Sudden lack of cheapo advance fares?

[whole diary]

[metallikat75]

I’ve been regularly booking advance weekday tickets from Camborne to Paddington for the last 6 months. Advance fares for journeys leaving between 8 and 11am routinely used to cost £24. A standard return is £114, so this is a good price. As of a couple of weeks ago, however, they’re now all priced at £49.50
I asked GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) if they no longer offered the £24 tickets, and they said they do. I looked, and there are a handful, but seemingly only at odd times of the day (arriving after 11pm, for example), or with a change involved. They also said the cheapest advance tickets sell out fast, which is a fair point, but there have been plenty of £24 tickets for most morning journeys all year (up to now). It’s almost as though someone has got rid of several of the cheapest fares altogether, leaving only a handful scattered at odd times.
Does anyone know anything about this, or found similar issues with previously cheap fares they’ve been regularly booking?

[broadgage]

Welcome,

In recent weeks, many trains have been cancelled or reduced in length, for various reasons including staff shortage, infrastructure failures, and shortage of trains.
We are also into the busy time of year due to the holiday season.

It would therefore seem reasonable to reduce the number of very cheap tickets. It should be remembered that the purpose of selling these heavily discounted tickets is to fill seats that would otherwise go unused.

If trains are expected to be busy, then the potential overcrowding should not be made even worse by selling discounted tickets, for busy services.

[JayMac]

Low priced Advance Purchase fares have become far fewer in number on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for some time now. Busier trains, engineering works, new rolling stock delays, staffing issues.

GWR have been unable to finalise timetables at the normal T-12 (12 weeks ahead) due to the combination of issues above.

Not forgetting also that an operator is free to sell as many or a few APs as it deems fit, and at any price point it chooses, if an operator can fill its trains at higher AP price points it will.

[ellendune]

Yes, The purpose of a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) selling AP tickets is the same as an airline selling cheap tickets.  It is to fill seats that would otherwise go empty at the highest price it can get.  If a train is going to be full at full price tickets then it has no reason to sell any AP tickets.  Indeed as a number here will attest if it does and a full paying passenger has to stand while an AP passenger gets a seat it creates bad PR^▸ (Public Relations).

[Timmer]

I think the days of cheap Advance tickets on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are long gone. They don't need to sell them anymore to fill seats as they are full already.

[TaplowGreen]

I think the days of cheap Advance tickets on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are long gone. They don't need to sell them anymore to fill seats as they are full already.

......and perversely is a disincentive to increase capacity.

[metallikat75]

Thanks for your replies on this.
I'd quite understand not selling very cheap tickets on busy trains, but these particular trains are always fairly empty. I usually sit in the quiet carriage and it's only ever 2/3 full as it gets into Paddington. The much busier return trains back to Penzance on Thursday late afternoon are chock-a-block and priced accordingly!
That said, I had another look last night and the elusive £24 tickets are still available on Monday mornings, just not on other mornings as they used to be. Oh well, it's up to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) what they want to charge for their tickets - it just means the £66 or so return I've been regularly paying is much harder to find now.