Fare Dealer

RAIL fares expert Barry Doe bemoans plans to extend on-the-day Advance tickets.

I have often complained about the system used by CrossCountry, whereby people can buy Advance tickets not just the previous day but on the day itself - even after the train has started its journey.

Someone turning up at Edinburgh and wishing to travel to Plymouth will, at the booking office, have to pay either £213 on the 1010 or £233 for any earlier departure, and he or she receives no reservation. He takes a seat only to find, four hours into the journey, that somebody joins at Derby and claims it.

This second person has booked a ticket on his PC, perhaps for only £25, for a journey to Exeter St Davids. And his cheap ticket comes not only with a reservation, but the seat he is given is the very one our first customer has been using since Edinburgh.

CrossCountry says that in all such cases the seat display says the seat may be reserved during the journey, and that only a small number of seats are affected.

But I am assured by regulars - indeed, also by some staff - that over time the number has greatly increased and that on many occasions the display only starts to say that the seat may be reserved en route well into the journey.

The really bad news is that far from this awful scheme being withdrawn, more operators are going to use it the next being the

Now, there is a difference with VTEC’s scheme… for now. The rolling stock it uses - either High Speed Trains or Mk 4 hauled-stock - does not allow reservations to change en route. Indeed, all such reservations are paper tickets on the seats and must be affixed before the train starts its journey.

However, beware! This will change with the Azuma trains, and customers will then start to suffer the same inconvenience that XC inflicts on many of its users.

Let me be frank: I think this scheme is commercially immoral. It benefits those who pay least and insults those who pay most It is