Great Western Coffee Shop

Another Advance ticket anomaly!

(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ww255/PhilWakely/adv_ticks.jpg)

But i didn't think break of journey (or stopping short) was permitted with an advance ticket?  Though they could hardly stop you going through the barrier at Paddington? 

Likewise for journeys via Salisbury and Waterloo.

Same date, morning peak, you can get an Advance Purchase from Templecombe to Corby for £22. Templecombe to Waterloo is £26.80.

Such anomalies come about because different TOCs price the flows. To London it's GWR/SWR. To Corby it's EMR.

FirstGroup obviously believe they can screw more from passengers than Abellio. :P

Poo. It doesn't work from Penzance, unfortunately.
Daughter travelling to Paddington later this month, but almost twice as much to Corby, so not worth her booking further.

Why do you think it's an anomaly? Are Advance fares meant to be part of a logical pattern? Certainly not between days, and we know TOCs have a lot of freedom how they price them. Maybe you should think of them as more like perishable goods marked down at the end of the day to shift them. You would not expect consistency between shops, even if they usually compete within narrow price differentials. And even within a shop, finding six here cheaper than four there would not be a shock.

Purchasing split Advances: PNZ-EXD and EXD-COR on the date in the OP  works out cheaper than a PNZ-PAD Advance ...

06:05 PNZ-PAD    £54.80

06:05   PNZ-EXD    £17.70
09:15* EXD-COR   £25.50    (total £43.20)

* same train

Simples ... For Penzance to London, purchase an Exeter to Corby ticket and ....  ;D ;D

Even works much closer in. Advances available within the morning peak from Didcot Parkway from as little as £13.

Perhaps it's the particular day she's travelling. For e.g. the 14th April, National Rail, with a railcard, is giving me a slew of tickets at £24:40 - and similar in the return direction. (1st advance being £112:20 for the same journey.)

Advanced fares are very varied depending on demand.   Perhaps this forum has sent demand rocketing?

'The Corby maneuvre' has pretty rock solid availability down to... not tested it but about 48 hours, and with no sensitivity to peak/offpeak. Now it's in the public domain, it'll probably suffer an untimely demise.

And that's the problem with advance fares, they're adversarial, and from the passengers point of view, if you find a bargain, best keep quiet about it.

Far be it to suggest another layer of ticketing complexity - and the following would be biassed against the increasing percentage of the population who are living hand to mouth: an advance fares system in which one pays up front into a rail expense account for travel after a future date - making the future commitment to travel by rail in exchange for access to peak fare trains at off peak prices. (This would need not to include the robber practices of the likes of date-expiring shop vouchers...)

That would to some extent mirror the way vehicle ownership works, where the traveller commits to own and maintain a car to meet the need for future travel.

Mark

Kettering is maybe better as it sometimes shows available Advances on the services to Nottingham as well.

Get them while you can  ;D

Ipswich looks potentially useful as well, as Greater Anglia sell First Class Advances.