Un-Fucking-Believable (Part 3)
Posted: Sat 29 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »I’ve been doing some more research into the enormous price-rise by National Express East Anglia from the 5/6th September (as written about previously here and here) whereby the ticket that used to cost £39.50 has gone up to £74.
What it looks like is that National Express East Anglia have added a “peak time” definition to travel between Norwich and Cambridge – although they don’t say as much on their website. As written about in Part Two, the T&Cs for Off-Peak tickets still say…
For National Express East Anglia journeys it is valid for any train scheduled to arrive at London Liverpool Street or London Kings Cross at or after 1000, Stratford (London) after 0950, Tottenham Hale/ Seven Sisters after 0940. Not valid on any train departing London Liverpool Street or Kings Cross before 0930 or between 1629 or 1834 inclusive (1900 from Kings Cross) although travel is permitted on the 1636 from London Liverpool Street to Braintree, for destinations Hatfield Peverel to Braintree inclusive.
Which makes no mention of peak-travel times for non-London trains.
But if you look on National Express East Anglia’s own Journey Planner (That link only goes to the front page, you can’t easily link to inside the Journey Planner) and look at travel between Attleborough and Cambridge, the off-peak ticket is only valid for travelling after 10am.
I think I’m going to have to do some experimenting with this while actually travelling on the train – that should be fun!
Un-Fucking-Believable (Part 2)
Posted: Thu 27 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, National Express East Anglia, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s mini-rant about National Express East Anglia‘s huge price-rise coming in on the 5th/6th Sept, I’ve kept on looking for more information.
Unsurprisingly, National Express East Anglia’s website doesn’t really mention fares at all (although there’s plenty of references to penalty fares) and the upcoming fare-rise doesn’t appear to feature in their news section either. They still talk about off-peak fares, but it’s nigh-on impossible to get one. I’ve gone through ’til November using The Train Line’s website, and any time you ask about off-peak tickets you just get a “Not Available” (if you can even find the access to the off-peak tickets.
As the National Express East Anglia website itself says in the terms and conditions for off-peak tickets,
In most cases off peak day tickets are not available for travel on trains arriving in London before 1000 or departing from London before 0930. Travel is also not permitted on services departing from London between 1629 and 1834 Monday to Friday, except for travel to stations between Hatfield Peverel and Braintree inclusive on the 1636 departure from London.
None of the trains I’m using fall into these categories – I get in to London at around 1015 on the Monday , and was leaving at 1615 on the Friday – but still, the off-peak tickets appear to be completely unavailable after 6th September.
And for the pedantic and picky among you, yes, there is a cheaper off-peak ticket via Norwich – but that journey takes at least an hour longer, takes me to a less-useful London station, and is one of the more renownedly unreliable lines in the country…
Un-Fucking-Believable
Posted: Wed 26 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Travel, Work-related | 7 Comments »In the spirit of being organised, I’ve just been booking accommodation and train tickets for the rest of the contract, which takes me through to the end of September.
I’d already booked stuff for next week, and that was all sorted.
However, it looks like 5th September is National Price-Rise Day – and in the case of the train tickets in particular, it’s abso-fucking-lutely extortionate.
This week and next, the return ticket from Attleborough to London (including Tube to get me to the office) is £39.50. Which, in fairness, is pretty good value.
For travelling on the 7th September, that self-same return ticket is – are you ready for this? – £74.
Yes, for reasons known only to themselves, National Express East Anglia think it’s acceptable to pretty much double the price. How the fuck can that be justified?