10% discount offered by email.

[whole diary]

[soupowl]

 I received an email from First Great Western, with whom I am a frequent traveller.  It offered me a 10% discount on fares.  The fare I normally pay is ^20.00, from London to Swindon, on an advance internet booking.
I clicked on the link, and was taken to the 10% discount page.  When I put in the journey details, it came up with my normal ^20 fare, then added ^2.20 on, then deducted ^2.20, leaving me with my original fare of ^20.00!!

When  I contacted FGW^▸ (First Great Western) about this, they first  sent me back an email denying all knowledge of a discount being offered.  When I persisted, they sent me another email saying not to worry, that although the discount does not appear on the payment page, I would see that it would be discounted when I got my bank statement.
I have just received my bank statement, and I have been charged ^60 (for 3 journeys) which is what I would normally pay.  Has anyone else experienced this stunning piece of dishonesty? I am going to try and take it further, suggestions would be welcome about how to get some redress.

[JayMac]

Is what you 'normally pay' the fare you were buying before September 6th?

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) increased their advance ticket prices by 11% from this date. They also began offering the 10% online discount (only available on their website, not stations or other ticket selling websites) to keep the FGW advance fares at the pre-increase prices.

So, not really a discount, just maintaining the status-quo. But only if you buy from FGW website. If you buy your advance ticket from anywhere else it will cost 11% more than it would've done prior to Sept 6th.

[eightf48544]

I see this is posted in "Fare's Fair" perhaps it should be in "Smoke and Mirrors"

It's a pity the RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) consultation doesn't give us a chance to add "Sort out the fare system".

This is a recurrent theme on this board, the vast descrepancies you can pay for the same journey on the same train depending on how, when and where you buy your ticket.

I posted elsewhere that I even thought my two recent journeys on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) were too cheap. Being ^12.55 (now 13.95 but still cheap) Taplow Bristol and ^10.50 Gloucester Taplow both First Class with Senior Railcard. I would have happily paid ^20 for each First Class.

But even at these cheap fares I had a 48 seat coach virtually to myself on each journey.

What I would not have paid is  ^61.40 for anytime First Class fare.

Can anyone explain why the Off Peak First class single is shown as ^76.55 when the anytime is ^61.40?