FirstMinuteFares - where are they???

[courgettelawn]

FGW have obviously spent a lot of time designing their discounted fares scheme.  Not only does it have FIVE levels of discount, it claims prices so low "you have to bend down to see them."

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/BuyTickets.aspx

Please help me someone!  I have spent really a long time trying to use the FGW website to find any opportunity to buy a discount fare for any day in the weeks before Christmas travelling from Salisbury to St Austell. 

Can it be done on any of these mysterious fares?

[WyvusArconius]

I dont know if I can be of any help, but I use the first minute fares quite regulary. over the summer i used them to go from Chippenham to Penzance for £13 single!!. They can be quite useful but sometimes they dont alway display all of the options. And my partner and I have sometimes found that when she searches for the same journey she can find a cheaper ticket for th same trip im looking at! Quirks of the system I fear. Let me know if you are still struggling

Daniel

[courgettelawn]

The problem I get is that there seem to be none on offer to me from Salisbury to Cornwall.  Is this because the whole week before Christmas is considered peak? Or perhaps I'm too early?  It's a mystery, perhaps I will telephone them. 

[Nick Field]

I think all first minite fares are singles, normally you have to click on the banner where it says 'two singles could be cheaper than a return'  I usually try and go for the 1st class fares when booking these which can work out to be quite good value.  Assume you will be travelling via Westbury on your journey courgettelawn?

[stuj]

You can book upto the 19th December at the moment, so have a look if you want a ticket before this date. If not, wait a couple of days and it'll soon be up.

[courgettelawn]

Thank you for the advices. I did click on the link to single fares but none seemed available at discount.  I will keep trying.

[Graham Ellis]

... I did click on the link to single fares but none seemed available at discount. ...

Yeah ... sometimes I think they're more of a carrot to draw in customers than something that accounts for a serious number of passengers ....

I was offered 20 different Melksham to London fares the other day ... but the site would only sell me 4 of the five most expensive.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4405.0

[Sion Bretton]

Did you know that a Standard Day return From Melksham to Bristol TM Is £8.20 but a cheap day return is £8.90.

Today they tried a cheap day but I did get the conductor to issue a standard, she could not understand why this was the case,

Thanks to the nice lady.

[courgettelawn]

Well this afternoon I tried the telephone.  I called FGW customer services where I was told unless I was actually buying a ticket there and then I couldn't simply find out which journeys were eligible for cheap Leisure Advance fares.  I was pinged to National Rail Enquiries who then told me to call FGW again.  I insisted at least on finding out which journeys were eligible and at least got some times.  I was also told that travelling from Salisbury to St Austell would qualify for tickets between £12.85-£18.15 subject to availability.  I checked the FGW website again and none of the cheap fares were available for the journeys given to me by National Rail Enquiries.  I was not overly surprised but this is frustrating none the less.

Now bearing in mind I started looking for these fares in September I thought that was early enough in terms of being in time for at least a few fares to be 'available' but there was nothing then and nothing now, not for any time of the day on the days I want to travel.  So were they ever available?

There is no transparent way of finding out how much 'availability' there is as far as I can see.  Tomorrow or Thursday I will use the Travel Centre in Salisbury while it still exists and see if they can help.  In lieu of anything I'm stuck with the Saver Return fare (which is actually the same price as two Leisure Advanced 'E' fares!)

[Graham Ellis]

You mean you are getting pages like this?



And that carries on - there MUST be some tickets somewhere?



That's right - advertised price from 8 pounds - actual lowest price fare available, 52.50.   And I can't imagine that the 07:17 will be packed out with people who have already bought up all those allocations.   I question whether there ever were any.

The airline industry continues to be in trouble over misleading pricing;  I can't help wondering of the offers of fares that don't exist (and probably never have!) on that train isn't equally misleading.   But then what;s the difference between 8 pounds and 53 between friends!


http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2104288,00.html

[Industry Insider]

That's right - advertised price from 8 pounds - actual lowest price fare available, 52.50.   And I can't imagine that the 07:17 will be packed out with people who have already bought up all those allocations.   I question whether there ever were any.

The airline industry continues to be in trouble over misleading pricing;  I can't help wondering of the offers of fares that don't exist (and probably never have!) on that train isn't equally misleading.   But then what;s the difference between 8 pounds and 53 between friends!


http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2104288,00.html

The connecting train from Swindon to London will have sold out of all its allocation of the cheaper fare. There WILL have been some (maybe the slightest handful) as the train was released for reservations, but with Swindon to London being a popular route that time of morning they will be snapped up very quickly!

[courgettelawn]

It's mean, quite frankly.  There is a disproportionate amount of advertising and enticement for these so-called cheap fares which nine times out of ten are not available.  How early would my train journey in December have been 'released'?  I started looking in September and was told that it was 'too' advanced.  So was I too late or did they never exist?  When was the magic day of booking?   On the second Sunday of the month, if it falls on a full moon, with an r in it?

[Graham Ellis]

The connecting train from Swindon to London will have sold out of all its allocation of the cheaper fare. There WILL have been some (maybe the slightest handful) as the train was released for reservations, but with Swindon to London being a popular route that time of morning they will be snapped up very quickly!

Thanks for that - I'm a little suprised, as your statement is at odds with one from Andrew Griffiths, made when First raised the price of a day return (bought on the day) from under 50 pounds to over 100, by withdrawing the only train on which the cheaper ticket was availaible.  I was told "We cannot do a general derogation for Melksham for buy-on-the-day fares to tarvel by the earlier train as it would be abused by travellers from other stations. However we will set aside a number of purchase ahead tickets at the lowest rates so that they are available specifically for travellers from Melksham". 

It was enough of a slap in the face to have most of our trains withdrawn .... to then put the prices up by double was cruel, and to be told that had to be done because others might abuse a fair system for us was [words fail me].  And you're now telling me, Industry Insider, that the small crumb of comfort of some tickets set aside for us doesn't actually happen?

[Industry Insider]

The connecting train from Swindon to London will have sold out of all its allocation of the cheaper fare. There WILL have been some (maybe the slightest handful) as the train was released for reservations, but with Swindon to London being a popular route that time of morning they will be snapped up very quickly!

Thanks for that - I'm a little suprised, as your statement is at odds with one from Andrew Griffiths, made when First raised the price of a day return (bought on the day) from under 50 pounds to over 100, by withdrawing the only train on which the cheaper ticket was availaible.  I was told "We cannot do a general derogation for Melksham for buy-on-the-day fares to tarvel by the earlier train as it would be abused by travellers from other stations. However we will set aside a number of purchase ahead tickets at the lowest rates so that they are available specifically for travellers from Melksham". 

It was enough of a slap in the face to have most of our trains withdrawn .... to then put the prices up by double was cruel, and to be told that had to be done because others might abuse a fair system for us was [words fail me].  And you're now telling me, Industry Insider, that the small crumb of comfort of some tickets set aside for us doesn't actually happen?

Well, I must confess to not being an absolute authority on advance purchase tickets, but as I understand/understood it, each reservable train (i.e. the Swindon-London portion of a Melksham-London journey) has a given number of seats allocated to cheap advance purchased fares. Once these seats are sold (i.e. say there's 30 available on the 07:17 train) by passengers buying tickets from Swindon-London, Gloucester-London (changing at Swindon), Melksham-London etc., then the allocation is sold and you move on to the next cheapest fare, etc. Perhaps somebody more intimately involved with fares could explain further?

It's fair to say that despite being 'mean' when you can't get one, if you are one of the lucky ones you get to travel at peak times for a ridiculously low fare, and on trains where there is plenty of capacity outside of the peak period many more cheap tickets are available which offer real savings on fares like the Blue and White Savers which BR sold over a decade ago! If only Melksham had an off-peak service...

Now there may have been some special exception put in for Melksham based on its levels of service, but I would press Andrew Griffiths further and ask him for more details (i.e. exact numbers) - after all, he could actually release one ticket for a Tuesday and one for a Wednesday, have none for the rest of the week and not be in breach of his statement in your correspondance with him!

[Graham Ellis]

Indeed, I should ask further and the promise without numbers could be one ticket per annum within what was said. I really appreciate that there are *some* bargains in *some* places there - I got a 30 quid single to Ely, First Class, the other weekend - but I have a real issue still with First halving the train service and doubling the walk-on price.  "Calculated to drive the traffic away" one wonders?