Atomic Systems

Here's a shortish journey I make on a fairly regular basis:-
Newton-le-Willows (Merseyside) to Stalybridge (Gtr Manchester)
Cheap day Return £9.30
However,
Newton-le-Willows to Manchester is £5.60
Machester to Stalybridge is £2.30 Total £7.90. So a saving of £1.40 for purchasing 2 tickets.
And, I don't have to change trains during the day!
After 6-30pm, the savings are even more.
There is no cheap evening return direct, therefore the price remains at £9.30
However, doing the journey in 2 'legs' so to speak, where cheap evening returns prevail for both sections, costs around £4.05 i.e. less than half the price.

it annoys me that although I'm savvy to the system, most of the general travelling public aren't, and they can be paying much more for their journeys than need be without realising.

I'm sure that you guys will have something more bizarre to relate...
T

It'll be to do with going over local Public Transport Executive boundaries. If i go to Stalybridge from Hindley, a similar distance to your journey it costs me a a mere 2.80 (1.90 with the railcard) if you travel after 9:30am, because I stay within the Greater Manchester boundary. The way to do it is pay within one GMPTE or to the first station over the border then pay within the next GMPTE. A friend of mine commutes from Garswood just within the Mersey PTE, so pays to Bryn station, the next one along the line and within Greater Manchester, each day then has a monthly ticket within the GMPTE area from Bryn to Manchester, as a result the journey is far cheaper!

Try this one out for your journey Terry, pricing from network Rail based on after 9:30 am pricing,

Newton- Patricroft cheap day return (over the border) 4.50
Patricroft-Stalybridge Cheap day return (within GMPTE area) 2.90

total 7.40

See I've saved you another 50p!

Its all about fiddling the system.............

Its all about knowing how to fiddle the system

Here's an example I posted in another forum a few months ago:

Standard Day Single, Aviemore to Stirling is 33.50. But if you book Aviemore to Perth it's 19.50 and Perth to Stirling is 9.30, total 28.80. You can potentially do even better, because Perth to Stirling also has a Cheap Day Single option at 5.90. Same train, same operator: you don't even have to get up out of your seat. Nothing underhand or illegal about it.

I've found similar anomalies all over the country. This is the sort of total nonsense that needs to be exposed.

Bristol Temple Meads-Birmingham New Street. With Virgin Trains. Walk on fare £37.90. Which is extortoniate. Even more extortionate is the £31 single fare. I wouldn't pay those sort of prices myself. Even if people click the "There may be alternative, slower routes with cheaper tickets. " link on Thetrainline, Qjump, or whatever, it will still give those prices as the cheapest available.

Yet a cheaper way to do it is (and the majority of your average passengers won't know this) get a cheap day return fare to Cheltenham for just £7. Then from Cheltenham get a cheap day return to Birmingham for £15. Both these tickets are valid with Virgin Trains too. And walk on fares. That's £22 in total. A saving of £15.90 on the advertised price of a Bristol-Birmingham return, walk on fare. If you book online the same day and providing it's a minimum of 2 hours in advance of travel, then it will be possible to get the £22 return and travel on just one train there, and train back.

There's another much cheaper way to goto from London-Birmingham and back too as I did on Saturday. A spur of the moment decision really to goto Birmingham for the day. Walk on return fare from London Euston was £36.90. Woooah not paying that thank you very much. However, go from Marylebone with Chiltern Trains and change at Banbury, Leamington Spa, or Coventry for a connecting Virgin service to Birmingham and the fare is just £15 return. In fact the name of the ticket price is called "Just 15" which is very appropriate.

It is a shame that a large percentage of your average passengers are paying extortionate prices, when there are these allmost "hidden" techniques of getting much better fairer priced tickets available.

That's only because of engineering works between Dorridge and Snow Hill though - ordinarily I think it's only valid on Chiltern, which doesn't matter anyway because Moor Street is just as convenient for the city centre as New Street, if not more so because it's less crowded - you can catch Chiltern through to New Street on a Sunday at the moment.

A technique we use at work for getting the London - Brum price down is to book London - Gorbowen tickets, which are cheaper as the price is set by ATW, rather than Virgin who set the London - Brum price. Likewise, Milton Keynes - Gloucester is cheaper than MK - BNS on the same basis (MK -Gloucester is set by Central, MK - BNS is Virgin).

Its the same to go from Lancaster to York - buying two seperate tickets with a 'change' at Leeds saves about £10 (rather, it did - this was a couple of years ago so the difference must be a bit more or less!)

Yes, do a bit of experimenting with booking two seperate return tickets or four seperate single tickets for your return journey to where you want to travel to on Qjump or Thetrainlineline and substantial savings can be obtained.

For instance anyone who lives in Bristol and needs to be comfortably in London by 9am, it'll cost you a staggering £62.50 single to get the 0630 service from Temple Meads to get you in London at 0815. But by booking a single ticket to Didcot Parkway on the 0630 service will cost you £19.20, and then another single ticket on the 0730 service(which is actually the 0630 from Bristol, the train you left on, so no need to get out and change trains) to London Paddington will cost you another £20.50. That's £39.70. Still very expensive, but saving you £22.80 on the advertised Bristol-London single price at that time of day.

Shrewsbury - Northallerton £66.50 day return

Shrewsbury - Birmingham New Street £9.90 return
Birmingham - York £9 Advance Value single
York - Birmingham Advance Value Single £9
York - Northallerton £7.90 cheap day return

£35.80 (£30.70 savings)

Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria. I'm under 16, so I get cheaper fares (:D) - the PTE accompanied child fare is 50p single, 1 pound return. The nice lady at the ticket counter at Ashton, when asked for an 'accompanied child cheap day return to Manchester Victoria from Stalybridge' (which should have been £1) sold us a 'TPE staff child return' at £1.15. On the ticket it said £2. So we overpaid, yet... erm... underpaid? Is it just me who's confused?

i wouldnt complain till your too old for a child fare then you'll notice the difference.

jonfun wrote:Stalybridge - Manchester Victoria. I'm under 16, so I get cheaper fares (:D) - the PTE accompanied child fare is 50p single, 1 pound return. The nice lady at the ticket counter at Ashton, when asked for an 'accompanied child cheap day return to Manchester Victoria from Stalybridge' (which should have been £1) sold us a 'TPE staff child return' at £1.15. On the ticket it said £2. So we overpaid, yet... erm... underpaid? Is it just me who's confused?

Lol, Do TPE serve Ashton though, I thought thats just sundays rather than Warrington?

They don't actually stop there, (They should, in my opinion, go that way and stop there all the time - You don't know overcrowding until you've got on a service in rush hour between Victoria and Ashton, formed of a single 2-car nodding donkey.) but use that route, as you say, on Sundays. It really isn't the hardest fare to issue... Next time I spot her, she might get an enquiry on an two week advance purchase child return to Manea via Northern to Stalybridge, TPE to York, GNER to Peterborough and ONE anglia to March, and finally the last of the two a day services to Manea. Then if it's a bit too expensive, I'll try Northern to Victoria, Metrolink across to Piccadilly, Virgin to BNS and Central to Manea.
What was that joke about the man from Bognor Regis who tried to buy a ticket to Beijing (or wherever)?

And Growler, that's very true.

(Don't take this post too seriously, by the way )

jonfun wrote:You don't know overcrowding until you've got on a service in rush hour between Victoria and Ashton, formed of a single 2-car nodding donkey.)

Oh yes I do know bad overcrowding

The Humphrey Park to Manchester Oxford Road (0814) - 75% Overcrowded. Usually a Pacer too