[Albion] FA cup 4th round, Sheffield united

[BenPage]

Can anyone tell me what the likely date of the 4th round vs sheffield will be on and ticketing sales dates by any chance? presumably if on a weekend they would give a large allocation?

cheers.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

No I don’t realise LNER are government run? Of course I do. LUMO and Hull Trains are not the main fare abstractors on this route, Cross Country, Transpennine and Grand Central are also there, so that isn’t pure Gubbins. It’s incredibly complicated at the moment, but the profit is incredibly up in there, and I don’t rate LNER as a TOC at all. Tomorrow isn’t a busy travel day so it’s not going to be £87 is it, that’s before you even factor in that quite often services are taken off sale completely, like on Avanti and do not travel. Raising the price of walk up fares at 12:30pm from £87 to £192 is simplifying it, but it’s making it more than 100% more expensive. How is it in any way better for the passenger this new system? Other than there only being two options. I mean I’m more than happy to advocate for the railways, as I use them (and to an extent run them), but the profit gouging is the problem. I can present you the full picture for plenty of other routes. But of course to you it’s just someone slagging off the railways (which it isn’t) it’s just crappy profiteering on routes, instead of increasing capacity.


Edit: I mean you only need to look above at halfaseat paying £110 to Nottingham to see what happens when there is high demand on certain days. A walk up fare under a simple to use railway should not have the only option being £194 at all hours of the day.

I don’t doubt any of what you are saying about profits but I would pay more for a service that was guaranteed to be running. That is not the case at the moment so we don’t buy railway tickets.

 

[jackalbion]

Sorry you are full of nonsense. Show me one day where you cant get a single advance fare cheaper than £87 on the new LNER simplified fares routes where a train isnt already fully reserved (ie all the seats are sold out)? Where are you getting £192 from? There are always cheaper options than that, You are picking the highest possible fare to sensationalise, You said tomorrow isnt a busy travel day? Fridays (and Sundays) are the busiest day of the week by far on that route ffs, you literally have no idea what you are talking about. Tabloid journalism tactics. And Lumo is hugely abstractive, I see the numbers every day. TPE and XC are minuscule in comparison on that route. I also noted your daft statement earlier about putting on more capacity (on an already half hourly service on a ridiculously busy east coast mainline). And from which spare fleet exactly do you propose that capacity comes from? The business is already running the remnants of the 40 year old 225 fleet at a loss to keep the current timetable going, and has zero flex until the new CAF fleet arrives in a few years time to enable the improved timetable in 2024.

There will almost always be cheaper advance tickets than the current open fares unless the trains are completely full ,and then people wiill be discouraged from paying high fares to stand up, which is surely better than the current scenario of pay high fares and no seat because the reservations are full on felx tickets no one undertstands unless you are a rail nerd? At the end of the day more times than not customers will get a better deal. Ive analysed the financial modelling in depth and worked on the business case.

You're just running your mouth off with zero facts. If you want to take this offline I can debunk pretty much every single thing you think about the new fares and have said on here, Im sure everyone else would get bored to tears with railway commercial financial modelling.

Here is the £192. The list of walk up fares listed here. A random Friday in January isn't going to be a busy travel day, but lets say a bank holiday Monday or just before Christmas. The point on the capacity expansion is that money could be moved into improving the infrastructure, I agree the old fleet is running at a loss, but more my point about capacity is a long term thing. We aren't going to agree on the fare structure with advance tickets because I think its part of a larger shift to higher dynamic pricing surely? I agree we are going to bore everyone to tears but I don't think removing cheaper options is good for the passenger? Happy to be proven wrong on the flex tickets, but I don't see what it brings at the moment. People are going to still be stood up as popular trains will still be full as everyone will buy a flex ticket for the train after. I can only see it as a cynical way to raise ticket prices, like the introduction of single fares on the East Coast, which came with a sneaky fare rise. I also agree that we are probably boring people I wouldn't say its nonsense, but I would say it's reading between the lines.

 

[Giraffe]

Still 33 tickets left, and no sign of an additional allocation. Anyone still holding out for the expectation that the top tier will be opened are probably in for a disappointment.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

No I don’t realise LNER are government run? Of course I do. LUMO and Hull Trains are not the main fare abstractors on this route, Cross Country, Transpennine and Grand Central are also there, so that isn’t pure Gubbins. It’s incredibly complicated at the moment, but the profit is incredibly up in there, and I don’t rate LNER as a TOC at all.

Out of interest, do you have an issue with LNER other than their pricing?
In my experience of the companies operating on the East Coast Mainline on the stretch between Newcastle and York (LNER, Cross Country and TransPennine) they're the only operator who come anywhere close to being basically tolerable. While admittedly also generally being more expensive.

 

[jackalbion]

Out of interest, do you have an issue with LNER other than their pricing?
In my experience of the companies operating on the East Coast Mainline on the stretch between Newcastle and York (LNER, Cross Country and TransPennine) they're the only operator who come anywhere close to being basically tolerable. While admittedly also generally being more expensive.

I think they provide a decent service with what they've got, the infrastructure lets them down more than anyone on that route. I'm not a fan of their disruption planning, but that isn't an issue that solely is them and is industry wide at the moment. I do think their pricing is disproportionately more expensive than others. To be fair you are comparing them to Cross Country and TransPennine who are not in the greatest of states.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

To be fair you are comparing them to Cross Country and TransPennine who are not in the greatest of states.

Understatement of the year award goes to....

 

[BNthree]

Still 33 tickets left, and no sign of an additional allocation. Anyone still holding out for the expectation that the top tier will be opened are probably in for a disappointment.

A bunch of extra tickets appeared in BL2 which was definitely sold out yesterday.

 

[Dave the hatosaurus]

A bunch of extra tickets appeared in BL2 which was definitely sold out yesterday.

The club always hold some back for sponsors players comps etc some of which are usually released in the final run up to the game. Given the much shorter than usual timescale and the tickets being close to selling out i guess they are doing it now.

 

[oldboyroy]

I would have preferred the top tier but i bottled it ages ago. Anybody who is still waiting for it must surely be nervous now.
I suppose it now depends on how many blocks the club would have to commit to.
35 left for the cup match and the league has sold out which i think is a great effort.

Yes, was hoping for top tier too but rather be there than take risk of missing out

 

[Guinness Boy]

Sorry you are full of nonsense. Show me one day where you cant get a single advance fare cheaper than £87 on the new LNER simplified fares routes where a train isnt already fully reserved (ie all the seats are sold out)? Where are you getting £192 from? There are always cheaper options than that, You are picking the highest possible fare to sensationalise, You said tomorrow isnt a busy travel day? Fridays (and Sundays) are the busiest day of the week by far on that route ffs, you literally have no idea what you are talking about. Tabloid journalism tactics. And Lumo is hugely abstractive, I see the numbers every day. TPE and XC are minuscule in comparison on that route. I also noted your daft statement earlier about putting on more capacity (on an already half hourly service on a ridiculously busy east coast mainline). And from which spare fleet exactly do you propose that capacity comes from? The business is already running the remnants of the 40 year old 225 fleet at a loss to keep the current timetable going, and has zero flex until the new CAF fleet arrives in a few years time to enable the improved timetable in 2024.

There will almost always be cheaper advance tickets than the current open fares unless the trains are completely full ,and then people wiill be discouraged from paying high fares to stand up, which is surely better than the current scenario of pay high fares and no seat because the reservations are full on felx tickets no one undertstands unless you are a rail nerd? At the end of the day more times than not customers will get a better deal. Ive analysed the financial modelling in depth and worked on the business case.

You're just running your mouth off with zero facts. If you want to take this offline I can debunk pretty much every single thing you think about the new fares and have said on here, Im sure everyone else would get bored to tears with railway commercial financial modelling.

I often read the Man In Seat 61. He reckons the issue isn't so much the cost of surge or profitability but the loss of flexibility

The Man in Seat 61: What's new on the site

News page on the Man in Seat 61 website

www.seat61.com

Super Off Peak can be very useful for the punter. It turned out to be my best option between London and Nottingham for the Forest game and I was very glad the lady at the ticket office sold it to me, as we were stuck at Grantham on the way over because the trains coming in were over-crowded, with the same issue coming home. Of the four trains I took, three were not the ones on the planned journey.

You might say the +/- 70 mins on Advance covers for that but if one is cancelled the walk up IS going to be stupidly expensive, because two trainloads of people will be on the next service. Using Super Off Peak you could jump on a Grand Central or Hull Trains depending on where you were going (not sure about Lumo, I'm not a rail worker).

Lastly, once the practice of surge pricing is common place I'm sure it'll be used against football fans by the TOCs. Could easily get a day when both a Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham club are at home at roughly the same time. The trains that will be Advance +/- 70 booked will all be the ones that get you there in plenty of time for kick off (not helped by Avanti reducing services on some of those lines), which would make every train out of Euston stupidly expensive for the last to buy tickets.

Why have you removed flexibility?

 

[cheesy77]

Now showing as sold out, so lower tier full.

Interesting decision for the club to now take regarding opening anything in the upper tier

 

[Is it PotG?]

Now showing as sold out, so lower tier full.

Interesting decision for the club to now take regarding opening anything in the upper tier

Considering they've been on sale for some time now, and go off sale online on Monday, I know where my money would go......

 

[Charles 'Charley' Charles]

Considering they've been on sale for some time now, and go off sale online on Monday, I know where my money would go......

In fairness they don’t go off sale on Monday, it is “in person” sales only at the Amex though. The fact it’s sold out makes that a moot point anyway though.

 

[Is it PotG?]

In fairness they don’t go off sale on Monday, it is “in person” sales only at the Amex though. The fact it’s sold out makes that a moot point anyway though.

Hence the 'online' bit.

 

[Charles 'Charley' Charles]

Hence the 'online' bit.

That’ll teach me to skim read, apologies.

 

[Hendrax]

Got my tickets in the post this morning. Ordered at 2pm on the all STH window.

 

[Bodian]

Got my tickets in the post this morning. Ordered at 2pm on the all STH window.

Mine's arrived too. Only booked Wednesday morning. Not bad seeing as someone had to write almost 4,000 names onto them.

 

[Stat Brother]

Mine's arrived too. Only booked Wednesday morning. Not bad seeing as someone had to write almost 4,000 names onto them.

Christ, how big is your car?

 

[drew]

Re the train prices, who relies on walk up prices when travelling that far??

 

[Weststander]

That does look a bit pricey. I managed to get a return for me and my daughter from Bedford to Sheffield for a total of £30. Admittedly we’re already partway there, but a return to Brighton for us isn't anywhere near the difference of £130!

I just need to make sure we get match tickets in the 2pm bun fight now.

That’s £70 via nationalrail.co.uk . How did you manage to find £30?