Great Western Coffee Shop

This has just entered my inbox:


True, but it's a shame that FGW's Off Peak rail fares have gone up by more than 2p! Cough - 20%! And the Advances will be no better at getting people out of the car - they don't offer people the same flexibility.

FGW (and other TOCs) don't seem to understand that to get "bums on seats" - esp. in this recession - at off peak times, they should offer lower priced flexible fares both Off Peak and Super Off Peak, to offer a balance between flexability, good price, and keeping those pesky lesire people out of rush hour trains.

And further on in the email they advertise hot drinks at almost ^2 and claim it's good value! :o

FGW, get a grip! >:(

Gibber gibber gibber.

There are some excellent bargains available. I went from near Weston to Southampton for ^6.60YP Return.

Yesterday, drove to Cardiff as quite frankly the fare and speed was insulting. The car was still quicker even with the M49 and M5 snarled up near Avonmouth!

You can definately get some bargains if you look. It will cost me ^5 from Swansea to Bristol Parkway for a single (basically a ^10 return). Factor in petrol costs,severn bridge toll and parking charges, then travelling by train is very cheap. Yes it would be nice to have more flexibility and lower ticket prices but somebody would ultimately have to pay for this.

On a side note ^2 is not too expensive for hot chocolate any more when you compare it how much Starbucks for example charges for it

Comparing FGW hot drinks with Starbucks? Come on. A better comparison would be the offerings from a lay-by burger van.

Let's not be too simplistic. FGW's off-peak fares haven't all gone up by 20%! Granted, at certain times of the day around the peaks the fare you'll pay for your journey has increased 20%. However, at other times it hasn't.

Further, the off-peak single fare for your journey may well have dropped by 50%, making a combination of advance and off-peak fares much more attractive. Whilst there are negative aspects to FGW's latest fares re-vamp, this is a hugely positive step. It both makes flexible one-way journeys much more affordable, and also opens up the possibility of booking an advance one way (e.g. when you know you have to be somewhere by a certain time so you'll be catching a particular train) and a flexible fare back (because you don't know exactly when you'll be finished).

The new singles are making lots of people happy! One bloke couldn't believe it was only ^41.50 for a SSS from Cornwall to Pad the other day!

I was very happy to come back from Exeter St Davids to Newbury for ^24.50 this afternoon especially as I bought the ticket today.

Yes, we all know that the new singles are good. But the fact of the matter is that most people on day trips or business meetings will use returns.

Yes, we all know that if you book 12 weeks in advance you can travel from Penzance to Wick for ^5. But said people want flexibility, otherwise they'll stick to the car.

The point I was trying to make was the the new singles do exactly that - provide flexibility. I (and I suspect most other people too) generally know exactly when I have to be somewhere, so can specify a particular train. Coming back is less certain. The new flexible singles allow you to "mix and match" like this and are a huge improvement that you should not dismiss out of hand by alleging that "everyone will use returns" without any justification.

You're also unnecessarily flippant about advance fares - I've got some very good deals in the past by booking just a day or two beforehand.

On a vaguely related note, I'd love to know exactly how many Penzance - Wick tickets get issued every year...  ;)

I'm not one of the '....we all know.....' brigade. What I do know is that the cheapest advance single PNZ-WCK is ^59.50. It helps if you qualify ironic posts with the odd smiley, lest we give the impression what we are saying is factually correct.

People on day trips in the west use the EXTREMELY cheap OP day returns, Ply-Pnz CDR must be one of the cheapest journeys in the country pence per mile, ^9.50 for a 158 mile round trip!
Also, you can usually get FGW advance only the day before travel on most normal days! XC seem to be the hardest to find AP on.

Sorry I didn't use smilies - I didn't expect anyone to believe that there was a ^5 Penzance to Wick fare! :o ::) (Although ^80 RC return isn't bad for that trip...)

Ok - my experience of Advances is mainly XC, where they are often more expensive than an Off Peak Return if booked less than 4 weeks in Advance. I think VT Advances are very good value, and still around for longer thanks to VHF.

And alas, I don't live in Cornwall... :'(

The high price of standard anytime returns is encouring staff to look at all the options, particularly in the current financial environment. Both my current and previous employer encouraged the purchase of advance tickets, though the flexibility and reasonable price of the off peak singles will at a stroke solve the one problem Inspector Blakey alluded to in terms of not knowing when you're finishing. So I would expect the number adopting such an approach will increase markedly.

I have all but given up on XC advance fares. I can hardly ever find anything for a trip oop north from Bristol, no matter what the booking horizon. Often find it better to get advances to PAD and from KGX/EUS.

Also means I can avoid the Vomiters.....bleurgh!!

The introduction of those trains, if you can call them trains that is, on XC has ruined the journey experience that despite the longer journey time and higher fare its better to go via London IMHO.

And yet passenger numbers on XC have never been higher.

XC advance fares do indeed seem to be as rare as rocking horse sh*t at many times of the day and week; in my (admittedly fairly limited) experience you seem to need to book a long way ahead of time and be prepared to be flexible with trains, especially if you're travelling in the "core" part of the network (bounded by BRI/RDG/YRK/MAN). And even then they're not always that cheap. My one recent experience of trying to book advance fares (Oxford to Blackpool) using Virgin WC was even worse; despite extensive searching I couldn't find a single advance purchase fare at any time of day on a Friday, and this was after the advance fares for the relevant dates had been released. I guess when your trains are already rammed with people paying for expensive tickets it makes no business sense to make them even more crowded with plebs like me paying peanuts.

By contrast FGW advance fares seem to be available much more widely; my biggest ever coup was probably getting an OXF-SWA first class ticket for GBP20.45, admittedly with Y-P discount, only a few days ahead of time.

I received this email too, offering me a 10% discount on fares.  The fare I normally pay is ^20.00, from London to Swindon, on an advance internet booking.
I clicked on the link, and was taken to the 10% discount page.  When I put in the journey details, it came up with my normal ^20 fare, then added ^2.20 on, then deducted ^2.20, leaving me with my original fare of ^20.00!

When  I contacted FGW about this, they first  sent me back an email denying all knowledge of a discount being offered.  When I persisted, they sent me another email saying not to worry, that although the discount does not appear on the payment page, I would see that it would be discounted when I got my bank statement.
I have just received my bank statement, and I have been chareged ^60 (for 3 journeys) which is what I would normally pay.
Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?? It would seem not!

Welcome to the forum, Soupowl.

With most of their sales / marketing, First Great Western have struck me as knowing exactly what they are doing - a few blips, but impressively few.  But I'm afraid that doesn't mean that what they are doing is always what their travellers want them to do.

There are some VERY sensible sortouts in the latest range of fare revisions from the passenger's viewpoint - the moving off offpeak singles for the most part (but not across the board) to half of the offpeak return, rather than a pound less, for example.   But the +10% and then -11% discount could be read far more cynically - it's an immediate increase for anyone who books other than through their web site, and it moves the base fare upwards.   Your 20 pound fare is no longer the standard, but a special deal which may be offered for a limited time only ... and that may be the left and the right hand of FGW's marketing working together to increase their revenue, longer term, in steps that both hands together are calculating will cause the least fuss amongst the passengers.