Great Western Coffee Shop

I've moved house (yet, again) back into GWR territory.  I'm currently looking for advance fares from Ash (or Ash Vale) to Bristol Temple Meads.

Selecting origin Ash gives advance fares starting at £11.50.  North Camp gives the same fare.

But choose Ash Vale and the fare is £12.00.  Only difference in the itinerary: "Walk from Ash Vale to North Camp".  A 50p  charge to walk under your own steam.

I wonder if there is any logic to this?

Looking at Brfares.com (http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=ASH&dest=BRI), the £11.50 fare is routed "Great Western Only", while the £12 fare is routed "AP Reading" and therefore has no TOC restriction. Looks like the walk between stations is not down as a GWR service! ;D ;D ;D

Not sure about logic, but ...
The base advance is £12.00 (and the SSS is £29.10) from Ash Vale, North Camp, and Ash. Those are all not via London, but no company resatriction.
From Ash Vale and North Camp, there are also "GWR only" advances (only) with a base price of £11.50. Presumably walking doesn't count as a GWR-operated service.

Whether there are any advances on sale for Bristol, let alone those cheap ones,  is another question.

If you try a bit further up the line and go from Frimley, there are no advances listed (the SSS is a similar but higher £30.70). From there, the routeing is via Ascot to Reading. So it does not look as if the Ash Vale fare is calculated that way, plus one stop, but was routed via feet.

I saw the warning of a newer post (which must have been hassaanhc's), but when I went to look for it there was none to be seen - even after refreshing by "preview" again. Ah well, must the the forum software showing its age again.

There are indeed cheap fares, I've just booked one for December.

Had to do a bit of work with the booking engine (Red Spotted Hanky, redeeming my Tesco vouchers) to get it though.  It offered the following itinerary on the 08:25 from Ash at £57.00 advance:

Ash - Reading 08:25-09:00
Reading - Bristol Parkway 09:11-10:04
Bristol Parkway - Bristol Temple Meads 10:12-10:24

But, specifying "avoid Bristol Parkway", I managed to get the following at £11.50:

Ash - Reading 08:25-09:00
Reading - Bristol Temple Meads 09:29-10:43

I'm happy to delay myself by 19 minutes to save £45.50, and also reduce the number of changes.  Presumably the cheapest fare is still available because most people don't know to add an avoid to the search.

Worth noting for the future - the Alton branch does not have advance flows set up and hasn't for some time (i.e. for journeys more than likely changing at Woking for destinations West). The only way currently is to split at Woking where advances are offered, which is more expensive overall.

When you read examples like what's above it makes you wonder how many everyday end up paying way more than they should because they don't know how they can save money by split ticketing, using via/avoid etc.

I would hazard a guess that between a fifth and a third of passengers booking a journey that's not common for them end up paying more than they need.   Looking at split, via / avoid, buying off-peak when super off-peak would do, not realising they could get a railcard or groupsave, not understanding the process of buying and excessing if the need arises, not realising that you can often break a journey but rather doing separate tickets, etc

Same as, for example, going to PC World & buying the first laptop you see because you like the look of it. Probably over/under-powered for what you want, with accessories you don't need or without those you do. Generally people are their worst enemy by not doing the research first.

I've found a couple of journeys where a via point can mean the difference between having Advance fares available or not.

Travelling from Hayes & Harlington, Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway or Acton Main Line to Chiltern destinations (or return) using a "Chiltern and Connections" fare, if the itinerary shown involves a Heathrow Connect service, there will be no Advance fares available. However, if it has a GWR service then Advance fares suddenly become available again. Hanwell loses out badly in this case :( .

Travelling from Hounslow and pretty much all other stations served by the Weybridge via Hounslow service, in the peaks these have the diamond "reservations available" symbol shown. However, this blocks reservations on these services, so Advance fares to/from pretty much any destination using those services will show as no Advance fares available. However, if the itinerary uses the circular Hounslow services then Advance fares start being shown again.

Southwest trains fares, hopefully that SWR will over time, sort out. But no guarantee that Advance fares will remain available of course. But hopefully

I think it is deliberate so that people don't undercut the Anytime Day Return. By "pretty much any destination" I meant other parts of the country using another operator's "& Connections" fares. Just managed to replicate it for EMT, GA, GWR, VTEC and VTWC destinations, where London Terminals or Zone U1 etc fares appear fine but not if you choose certain SWT stations. This is even worse for Feltham (and probably stations west), where pretty much every service in both peaks is barred for Advance fares of all operators.