey's whether anyone believes me or not - I was passing on my findings and have no reason to lie.

RSH have been good and I have used them many times, but this example proved to me that they are not reliable and I thought it best to remind people know that they should always check.

dzug1

macliam wrote: »

RSH have been good and I have used them many times, but this example proved to me that they are not reliable and I thought it best to remind people know that they should always check.

One isolated instance does not make them 'not reliable' but just shows that occasional glitches are unavoidable with a booking system of this size and complexity whatever company you book though

The question is how far it's worth checking. Every selling company? Sounds overkill to me. One or two alternatives - maybe. Depends on your knowledge of the route and what you think you 'ought' to find.

macliam

dzug1 wrote: »

One isolated instance does not make them 'not reliable' but just shows that occasional glitches are unavoidable with a booking system of this size and complexity whatever company you book though

The question is how far it's worth checking. Every selling company? Sounds overkill to me. One or two alternatives - maybe. Depends on your knowledge of the route and what you think you 'ought' to find.

Enough already - I'm not prepared to discuss further as I have a life. What I said happened, happened - I will not be called a liar. I also have little tolerance for "glitches" that part me from my cash - to me that means I cannot rely on the website, ergo it is unreliable.

If you don't agree with my conclusion or the suggestion that people need to check, then so be it. I am not trying to sell or advocate anything - so people can make up their own minds.

Now I'll leave you experts to play amongst yourselves.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

macliam wrote: »

As far as I am aware it was a Xmas/New Year offer. So if nobody had the deal, I would not have been surprised.

However I had credit with RSH so tried them first - and the cheapest option available was as stated. I tried theTrainline out of interest and they did have the £10 deal, but the "extras" made it more expensive than buying direct.

I don't know the mechanics, the whys or the wherefores and I don't actually give a monkey's whether anyone believes me or not - I was passing on my findings and have no reason to lie.

RSH have been good and I have used them many times, but this example proved to me that they are not reliable and I thought it best to remind people know that they should always check.

There have been a lot of deals lately that certain 3rd party booking engines have been offering like the said fare in question and also I remember TTL doing a £10 E/W London to Manchester promotion through January too. These you will not find on any other booking engines including TOCs own.

Like the portas Pilot ticket which is £10 return from London to Margate including on the high speed line for £10. This can only be found on the Southeastern website through them.

This does not mean other 3rd party booking engines 'Do Not ' offer the best fare, simply it is not their promotion.

These promotions as such are to increase patronage of their own websites so they take the hit on them.

martinbuckley

photome wrote: »

Why do pepps start threads and then not update on the outcome:D.

Op has been active on the forum through december

Probably because they dont like to admit they were wrong at the outset. If someone wants a ticket from Stockport to Coventry, then they get charged for that journey, not Stockport to Stoke and then a Day Ranger.

For those who want to save money on split ticketing, the onus is on you to investigate and request the particular journey that saves you cash. Imagine the queues at the booking office if the ticket seller had to scan every fare for split ticketing across every station!

silvercar

wealdroam wrote: »

I find it difficult to believe that RSH's price for exacly the same ticket was over twice as much, but as you haven't given any details it is impossible to comment further.

callum9999 wrote: »

The only time RSH can be beaten that I'm aware of is when the individual train operators have special offers on their own website (e.g. Crosscountry do 10% off all their advance tickets) - which isn't very often.

RSH can often be beaten on price. I even took this up with them and they said that the train operators don't offer them all ticket types to sell.

Try booking an off-peak return from Manchester to Watford with virgin trains. Virgin trains own website have a web only off peak return that RSH don't sell. You can even pair up a web only off peak single with an Advanced ticket for the other journey, again not visible on RSH.

RSH know they don't offer all tickets, yet they still claim to be the cheapest way of buying.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

silvercar wrote: »

RSH can often be beaten on price. I even took this up with them and they said that the train operators don't offer them all ticket types to sell.

Try booking an off-peak return from Manchester to Watford with virgin trains. Virgin trains own website have a web only off peak return that RSH don't sell. You can even pair up a web only off peak single with an Advanced ticket for the other journey, again not visible on RSH.

RSH know they don't offer all tickets, yet they still claim to be the cheapest way of buying.

If you read their adverts, the same as all 3rd party ticket retailers, you will see that they say they offer cheaper prices then the walk up tickets.

NOT that they will be the cheapest of all sellers.

silvercar

Jeff_Bridges_hair wrote: »

If you read their adverts, the same as all 3rd party ticket retailers, you will see that they say they offer cheaper prices then the walk up tickets.

NOT that they will be the cheapest of all sellers.

Not quite:

"redspottedhanky.com price promise is there to give you the peace of mind that we have searched all the available fares and are offering you the best fares for your journey. If you find the same journey and ticket cheaper for that train and date, then we will refund the difference in loyalty points to your account."

So allegedly they have searched all available fares and are offering you the best fares, except they don't search train operators own websites. I understand that they can't offer tickets that they can't get hold of, but they should be honest about what they are claiming.

RSH price promise

sghughes42

martinbuckley wrote: »

Probably because they dont like to admit they were wrong at the outset. If someone wants a ticket from Stockport to Coventry, then they get charged for that journey, not Stockport to Stoke and then a Day Ranger.

For those who want to save money on split ticketing, the onus is on you to investigate and request the particular journey that saves you cash. Imagine the queues at the booking office if the ticket seller had to scan every fare for split ticketing across every station!

No, it's more that I'd given up as I was getting nowhere with either EMT or Passenger Focus and had better things to worry about.

FWIW - and this is detailed in my posts - I had investigated the options. I'd done it online, wasting no-ones time but my own and had been offered the ranger plus other tickets on one site, and different tickets again on the EMT site.

The ticket I bought was the cheapest on offer through any one site. This was because I couldn't get the site that offered the ranger to offer tickets on the trains that the EMT site offered.

In hindsight I should have bought the ranger through one site and the other tickets through another but this was late at night and the journey was early the following morning. I can't remember if that option didn't occur to me or if I didn't fancy the risk of collecting two orders from the ticket machine at the station and finding one didn't work for whatever reason.

Either way, I see no reason to admit to being wrong as I did the research and found the options, I simply wasn't able to purchase it in a single transaction. Further, based on the information I had at the time it appeared the ranger tickets were not available on the trains. Had I known this I could have bought one on the day.

The topic of clerks spending ages searching for the cheapest ticket has been mentioned twice on this thread. I'm sure I saw something a while back where someone had created a program to search for ticket splitting options. I can't locate it at the moment but it surely would not be that complex - the work on calculating routes has already been done, all you'd need to do is compare the fare options along those routes.

Of course, a better system would be to follow almost every other country in the world and make ticket prices relate to distance travelled so you don't get daft oddities where you can save considerable amounts of money by searching for multiple tickets...