Advance tickets on North Cotswold Line

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

But seriously, that won't fool anyone. Agree its likely to be an error though

[JayMac]

I was helping a family friend with rail tickets the other day. They were about to purchase some GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) APs that were more expensive than the flexible walk up fare. They would have been fooled to the tune of nearly ^20 had I not been on hand.

[jdw.wor]

Chris B. It is not purely to do with nearness to travel, it is to do with the using up of the allocation for Advance tickets that drives the price up. Clearly GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) believe they are going to load heavily with standard price tickets. I just wanted to know what prompted this thinking.

[ChrisB]

Indeed, but even if they haven't bedn used up, the discount evaporates the closer you get to travel date. As do air fares.

[jdw.wor]

Chris B then why could I buy an advance single (^19) bristol to birmingham for tonights 2200 at 2053. The standard fare is ^53?
And just for information on air fares, my sons girl friend bought an Oslo to london single with SAS for ^20 two days before flying two weeks ago!

[ChrisB]

Exceptions are always likely/possible. It's a marketing game. I'm talking generally

[grahame]

Exceptions are always likely/possible. It's a marketing game. I'm talking generally

Whilst the system may generate higher advance fares from its algorithms, a piece of code like this within the "which fares do I offer" loop:

Code:

if journey.getAdvanceFare < journey.getWalkupFare:
         optionBasket.add(journey.AdvanceOption)

could be provided to ensure they're not offered to the purchaser.   That should make it "impossible" to offer a higher or equal advance fare to walk up fare.