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Author Topic: GWR Advance Purchase sale - January 2025  (Read 6187 times)
JayMac
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« on: December 30, 2024, 19:54:31 »

GWR (Great Western Railway) are offering 50% off selected Advance Purchase Fares from 2nd-9th January 2025 for travel between Friday 10th January and Sunday 13th April 2025 inclusive.

There will be 100,000 Standard Class and 50,000 First Class seats available. Reduced fares to/from Chelteham will not be available during the Festival race meeting, nor to Cardiif  during Six Nations matches there.
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2024, 22:38:06 »

GWR (Great Western Railway) are offering 50% off selected Advance Purchase Fares from 2nd-9th January 2025 for travel between Friday 10th January and Sunday 13th April 2025 inclusive.

There will be 100,000 Standard Class and 50,000 First Class seats available. Reduced fares to/from Chelteham will not be available during the Festival race meeting, nor to Cardiif  during Six Nations matches there.

At the risk of being accused of paraphrasing another erstwhile Forum member......how will the resulting revenue shortfall be covered? By the taxpayer I assume?
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JayMac
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« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2024, 06:56:34 »

Will there be a revenue shortfall?

A relatively quiet time of year for discretionary train travel, such an offer may actually improve fare income.
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« Reply #3 on: December 31, 2024, 08:30:07 »

At the risk of being accused of paraphrasing another erstwhile Forum member......how will the resulting revenue shortfall be covered? By the taxpayer I assume?

Come now, TG.  Since Covid you’ve often said in this new era of home/hybrid working that the railways need to encourage more leisure travel.  Yet you criticise when they try to do exactly that via the most persuasive method of doing so…reducing the price of the product.  Wink
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TaplowGreen
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« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2024, 08:55:09 »

At the risk of being accused of paraphrasing another erstwhile Forum member......how will the resulting revenue shortfall be covered? By the taxpayer I assume?

Come now, TG.  Since Covid you’ve often said in this new era of home/hybrid working that the railways need to encourage more leisure travel.  Yet you criticise when they try to do exactly that via the most persuasive method of doing so…reducing the price of the product.  Wink

I was asking a question. Portraying it as largesse from GWR (Great Western Railway) is at best disingenuous.

However to your other point, for me, in this context the best way to make the offering more persuasive and keep the railway generally viable is to make it reliable 7 days a week. A half price ticket on a weekend train which is cancelled because there's no-one available to drive it isn't much of an incentive.

Currently, the railway is doing an excellent job of persuading current and potential customers to use their cars instead.....and that's driven mostly by poor reliability, not cost.

This is just digging the money pit a little deeper.

« Last Edit: December 31, 2024, 09:38:31 by TaplowGreen » Logged
ChrisB
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« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2024, 09:59:19 »

Who's saying that these tickets are for Sundays?

Mondays & Fridays need usage.....

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grahame
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« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2024, 10:08:08 »

At the risk of being accused of paraphrasing another erstwhile Forum member......how will the resulting revenue shortfall be covered? By the taxpayer I assume?

But WILL there be an additional shortfall?   I recall many years ago at an RDG (Rail Delivery Group, or Reading station, depending on context) consultation in Bristol when they were looking at how to modernise the fare system that one of their requirements was to maintain the same level of income, and I suggested that lowering the average fare by x% might increase passenger numbers by 2x%.   Cut £100 to £70 for a fare - 30% fare cut, 60% increase in passenger numbers, income up by 12%.    Interesting that there was no denial what so ever of my speculative figures - just a rather brusque put down that it must be done on the same number of passengers as was current.  Apparently that rule was so basic that they hadn't bothered to state it in the question!

Provided that the special purchase fares do not abstract too must from existing users but rather result in a goodly proportion of new journeys (and the evidence of them not being available during gold cup suggests it's being engineered for that) then there probably won't be a need for extra taxpayer support.

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grahame
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« Reply #7 on: December 31, 2024, 10:09:58 »

Who's saying that these tickets are for Sundays?

Mondays & Fridays need usage.....



Mondays and Fridays need trains too - or is it just at Melksham that the unreliability and gaps of 4 and 6 hours between trains has spread like an infection away from Sundays?
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« Reply #8 on: December 31, 2024, 10:57:03 »

At the risk of being accused of paraphrasing another erstwhile Forum member......how will the resulting revenue shortfall be covered? By the taxpayer I assume?

Come now, TG.  Since Covid you’ve often said in this new era of home/hybrid working that the railways need to encourage more leisure travel.  Yet you criticise when they try to do exactly that via the most persuasive method of doing so…reducing the price of the product.  Wink

I was asking a question. Portraying it as largesse from GWR (Great Western Railway) is at best disingenuous.

I made no mention of GWR in the post you quoted.  If it’s disingenuous at best, what is it at worst?
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« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2024, 11:26:45 »

Does anyone actually see any of these savings?
I'm travelling from Weston to Paddington (11th / 12th) nothing to be saved there sadly
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ChrisB
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« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2024, 12:54:53 »

GWR (Great Western Railway) are offering 50% off selected Advance Purchase Fares from 2nd-9th January 2025 for travel between Friday 10th January and Sunday 13th April 2025 inclusive.

It's December 31 today....
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JayMac
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« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2024, 18:02:51 »

GWR (Great Western Railway) are offering 50% off selected Advance Purchase Fares from 2nd-9th January 2025 for travel between Friday 10th January and Sunday 13th April 2025 inclusive.

It's December 31 today....

And...?
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2024, 18:37:31 »

And ... they're not on sale until 2nd January.  Wink

I think ChrisB was gently pointing out that Phantom is rather optimistic in looking for them today - see above post.

« Last Edit: December 31, 2024, 18:49:22 by Chris from Nailsea » Logged

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« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2025, 08:09:13 »

Sale underway ...



Noting no senior railcard discounts - good price anyway, but with a railcard not always the lowest. I am tempted to make a couple of extra trips which, I suppose, proves their point.
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« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2025, 11:46:21 »

Checked for my journeys to/from Paddington from BPW» (Bristol Parkway - next trains) for my February trip to Switzerland. £21.00 sale fares available on my chosen trains but the return trip the cheapest was an advance with railcard at £15.95. 
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