Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm looking into several trips this autumn and getting indications that some of the very good fare deals that I have used in the past may not be available.  A quiet way of putting up prices or of restricting access, perhaps?

In particular I have noted:
* Sail Rail tickets (to Ireland) not being offered
* Spirit of Scotland and various rovers not being available.
* Advance tickets Melksham to London consistenty higher in price?

On the advance tickets ... look at next week, I can go four times the distance from London if I head to Edinburgh for under twice th price.

Above post is just a feeling that overall prices may be increasing through the back door of removing or reducing availablity of some of the more cost effective stuff.  There is an interesting argument to follow that, suggesting that it's going to cost more per passenger to run services at the "new full" capacity, and prices should go up to cover that.

With numbers travelling relatively low, throughout the travelling day, combined with the continuation of the 'insurance scheme' the incentive to offer discounts has dropped considerably. I'd expect this to be the case well into 2021 if not until 2022.

Sadly, I think my planned last-minute trip to Scotland next week has been 'bumped' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-54011504 .  Ah well - next year?

Looking at one of my regular routes - Paddington/Reading to Carmarthen prices are high and there don't appear to be any discounted tickets at all on the dates I've tried in September. Trainline has no tickets at all for many days on the direct service and GWR had a standard single Reading to Carmarthen at £144. There are cheaper tickets earlier in the day with changes but they don't really fit my travel plans.

Have GWR stopped doing advance/discounted tickets or will they appear once the timetable has been finalised? Or is this a reaction to managing numbers on the train?

Be a shame to have to blow all my savings on my annual season ticket on a couple of tickets to West Wales. More likely I won't travel.

Trying to use some business logic on this issue, from a TOC point of view cheap tickets are not there to do their passengers a favour; they are sold to fill therwise empty seats.

Empty seats are effectivey being encouraged by the current social distancing restrictions, so the TOCs have no need to fill them.

I also wonder whether, given that all TOCs are being subsideised at the moment, whether the DfT has any input into the matter.

Using some business logic, it may be possible to raise demand by enticing customers back onto the railways with lower prices.

Worked pretty well for restaurants.

Yes but how much capacity is there if you need to maintain social distancing? And how easy is it to predict? In normal times I guess TOCs can predict the volume of walk on ravel quite well, but now?

There is also the matter that others have raised of the hand of the DfT who now control things rather more than before. They want to get people back into offices (even where it is not necessary for the functioning of the office) do they want to discourage this by making commuters worried that the trains are too full?  They may not be so worried about leisure travel unless it generates GDP. 

We noticed this too, Normally two of us from Bristol to Plymouth is about £79 with me having the railcard. But recently the price was about £140. We decided to travel by car and use the Park & Ride instead. Worked out about £17 each, £34 in total including the bus fare.

Whether it will provide any cheaper tickets I don't know, but GWR have bookings open until 4th December for Monday to Friday services, 21st November for Saturdays and 15th November for Sundays.

That is further ahead than has been possible for a while.

I don't get why train companies can't follow airlines and let you book long term advanced, for example from now all the way until the next timetable change in March.

That had occurred to me too.

For my particular route - Reading to Carmarthen - I've not found a single discounted ticket in my random sampling (essentially days I might travel). I do understand why social distancing might mean no discounts but the route is hardly busy in normal times. I'm willing to travel but I'm not going to pay full price fares on what will also be an empty train. Offer me a discount and i'll book a ticket.

Where have all the bargains gone?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54375476 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54375476)
Into the TOC/DfT pockets?

Still getting some good advance fares from Paddington to Cornwall particularly on the evening  (1704,1804,1904)trains

The headlines of that story ...


I smell another animated discussion here like the railcard extension one  ;D ;D

Comes down to balancing income and rules that are easy to enforce versus wanting to provide a positive and understanding environment for customers caught.   

Management overview:  Government sells people rail tickets which they buy to journey to visit friends, then government renders those tickets useless to them by adding travel restrictions.  Government refuses a full refund.  Job for "Watchdog"?

I don't know who you could possibly be thinking of  ;D

I see this rather differently from a railcard, which is not in itself a pemit to travel. An advance ticket is a permit to travel on  given day at a specified time for a given price between two apecified points.

I fully understand that buying an advance ticket is essentially always going to be ganble, in which the puchaser hopes thay will able to make the journey on the specified date and at the specified time, and I can see the logic behnd a no refund policy; after all its not the railways fault if you miss the train or now have to go to Uncle Freds funeral instead or whatever.

But this is different. At present the TOCs are running services essentially on contract to the government, As I understbd it (and please correct me if Im wrong) the government gets all the revenue and pays the TOC for providing the service. Therefore, in essence, the money goes to the government and not the TOC.

And it is the government, not the TOCs, who have laid down the rules on what people can or cant do in areas with local COVID restrictions.

I would say therefore that logic lies on the side of those wanting refunds if there is no point in thm making their journeys on that given day because the governments restrictions prevent them from doing what they had in mind to do at their journeys end.

Whether the law could be shown to be on the side of those wanting refunds is of course another atter entirely!

I'd look at it a different way. In March the pandemic and lockdown came reasonably out of the blue, and nobody could have expected to have been in a situation whereby the government ruled by law that you couldn't travel.  So it was entirely appropriate that you were offered a refund. (Disclosure:  I did get a refund on some advance tickets.)

Now it's different. It's been very clear that the position was much more uncertain, and quite likely to deteriorate. So if you took a gamble with an advance ticket you did it in the knowledge that you might not be able to, or want to, travel.  You took the gamble, lost, but want your money back. (Further Disclosure: I was planning to make a journey recently, didn't purchase an advance ticket precisely for that reason and was prepared to pay more for a walk up ticket. As it happens, the rule of 6 meant I didn't travel. I didn't gamble, and didn't lose any money.)

You make some very valid points Celestial, so much that you have made me chamge my mind. Buying a non-refundable advance ticket whilst pandemic restrictions might be quickly applied is just one more risk that needs to be taken into account in deliberations. It is not as though more expensive but refundabkl and less risky tickets are not available.

Which only goes toss how that even when I come down on the side of the customer Im still wrong  ;D