Price matching online with National Express trains

CameronD

There's been a lot about National Express (NE) giving the same 10% discount that GNER used to. So, for example, you can get from Edinburgh to London for £14 on their site, but £15.70 on Trainline.

But what they also do is pricematch. Try it for Edinburgh - Salisbury. NE will start by giving you a default price of £30.70 for their own service via Kings Cross and Waterloo. (Of course, Trainline is 10% more).

But then (still on the NE website) tick the "Show me Virgin Crosscountry" services. It brings up the VXC services via Basingstoke (£25) or Bristol (£23) ... and drops the price of its own service via London to £23 to match!! So you can now get the more expensive route via London for the price of the cheapest and slower route via Bristol!!

But that's not all. Say I'm just going from Edinburgh to London. On the day I was looking at, I couldn't get the NE online £14 fare to London until the 11:00 service - the 08:00 service was £24.50. But I could save £1.50 by buying the pricematch ticket to Salisbury on that service for £23, and throwing away the part for the Salisbury train.

Life has just got more complicated ...

RichyRich

Hi Cameron, and welcome to MSE.

I thought it was complicated enough already, and now there's one more site I'll have to check before I book any tickets! Ah well, all in the name of moneysaving, eh?

Just a heads up about buying a ticket from a point before you actually board - this is referred to as "travelling short" and as far as I'm aware is a big no-no as far as the TOCs are concerned, being against the National Rail Conditions of Carriage or somesuch.

Thanks for the info!

Rich

CameronD

Hi Rich,

I agree re travelling short, at either end of the journey, but when it's a case of getting off at Kings Cross and not getting onto the next train out of Waterloo, there's not a lot they can do about it ...

Neil

ticketcollector

Traveling Short...

Basicly if you are traveling short because it is a cheaper fare, then the Train company has the right to charge you the difference between the fare youve paid and the fare to the stop you traveled short to.
e.g.
London to Bristol = £50
London to Weston Super Mare = £40
Bristol to Weston Super Mare = £15
you get off at Bristol, using the WSM ticket (several stops eariler) the Train Company has the right to charge you an extra £10.

RichyRich

I think that CameronD's point was not that travelling short is lawful, but that enforcement is an issue. Take for example a journey between Peterborough and Portsmouth, which involves changing at Kings Cross, a tube to Waterloo and a South West Trains train to the South Coast.

For arguments sake, let's assume that buying that ticket was cheaper than a ticket from Peterborough to London.

If the passenger gets off at London Kings Cross and out of the ticket barrier, but just never goes to Waterloo, who'd know? Nobody. So how would the penalty fare be applied?