Rail operators have been unable to explain – or rectify – a ticketing anomaly that sees fares offered on the National Rail Enquiries (NRE) website disappear when customers are transferred to Avanti West Coast to purchase tickets.
The issue affects, for example, tickets on the Avanti route to North West England that involve one or more changes, such as journeys to Oxenholme or Windermere in the Lake District.
One journey affected involves the 9.30 weekday departure from London Euston to Windermere (two changes). For 18 February, which is four weeks ahead, the NRE website identifies an advance single ticket at £52.50 and invites customers to transfer to the Avanti website to purchase the ticket.
However, the Avanti website produces a pop-up window stating: ‘Ticket Not Found. Sorry, we couldn't find the fares you wanted, please try searching again.’ Instead, Avanti offers an advance single at £66.
Trainline, an independent broker, offers an advance single for the trip at £52.50, plus fees, which does not appear to rely on a ‘splitsave’ purchase of separate tickets for different parts of the journey.
Customers seeking to travel on the same 9.30 departure from Euston only as far as Oxenholme (one change) find that this option disappears altogether when transferred to Avanti.
They are not only told that the fare is not available but are offered a ticket on a direct service with more stops that leaves 10 minutes later and takes 50 minutes longer. Clicking the option for earlier trains still does not show the 9.30.
Journeys to other stations on the route at which the service stops do not appear to be affected.
The train operating company (TOC) said the anomalies were not a deliberate attempt to get more money from customers but ‘a systems issue that we are trying to resolve’.
In a statement, the firm said: ‘We have been unable to replicate the issue internally and this has been escalated to the RDG [Rail Delivery Group] for investigation as NRE which is owned and operated by the RDG was the first touch point for this pricing and they control the handover to the TOC. We are awaiting their response.
The RDG, which represents TOCs, as well as running the NRE website, said it thought the issue is to do with the reservations; ‘NRE (and others) are finding fares with compulsory reservations that the Avanti West Coast site is not. It is with them for investigation.’