National Express funfares booking loophole

caliston

I've just discovered an oddity in the booking system for National Express' lowcost 'funfare' tickets. Two people want to travel together on a return journey. The journey planner says 'from £1' against the buses for each leg. If you say one person is travelling the price is quoted as £2 return, while if you say two people are travelling the price for two is £16. That would suggest the second ticket is £14 return. But if you book the first ticket (there's no booking fee, so it doesn't cost anything to book separately) then go back, the price each way has gone up to 'from £4' and the new fare is quoted at £8 return. Total cost £10, not £16.

alanrowell

Pretty standard for booking software - same applies for airlines & not just the low costs ones

The software looks at your total booking and finds the lowest price that matches that booking - ie if you book for 2 then it will look for 2 seats. It can't give you the lowest price because there's only one seat left so it goes to the next price band up

caliston

That's true. Though in this case there really aren't any penalties to booking separately: no booking fee, and if the funfares are offered the bus is nowhere near full so there's little chance of it selling out between first and second bookings. Especially since (on the route I was testing anyway) there's exactly one £1 funfare per bus, so that's an indication that no funfares have sold.

Another note is that there are two funfare stops in my town. After leaving the central stop the bus passes the other in the suburbs. There are plenty of £1 funfares available from the suburbs, but few for the central stop - probably since it's the bus station and so busy. But the full price ticket for the 10 minute journey central-surburbs is £1 single, so you could save by booking a funfare from the suburbs then paying full price for centre-suburbs. There's always going to be a seat free since they have to leave space for you to get on in the suburbs anyway.

highguyuk

And dont forget Quidco for some cashback when booking ...

FluffyFiFi

I am trying to book a funfare for my parent's who are both over 60, but funfares are only available upto 59 years of age. Surely it can't be fair to get pensioners to pay more for their fare. The funfare is £1.00 but the OAP rate is £9.50, which is a big difference for those on a pension. Do you think the bus driver would challenge them if I just go ahead and book the funfare?

dzug

FluffyFiFi wrote: »

I am trying to book a funfare for my parent's who are both over 60, but funfares are only available upto 59 years of age. Surely it can't be fair to get pensioners to pay more for their fare. The funfare is £1.00 but the OAP rate is £9.50, which is a big difference for those on a pension. Do you think the bus driver would challenge them if I just go ahead and book the funfare?

Of course he wouldn't - fun fares are available to anyone.

Where you get the up to 59 from I don't know. I can't see it on the web site. If you put an over 60 age in it still offers you the fun fare as one of the alternatives whether it's cheaper or not

FluffyFiFi

It didn't for me, the price went up when I put the over 60 option in, but it could be that the fun fares had all gone.

Keirdre

Don't wish to bump an old thread...but this tip really is useful.

I used to sort out transport for a band of 7. It was always significantly cheaper to book a 4 then a 3 rather than book all 7 at once. It seems that you can only book a certain number of £5 funfares together in one transaction. Break it up, and you can keep on getting them.

Just got 3 adult returns from Oxford to Luton Airport for £32 (2 adults @ £5 each way, 1 adult at £6 each way) rather than the £42 I was offered when buying 3 together.

Always worth checking!