Train fares - online and at station - same price?

[Sweep]

Quick question to you knowledgeable folks.

It was my understanding that since a "reform"/rule a few years ago which addressed a right old quagmire of dodgy pricing, advance tickets available online had to be available at a station booking office at the same price. Apart from the odd special promo offer. And last sentence not applicable in this case.

I quite often book at the station after checking online, as, as a cyclist, I have had issues with bike bookings to accompany a ticket not printing out at a machine. A right old problem, potentially invalidating my ticket and wasting my money (no use if I can't take the bike on a planned trip).

This has generally worked until now, though I shouldn't of course have to do it.

But today after checking a price online for a West Coast mainline trip and travelling 10 miles to a ticket office (local town one closed down) I have been charged more. No cheaper fare available for same train.

I then immediately found internet access and checked same journey - yep cheaper fare still available.

Was I mistaken in my assumption or is there something I have missed?

Look forward to your answers - links to supporting answers from official sources welcome.

I intend to take this up with the powers that be, Avanti West Coast, plus government wotsits, if I have a case.

No criticism I stress of ticket office person - they are working with the system they have to work with. I know from experience that bike booking for ticket office staff is a right old mess.

[mattheus]

I don't know exactly why it happens, but it certainly does.

So far it's not cost me very much - and I decided it was worth paying for the peace of mind of getting the bike space.

Blimmin annoying, but par for the course on UK 2022 Railways!

[mjr]

Avanti are devils for creating online only special offers that look like standard tickets. What was the journey endpoints, ticket type and prices, please? We don't need to know your Musk-style "assassination times" for the exact planned journey but without those, we're completely guessing at the cause.

[Paulatic]

No criticism I stress of ticket office person - they are working with the system they have to work with. I know from experience that bike booking for ticket office staff is a right old mess.

Number one son is the ticket office at Morecambe. He constantly tells me for bike booking, to use the web page not the app. AIUI he doesn’t see any more information than you or I do when looking at the web site.

As for West coast, Avanti do say

How can I book cheap train tickets in advance?

It’s easy to book your advance train ticket. Simply book online or through the Avanti West Coast app

no mention of ticket offices.

[Sweep]

Avanti are devils for creating online only special offers that look like standard tickets. What was the journey endpoints, ticket type and prices, please? We don't need to know your Musk-style "assassination times" for the exact planned journey but without those, we're completely guessing at the cause.

Details
Avanti West Coast journey Preston to London Euston with bike.
ie single journey, direct no train change.
Ticket was not a special online you lucky lucky lucky people welcome to Trenitalia offer at all. Just a normal advance ticket. Price irrelevant.
This ticket was booked at a ticket office which is probably run by Northern.
Have booked Avanti tickets before at Skipton at same price though and am pretty sure they aren't run by Avanti.
My last screw-up with a non-printing bike reservation, failed print-out was at a Northern station and Avanti passed the buck to Northern and northern send me a £20 "no fault admitted" rail voucher. All very odd.

Anyways, to original question - should the fare be the same?

Difference was about £2.50 but I will pursue if I have a case - in interests of myself and others who come after.

[iandusud]

When I was at the ticket office at King's Cross this summer trying to rebook our tickets after multiple cancellations due to power line failure, I was dealing with a very helpful lady who booked our tandem (in two halves) and then our seats. However her booking system automatically booked us seats that were no where near our bike. I asked if we could have seats in the same carriage as the bike. So she obligingly started looking for vacant seats. The only problem was that her screen couldn't tell her which seats were free, so she was systematically trying each one in turn, only to find them booked. So I got onto the LNER app, where I could see which seats were free and told her. I discussed this with her and she admitted that their computer system was no where near as good as simply going on the internet. Something not right there!

[Jdsk]

"Great British Railways: for the passenger":
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/grea ... -passenger

"• simpler, modern fares delivered, starting with new flexible season tickets on sale from 21 June and a new Great British Railways website for all tickets and clearer compensation"

Guess the year...

Jonathan

[Sweep]

No criticism I stress of ticket office person - they are working with the system they have to work with. I know from experience that bike booking for ticket office staff is a right old mess.

Number one son is the ticket office at Morecambe. He constantly tells me for bike booking, to use the web page not the app. AIUI he doesn’t see any more information than you or I do when looking at the web site.

As for West coast, Avanti do say

How can I book cheap train tickets in advance?

It’s easy to book your advance train ticket. Simply book online or through the Avanti West Coast app

no mention of ticket offices.

see above for very real problems I have had with booking online where I bike booking is involved.
I would of course rather just book online than cycle a 40 mile round trip to get the actual tickets in my mitts so that the Avanti rail staff at the station (who I stress I am not criticising) will let me on the train WITH MY BIKE.

As for Avanti's advice, they were absolutely useless at sorting out my last problem - even though they had ample time before the journey. They simply swore blind that the tickets had printed out at the machine.
Even though they hadn't.
Plenty of solutions were available but they refused to address/communicate.
I know from speaking to ticket office staff that my problem was far from unusual.
So - back to original question I am afraid.

[Paulatic]

I’ve just booked Preston to Euston tomorrow afternoon £37.30 complete with bike reservation. Took less than five minutes and if I’d continued with the transaction the tickets would be sitting in my Wallet or I could choose to print them out at the station.
This is consistently my experience with booking trains with bike reservation when needed.

That was using Avanti site reserving a bike space wasn’t , or I couldn’t find, available on Northern site. Probably because there’s no need to book a bike on Northern?

[mjr]

Avanti are devils for creating online only special offers that look like standard tickets. What was the journey endpoints, ticket type and prices, please? We don't need to know your Musk-style "assassination times" for the exact planned journey but without those, we're completely guessing at the cause.

Details
Avanti West Coast journey Preston to London Euston with bike.
ie single journey, direct no train change.
Ticket was not a special online you lucky lucky lucky people welcome to Trenitalia offer at all. Just a normal advance ticket. Price irrelevant.

There is no one "normal advance ticket". There are different-price advance tickets which are withdrawn as the train fills. This isn't like Off-peak and Anytime tickets where the price only changes based on the route or time period you take or avoid.

Price is relevant because otherwise I can't even start to guess which two advance tickets from this bewilderingly long list of advance tickets you were really being offered: https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=PRE ... 1-1-header

Anyway, I leave it with you.

[Sweep]

Avanti are devils for creating online only special offers that look like standard tickets. What was the journey endpoints, ticket type and prices, please? We don't need to know your Musk-style "assassination times" for the exact planned journey but without those, we're completely guessing at the cause.

Details
Avanti West Coast journey Preston to London Euston with bike.
ie single journey, direct no train change.
Ticket was not a special online you lucky lucky lucky people welcome to Trenitalia offer at all. Just a normal advance ticket. Price irrelevant.

There is no one "normal advance ticket". There are different-price advance tickets which are withdrawn as the train fills. This isn't like Off-peak and Anytime tickets where the price only changes based on the route or time period you take or avoid.

Price is relevant because otherwise I can't even start to guess which two advance tickets from this bewilderingly long list of advance tickets you were really being offered: https://www.brfares.com/!fares?orig=PRE ... 1-1-header

Anyway, I leave it with you.

it was the cheapest available ticket online and at the booking office.
and later searched again online.
on the same train.
Being a fan of transparency that is all I am interested in.
And clearly asked for.
Online and at ticket office.

anything else is flannel.

[Sweep]

I’ve just booked Preston to Euston tomorrow afternoon £37.30 complete with bike reservation. Took less than five minutes and if I’d continued with the transaction the tickets would be sitting in my Wallet or I could choose to print them out at the station.
This is consistently my experience with booking trains with bike reservation when needed.

That was using Avanti site reserving a bike space wasn’t , or I couldn’t find, available on Northern site. Probably because there’s no need to book a bike on Northern?

To be clear, as I said - single journey - all on Avanti - none of the journey at all was on a northern train.
None of the booking was attempted online on a Northern Rail website.
I was simply pointing out that the member of staff at the ticket office I used was probably under Northern - member of staff and ticket office.
I hope your tickets including bike reservation printed out OK at the station.
I assure you that it hasn't always happened with me and ticket station staff have confirmed to me more than once that this screw-up is far from uncommon.
Including a nice woman at Preston station.
(from which Avanti runs of course)
hence, see above, my latter day preference to book at a ticket office, see tickets including bike reservation before I hand over dosh/complete the booking.
hence, see above, my question about pricing online/at booking office.

[richardfm]

What did the ticket office staff member say when you asked why it was £2.50 more from them?

[PH]

Not a direct answer to your question - I've been booking tickets via a split ticket website, then just before pressing the buy button messaging the train companies on facebook to book a bike space. From memory, I think I've done that with Cross Country, EMR and LNER, I suspect it's possible with them all, I've always received a reply and the booking reference quickly, 5 minutes at most.

[RickH]

Up until mow I've gone to my nearest, non-Avanti, station to get cheap advance tickets for the WCML. There has sometimes been a small difference in price, usually no more than a pound or two, compared to what my phone was saying. but I could live with that to be sure that I had both a cheap ticket AND a bike reservation (My last long WCML trip was Wigan to Glasgow return for just under £25 with bike - & the door to door time was the almost exactly the same as Google's estimate of driving time! ).

I've not tried the apps but both Avanti's own website (https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk) & the Trainline (https://www.thetrainline.com/) now have an option for a bike reservation when you're booking the ticket (both scroll down on the seat reservation options). I think I read that the Trainline app now does bike reservations but, I might be mis-remembering & it may just be the website.

Generally standard Anytime & Off Peak fares that you can use on any train, or trains, on a "reasonable" route (there may or may not be alternatives) are the same price wherever you get them. I sometimes go between Wigan & Chester where the same ticket lets me go via Liverpool, albeit taking longer, or via Warrington/Crewe.

There can be some variations on a single line served by more than one operator - more often I do a longer ride to avoid a connection & do Newton-le-Willows to Chester return. That route gives me 2 on-the-day fares - 1 cheaper but using Northern trains only & 1 any train (Transport for Wales run on that route, roughly doubling the number of trains I can get) that is a couple of quid more for a return. I've also done a few Chester-Birmingham trips where it is cheaper to stick to TfW services rather than use any others.