Long distance rail travel can be both complicated and expensive.
So LNER are introducing a fare pilot to tackle one of these issues.
Unfortunately it's the first one.
LNER's innovation is 70min Flex, a flexible ticket which allows you to travel within a specific window either side of your booked train. Up to 70 minutes before, up to 70 minutes after, hence the name. Effectively it lets you travel within a 140 minute window, i.e. almost 2½ hours. It's clearly better than a normal Advance ticket where you have to travel on a single designated service, but it's also more expensive.
Two important things:
• The pilot is only for three specific LNER routes - London to Newcastle, London to Berwick and London to Edinburgh. No other journeys will be affected. So that's good.
• On the day the 70min Flex is introduced, which is Monday 5th February, Off-Peak and Super-Off Peak fares will be withdrawn. And that's bad.
LNER have form in fiddling with the usual rail fare structure. In June last year they abolished return tickets so now you have to buy two singles, these repriced at roughly half what the return used to be. Now they're fiddling again, with the approval of the government, in what management likes to call a Simplification Pathway.
Where standard class used to have 15 different ticketing options, next month that's down to three.
» If you want best value you buy a ticket for a specific train - an Advance.
» If you need some flexibility you buy a ticket with a 140 minute window - the 70min Flex.
» But if you need full flexibility, i.e. turn up and go, you have only one option - the Anytime.
Here's how it looks for travel between London and Newcastle on the Monday before the fare change.
After 9am a fixed Advance ticket costs fifty-something pounds, a Super Off-Peak single is £83.80 and an Anytime single is a criminal £192.80.
Here's how it looks for travel between London and Newcastle on the Monday of the fare change.
Fixed prices still vary according to availability. Semi Flexible tickets are now available and priced close to the previous Super Off-Peak fare. You could buy the cheapest 70min Flex ticket for £72.90 and still travel on the trains either side. But if you need more flexibility the only option is £192.80, an increase of over £100 on the previous £83.80, and the 11% of passengers who normally buy Off-Peak tickets may not be impressed.
There are other drawbacks to the new 70-min Flex ticket:
» You can't buy it from all ticket machines.
» You can't break your journey.
» Reservations are compulsory.
» Fares are non-refundable.
» There isn't a set price.
» It could sell out.
Off-Peak fares never sold out so you could turn up on a particular day and travel guaranteed at a guaranteed price. But now there's a risk you might turn up and all the cheaper fares have gone, in which case it's £192.80 or you don't travel. In my earlier screenshot the 09:30 Newcastle service already has only four sub-£192 fares left, and they'll never last until February.
Some further caveats about the 70min Flex fare.
• If you travel on another train within the window, not the one you booked, you can only change your seat reservation via the app or an online account. If you don't have digital access that's fine, they'll let you sit anywhere, but if the service is busy you're now no longer guaranteed a seat.
• If you need a broader window than 70 minutes they'll let you change your booking, but they'll charge you the new price plus a £10 admin fee.
• If your train is late that's fine, the 70 minutes is with reference to the timetabled time, not any disruptions.
• Yes railcards are accepted.
Another way of looking at the new ticket is as a £20 surcharge. That's because for most of the day on most services the 70min Flex fare always costs £20 more than the matching Fixed fare. It's not mentioned in any of the publicity but it's very obvious once you spot it.
So in effect there are now only two types of ticket, Fixed and Flexible, with passengers paying a £20 surcharge if they want to widen their travel window by 70 minutes. It might be 'simpler' but it's sure as hell not better value.
In good news, because this is only a pilot at three stations it's very easy to avoid. If travelling to Edinburgh, for example, you can just buy a ticket to Haymarket on the other side of the city centre and all the normal off peak tickets remain. This could be very useful during the Fringe if it looks like all the cheaper tickets to Edinburgh have 'sold out'.
In bad news, what LNER are doing here is giving themselves free rein over how much they charge. That's because Off Peak fares can only rise by a fixed amount annually, but by axing Off-Peak fares LNER slip loose of the government's regulatory shackles.
It's all part of the airlinification of long distance train travel, i.e. charging passengers according to demand, which is a world away from the original turn up and go railway. Thankfully at present it's only a tiny pilot but if we accept its introduction we risk that model polluting other routes and operators, meaning anyone who doesn't plan ahead is screwed.
Beware of operators 'simplifying' ticketing because it rarely makes your life better, only theirs.
