Chromatic
Legendary Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
You're joking here aren't you? My wife often travels by train for work and, from experience, to get there on time as per the timetable is the last thing she expects.
Train ticket prices make no sense
- Thread starter Pale Rider
- Start date
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You're joking here aren't you? My wife often travels by train for work and, from experience, to get there on time as per the timetable is the last thing she expects.
jonesy
Guru
You can often guess where the good splitting locations are: look for boundaries between different train operators, major junctions etc. Banbury, Swindon, Cheltenham, Derby, Nottingham are ones I'm aware of or have used.
Smurfy
Naturist Smurf
- Location
- Smurfette's Kitchen
Will pale rider be in trouble if he buys first class, then sits in second class with his mates?
Jefferson Meriwether
Veteran
- Location
- Worthing
I always play around to find the cheapest price I can. I'm traveling up to Liverpool in about 9 weeks time and paid £36 for two advanced tickets instead of the standard £129 for one off peak ticket. It's definitely worth having a play around.
contadino
Veteran
- Location
- Chesterfield
Mega bus/megatrain took my wife from London to Chesterfield for £1.50 last month and 50p of that was a booking fee. The return leg was about £7. You'd need a very fuel efficient car to beat that.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
The ticket splitting sites do deliver savings but none of them came close to the the fare that I obtained from a manual split. The Moneysaving expert site came up with a £110 or thereabouts fare the other two came up with £120+ and £130+ for the same journey on the same day.
The three sites are all probably using different algorithms and cannot deal with all of the permutaions, variables and vagaries of the fare structure. They all do what they claim; they deliver appreciable savings but none of them deliver the cheapest fares.
jefmcg
Guru
Who knows what is the actual cost of the service? Maybe it's somewhere between the two prices, lower than both or higher than both. Then they obviously need to make some profit, have something in reserve for emergencies, and there is the cost of the tracks and the whole railway infrastructure.
They have to have some people paying the full fare, otherwise the trains can't run. After that, it's better to fill the seats for less money, as long as it's more than the extra cost of fuel to lug them around. But they have to make these prices a little harder to get, or no one would pay the full prices.
It's like a coffee shop: almost every coffee costs the same to make (within a few pence) but the prices vary by 100% or more. They could charge the same for a giant coffee with whipped cream and flavouring as for a simple americano, but then they'd lose a lot of money or customers. If price is a factor, order the americano. If whipped cream and hazelnut syrup (shudder!) are your thing and you can afford it, you can pay more.
My issue is you and your friend both go to the same coffee shop and order the same beverage at the same time,
One costs £1 the other £2
neil_merseyside
Guru
- Location
- Wirral
But one of you got the last £1 promo coffee and the other had to pay the next price band.
subaqua
What’s the point
- Location
- Leytonstone
i suggest you read definition of theft , and have a read of economics 1.01
its not ripping people off, its setting the tickets at a market value. you want easy you pay for that
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
Our station, 150 miles from Chicago, and about the same from St. Louis, has one of the largest ticket sales in the Midwest, and is competitive with most stations on the Northeast Corridor, where most of the train travel in the U.S. takes place. Our ticket prices, 2 weeks in advance, are less than parking in Chicago. Usually when Mrs. GA travels on business, it is about 20.00-30.00 US, or 15-20 pounds.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Price comparisons with the USA aren't fair. In the UK, I've had various incidents affect my rail journeys, from derailments to lightning strikes and floods, and the railway companies have always got me home, usually on time or very near. In the USA, one freight train derailed and it was "if I were you, I'd have a refund" with no attempt to arrange alternative services or apparently any interest in helping anyone left stranded. It's a completely different operating model, like comparing a megabus with luxury coaches.
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
That's odd, they usually bus you around the problem, and have a train at the next town.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Well, I should have been on a southbound service from Washington DC. I don't know if different rules apply to different routes but the small print on the tickets was definitely on their side.
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
I've always preferred train travel, but I grew up around good pre-Amtrak providers, and they retained their customer base when Amtrak came in in 1972. Excepting the Rock Island, which was poorly maintained, late, but cheery. Claiming they did not have the money to enter Amtrak, they ran their trains on their own until 1980.
