Great Western Coffee Shop

I have noticed recently that there seems a distinct lack of opportunity in attaing Adv tickets for services from South Wales to Reading/ London even allowing for changes at Swindon eg trying to book a train for Thurs 30th Jul and only off-peak single tickets are available.

This is a pattern I have seen on a few occasions recently even when booking over a week in advance? Have FGW purposefully reduced the availabilty of Advance tickets on this (or any other) route?

I suspect the school holiday season has a lot to do with this.

Bear in mind Advances are used to fill seats that would otherwise go unsold - in other words, the number of seats exceeds the demand.

Higher demand for seats will mean fewer Advances need to be released to fill the seats

Appreciate that but it appears to have been this situation for awhile. Where in days of not too distant past I could book an advacne ticket 2 days ahead on unpopular daytime services these appear to be unavailable. Even if I try to book 2 weeks ahead the savings are not fantastic.

I'll report back in September but suspect FGW have decided due to the popularity of the route they can make less adv tickets available.

FGW have steadily reduced Advance quotas over the past couple of years. Since being in a management contract after handing the keys back they've not had the fall back of revenue support from the government. That is another reason for reducing AP availability or increasing AP price points. You'll still see many seats available on quieter services which belies the oft quoted reason for lack of APs being solely down to demand.

I took the last FGW of a Saturday evening from Taunton to Bristol TM a couple of weeks back. Looked a couple weeks before for AP availability. None, so had to buy walk up single.  Walked through entire train on the day and there were 100s of spare seats that could have been sold at an attractive AP price point.

I thought the whole idea of APs was to encourage users to travel on quieter services, if there had been enough room for all passengers from Taunton to Bristol on that given day then there would have been no benefit in offering cheaper tickets on the late evening service, all that would have done was given cheaper tickets to those who had already intended to travel. If they had offered an AP on that service for example at half the price of a standard single and 100 people who intended to travel anyway purchased AP tickets, they would have then needed a minimum of a further 100 additional passengers to make a profit on this deal.

I'm sure that whilst offering APs does attract a handful of more customers (who would otherwise not travel by train) this probably doesn't cover the money lost from those using APs who would have needed to travel by train anyway.

This morning I looked for a Advance 1st class single from Plymouth to Reading on 21st September - almost a month away - cheapest I could find was ^100.50 - that's roughly 3 times what it would have been a year ago booking this far out......whether it's the reduction in capacity or quota this seems ridiculous.

Meanwhile a National Express single to Reading at a similar time I want to travel with the same restrictions, taking an hour or so longer is available for ^15.

SWell, if they have empty seats at travel time, the rates will reduce....until they get a revised feel for how many seats are being unfilled, it will be hit & miss for a while - don't forget they open *12* weeks ahead, so that date has been sale well over a month already

.............doesn't that sort of defeat the point of encouraging people to buy tickets well in advance to get the cheapest available (....clue being in the word "Advance")?

Yes, so much so that the allocation probably sold out well before youvstarted looking?

It's also the weekend they go off to Uni....

..and you're comparing 1st class with a coach journey

Just looked ahead into October and Mondays do seem to be pricier.  On a Tuesday I have found early afternoon departures for ^59.

Mondays & Fridays are always the priciest of the week generally as demand is higher. So are flights

I don't think that is "the point". Selling tickets early has no significant value to the TOC in itself. It's just the main factor in a process that makes it possible to sell cheap tickets and full-price ones a well. It has to pull in enough buyers who would not pay the normal prices, and few enough who would, that selling advances brings in more revenue.

Or that's the theory, anyway. Advance fares are to some extent compulsory, though I think any regulation applies to average fares so its effect isn't going to be obvious.

I'm not sure there is any compulsion to offer sny, on any service, at any time actually

Exactly. They are part of the TSA, which is required by the franchise. In addition to any average price regulation, there is the general arm-twisting by the government when they have made the availability of discounted tickets part of their "aren't we wonderful" sales pitch.

Advances don't form any part of any average ticket regulations either

Apologies in advance for waffling on... :)

I've been buying advance tickets for my 3 day a week commute between Earley (just outside Reading) and Bath for over 9 years. The cheapest way to do it is to split the journey, with walk-ons between Earley and Didcot, and advances between Didcot and Bath.

Initially I caught the 0726 from Reading. Then that (ie. the advance bit between Didcot-Bath) went up, so I caught the 0656 (very quiet!). That went up, and I switched to the 0742, having to change at Swindon.

Eventually the 0742 went up, and the only option was the 0858, getting into Bath at about 10am. Luckily work is pretty flexible so it wasn't a big problem. But it meant I went from low occupancy trains, getting into the office nice and early, to pretty full carriages and practically late for work.

Strangely, for September the best (and only) option was advance 1st class, with a change at Swindon. So at the moment I'm getting 2 cups of coffee and pieces of cake for breakfast, as well as posh seats! (Although I don't think they're actually any more comfortable, and it's a bit of a stretch to reach my laptop on the table.)

But for the last lot of tickets I bought, before the ^10 singles became available unfortunately, things took a big turn for the worse. There were no cheap advance tickets at all before 9am, and the best option became straight returns between Earley and Bath, again not getting into Bath until 10am. This meant my travel bill for October jumped by over 33%, from approx ^300 to over ^400.

It might be that the lack of the usual advances is due to the ^10 single promotion, and they might come back when that finishes. But based on the trend over the last 9 years, I suspect not :(

So, based on an hour on a peak HST plus a connection, how much do you *realistically* think you should pay for a peak return on that route?

Not answering for the poster - but we could estimate the average fare people would pay ....

There is a certain absurdity in travel being cheaper on a busier train than a quieter one, but I suppose it comes down to what the market will bear / what generates the most income.   And you could also argue that the cost of running a train should be spread amongst the passengers on it. That way, you'll find that it's cheaper to travel peak than off peak - another absurdity!

I remember being told that the average passenger on an FGW train was paying 19p per mile - but that's a number of years ago.  Allow for the fare rises since, the reduction which we think has happened in advance tickets, the changing of Groupsave which lead to some significant increases, the provision of 2 together which has allowed for some reductions and you're probably around a figure of 25p per mile if you compare.   I haven't a clue if that includes first class journeys as well, nor if children's fares or infants free travel were factored in.

Earley to Bath is about 78 miles, so the average return fair fare is probably around ^39 per day , with logic suggesting that a bit more is reasonable in the peak and a bit less at quieter times, save for my comment at the beginning. The whole system is a bit of a mess in many ways and whilst here we sometimes take a peverse joy in getting cheapier but legitimate travel than most of the other people on the train, in the long run it would be really helpful to have it sorted out!

And the current Bath-Reading peak return?

Surely far more than ^39?

That's what I meant by realistic...

Three days/week points me at a season ticket as likely cheapest guaranteed fare. I haven't access to price look-up here.

I'm (personally) perfectly happy with a system on which people get travel at a reduced rate from the highest (i.e. peak)  if they'll modify their travel to move away from the heaviest used trains allowing others to use them, and to help the train operator be efficient.   Our poster is doing that - so the full peak flexible price isn't really a comparator (but, yes I have looked it up!)

Yes, it seems they have changed availability quite considerably in recent times. This really started to bite about April/May 2014 for S.Wales to London. I gave up about that time last year and switched to driving for about half the cost and a time saving.

Last time I checked prices for BGN-PAD, it was only a few pounds extra for an off-peak walk up fare (8:00 out and between 19:15-21:15 return, antisocially timed trains may well have cheap advances) - not tied to a specific train, so perhaps preferable over two advance singles?

That might have been the reason when BR introduced them decades ago.  But surely each and every decision taken by a TOC on ticketing is driven by the sole motive of profit maximisation.  If it wasn't the shareholders would be demanding new management.