Newbie asking question about advance tickets London -> Oxford / Didcot, please

[whole diary]

[Rostock0]

Hello. I regularly travel from Oxford or Didcot down to London on Monday mornings, and back on Friday afternoons. Despite some careful study, I have found the advance ticket situation to be completely baffling, and I was hoping some wise experts could help. I tried calling GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) but no joy there. Sorry if this is in the wrong place.

1) Advance tickets from Didcot to Paddington (and Paddington to Didcot) just simply don't seem to exist. I've never seen any for sale any time for any date. Is this true, please? Or do they just sell out very quickly? It's especially weird because I have sometimes bought an advance ticket from Oxford to Paddington that calls at Didcot. My advance from Oxford to Paddington cost £11:50, whereas Didcot to Paddington (a shorter journey on the exact same train) was only available at the full price of £31.50

2) Similarly, there don't seem to be any advance tickets ever for the Paddington to Oxford route on a Friday evening. Do they just not sell them for a peak time like that?

3) The advance tickets from Oxford to Paddington seem to come on sale at random times, and it seem you just need to be lucky when looking for them. For example I bought an advance ticket for the first week of December several weeks ago, but I could only buy one for mid-December from last week. and I can't buy one for January 2018 at all. Is there a way to be aware of when advance tickets go on sale?

4) Do Advance tickets ever go DOWN in price? I assumed that they would only go up as you get nearer the date because the cheaper ones will sell out. I saw an advance ticket for £20 from Oxford to London, and I wasn't sure whether to buy it then or wait and see if more tickets got released at a cheaper price. Does that ever happen, please?

All help and advice gratefully received. Thanks.

[paul7575]

Easy answer first, there are no Advance fares for Didcot to Paddington.

For Oxford, there are plenty of Advance options in the fares system, but the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) are under no obligation to offer them on any particular train.

Your best bet is to look as far ahead as you can in a journey planner (12 weeks max) and see if any ever appear.

Paul

[didcotdean]

Competition from the frequent coach services and more recently Chiltern encouraged the offering of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Advance tickets to London from Oxford.

Such tickets have not been sold from Didcot, even when they have been offered on services from Oxford requiring a change at Didcot, let alone a stop on a through service.

[grahame]

Hello. I regularly travel from Oxford or Didcot down to London on Monday mornings, and back on Friday afternoons. Despite some careful study, I have found the advance ticket situation to be completely baffling, and I was hoping some wise experts could help. I tried calling GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) but no joy there. Sorry if this is in the wrong place.

Welcome to the Coffee Shop.

Very much the right place to ask, but please don't expect an easy or totally logical answer - this is rail 

Advance fares are designed to fill seats at times that they wouldn't otherwise fill, so there will be very few of them or just a token offering at busy times, and (as others have commented) they are more likely to be available where there is competition. Prices rarely go down ... it *has* been known, but it's rare.

[TonyK]

Welcome from me, too!

I have looked at the up fare for 13 November from Oxford to Paddington. I found the same £11.50 fare. Friday 17 November has a £10.50 fare from Paddington to Oxford on the 1450 and 1522 and a bargain £8.50 on the 1601. Any use?

[ray951]

Such tickets have not been sold from Didcot, even when they have been offered on services from Oxford requiring a change at Didcot, let alone a stop on a through service.

Bizarrely its quite common to see the Oxford to London Advance tickets advertised on posters at Didcot Parkway. That has never made any sense to me.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hello. I regularly travel from Oxford or Didcot down to London on Monday mornings, and back on Friday afternoons. Despite some careful study, I have found the advance ticket situation to be completely baffling, and I was hoping some wise experts could help. I tried calling GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) but no joy there. Sorry if this is in the wrong place.
...
All help and advice gratefully received. Thanks.

Welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, Rostock0. 

You are in exactly the right place, but please be prepared to learn that there are no definitive answers to your very valid questions - as grahame has already posted, this is the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) rail ticketing system, after all! 

[Rostock0]

Welcome from me, too!

I have looked at the up fare for 13 November from Oxford to Paddington. I found the same £11.50 fare. Friday 17 November has a £10.50 fare from Paddington to Oxford on the 1450 and 1522 and a bargain £8.50 on the 1601. Any use?

Thanks for looking that up, but sadly not: It's first thing in the morning on a Monday for me.

Though actually I have popped into London for a day trip occasionally to do some shopping, and I have to say that the journey from Oxford Parkway to Marylebone for £12 there and £5.50 back seemed very reasonably priced to me for a pleasant journey to and from nice stations. This new route run by Chiltern should be good competition for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

[ChrisB]

Monday morning is a very popular time for travel & thus the operator doesn't need to rely on cheap Advance fares to fill seats.