[canucklad]

New item on Reporting Scotland tonight…

Scotrail has announced cheaper rail fares. Their spokesman sounded as if he was doing us all a favour!

How you may ask ?

Well it seems that they’ve finally decided to fix more than 1500 anomolies – ie. Currently if you book a ticket from Aberdeen to Glasgow its much cheaper to book 2 seperate tickets via Perth– a practice called split ticketing.

Some of new through fares should be 40% less. This overcharging has been going on since the 80’s !

I just wonder if this happens south of the border too?

[NTarrant]

Yes it does and infact it can be cheaper to purchase a ticket for a journey longer than you need to get a cheaper fare or avoid time restrictions.

One if I recall is, Southampton to Reading travelling during the peak, buy a Bournemouth to Twyford ticket which the journey can be made on an off peak ticket which is less.

[Tramor01]

On the subject of ticket splitting in order to get a lower fare for a journey, there is an app and website called tickety split .
This can help you get a better dea;l on fares- the website link is http://splitticket.moneysavingexpert.com/

[capetonianm]

“This would seem to indicate (3rd paragraph) if you miss a connecting train due to the previous train being late you are entitled to travel on the next train ……………” but the rule says ……….. “provided by the Train Company with whom you were booked to travel”.

Which is a bit harsh if your company makes you wait an hour but there is another servive of another operator within 10 minutes. This may have been the case in my situation but the chap either didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered to explain.

[capetonianm]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/video/2013/apr/02/cut-cost-rail-tickets-video

[MartynSinclair]

Reading what you guys are writing about train tickets, makes me realise what an absolute mess our rail system is really in. How on earth can we have a cohesive rail policy policy if all the pieces move in different directions.

I know I posted recently about using the train to Europe from the UK and I read the article in the main magazine, but for goodness sake, it the UK rail system cant sort out tickets between 2 business centres in the UK, I dont think there is any hope to expect business travellers to use the train for multi destinations trips.

[canucklad]

Capetonianm….

Brilliant link,

I can understand why it would be cheaper to travel between the Waverly & Kings Cross than it would be from Newcastle to Kings Cross..due to supply and demand + competotion from the airlines but the maze of other fare options in my opinion is just a way to rip us off…. and catch out innocents like yourself capetonianm….

If I had the time I would start up a group called….

The Splitters…

Anyone purchasing a ticket either onboard or at the ticket desk requests that the seller explains all the split ticket options….

The chaos it would cause would stop this nonsense, after saying trhat knowing how the train companies work, they would just bump up the prices rather than do what Scotrail has done!

[capetonianm]

There is one thing which that video didn’t make clear, and it’s this.

If you do this ‘splitting’, you have to be on a train which does make a scheduled stop at the place where you are ‘splitting’, so that you could theoretically have boarded the train there, even though, as it says, you stay on the train.

If you bought, for example for a journey London- Newcastle, tickets London – Peterborough and Peterborough -Newcastle, and you were on a train that did not stop at Peterborough, you could be accused of not having a valid ticket and technically that would be correct.

[andystock]

So confusing you need a degree in railway bylaws! How any foreign tourist understands must be near on impossible!

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