LNER offers more than one ticket option for journeys - Yorkshire Post Letters

In response to Roger Backhouse, Anytime tickets are pricing people off trains (13 March). I am pleased to clarify and share the good news that more than one ticket option remains on LNER journeys and not only the Anytime fare as Mr Backhouse claims.

Earlier this year LNER launched Simpler Fares, a significant reform to make fares simpler to attract more people to rail who are currently put off rail travel because of the fares structure. Simpler Fares is being piloted on long distance LNER services between London King’s Cross to/from Newcastle, Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Edinburgh Waverley only.

On these three journeys only, there are now three types of fare: Advance (Fixed) – the best value fare, booked in advance for a fixed journey with a guaranteed reserved seat for travel with LNER. 

70min Flex (Semi-Flexible) – a new type of ticket offering customers the flexibility to change their booked journey to travel on other LNER services, which can be 70 minutes before or after their original booked journey. 

Anytime (Fully-Flexible) – this ticket can be used at any time of day.

Advance fares, available up to five minutes before departure, now account for 86 per cent of all journeys on our trial flows. Most recent available data shows that 94 per cent of Advance fares available to buy are priced cheaper than the old super-off-peak fare on these trial flows. The 70min Flex is also available up to five minutes before departure.

For all other LNER journeys, and all LNER journeys to and from Yorkshire, the Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak remain in place. The 70min flex is not available on journeys outside of the trial.

LNER’s recovery from the pandemic remains one of the strongest in the industry, attracting more people to rail than ever before.