Buying tickets via the GWR web site: issue with railcards

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

Not travellng a lot by train at the moment and I've forgotten how the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) tickets site works. It lets me select two adults but not apply two railcards. It knows when I add more railcards than people and grumbles, but add two and confirm and the 'Railcards' field displays that one has been applied. What am I missing please, anyone?

Mark

[eightonedee]

I have had this in the past. I've ended up just going through the procedure to buy one ticket twice.

My gripe with the site is that it insists I should register as a customer with them before proceeding to buy. I complained to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and was told that they were aware of this and looking into it. I am afraid I just resent having to register with any vendor for casual purchases, and it's worse when it is what seems to be effectively a monopoly supplier. Even Amazon (that I have reservations about using having regard to their adverse effect on other retail businesses) seem to have no problem allowing you to "sign in as a guest". 

[grahame]

I have had this in the past. I've ended up just going through the procedure to buy one ticket twice.

My gripe with the site is that it insists I should register as a customer with them before proceeding to buy. I complained to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and was told that they were aware of this and looking into it. I am afraid I just resent having to register with any vendor for casual purchases, and it's worse when it is what seems to be effectively a monopoly supplier. Even Amazon (that I have reservations about using having regard to their adverse effect on other retail businesses) seem to have no problem allowing you to "sign in as a guest". 

The change of the underlying web site / engine a few months ago has certainly removed a number of facilities that were useful, or made them harder to find.    A move from a useful site to one that's functional for straightforward use.

[Mark A]

Thanks, both. Checking GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s advance fares, whether it's the quotas or the demand, the advance purchase offer for morning peak  travel with a rail card bottoms out at £85 one way** so isn't good at the moment.

Also, given a pair of medical considerations, inflexible travel constraints pose a risk.

An option is to railhead it to Didcot Parkway and an off peak day return at £25:10 (but another option, given the hassle of getting to and from the station here and in the continued absence of the just-after-nine-am train through to Waterloo is to simply do something else.)

Mark

To be fair there are some instances of AP fares from Bath Spa to Paddington at £16.60 at a month's horizon (and on the 05:35...)

[plymothian]

There are separate fields that appear in the railcard selection that you have to alter to how many people it applies to eg when you select Senior Railcard, there's another drop down box to select how many people this railcard applies to; when you select Friends and Family, a 3rd option appears to separate out the adults from the children.