Irish Rail Price Increases (Internet Fares)

CptSternn

Has anyone else noticed the Irish Rail prices have jumped significantly?

I travel by rail every two weeks, and have for the past four years. Prices have always been going up, but back in 2011-2012 they used to do online discount codes.

They stopped those, in fact, there is a post on Facebook about it, and claimed no need for codes because if you book online you will get a discount as they offered reduced rates if you book online in advance.

Today, I am looking to book a train from Dublin to Limerick two weeks in advance and the price is €26.99 each way. Thats online booking two weeks in advance and its the same price as the ticket office. No more discount codes, no more online discounts. I have a car, but until now it had been cheaper to take the train when they only charged €9.99 or €14.99 each way as it costs me about €50 in petrol and tolls to go back and forth to Dublin. They as of today have priced themselves out of the market, I mean, I can fill up my car and go for cheaper now than I can with the train. That has never happened before.

Do they really expect to get more people to use the train by doubling the costs?

foggy_lad

It looks like there is no longer any discount for buying a return ticket and you are just charged for two singles on the website.

CptSternn

From the website:



Apparently this no longer applies.

schemingbohemia

Are you looking at the all-ireland replay day - Saturday 27th? Supply and demand.

There are lots of €16.99 fares the Monday afterwards.

LXFlyer

Online fares are promotional fares - they rise and fall depending on demand.

When major events are on the fares will always be higher.

CptSternn

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Are you looking at the all-ireland replay day - Saturday 27th? Supply and demand.

There are lots of €16.99 fares the Monday afterwards.

Actually I'll be travelling the 25 and 28, the only €16.99 fares (which up until recently were €9.99 fares) are for the very early 7am trains.

Did not know there was some replay on, not into sports.

n97 mini

Dublin Coach do it for €20 return.

http://www.dublincoach.ie/timetables-fares/M7-bus-ennis-limerick-to-dublin-city.php

2hr45 O'Connell Bridge to Arthur's Quay.

LXFlyer

The €9.99 fares were a sale option. As I said, prices go up and down - these are promotional fares.

I'm looking at it for travel on the 25th and 28th and can see plenty of €16.99 fares available throughout the day.

Try again OP!

Hilly Bill

The normal open return fare to Limerick is €67.20. Online for the 25th and return on the 28th is €33.98. Thats going out at 12 and returning around 4.20. Plenty other times available at that price.

CptSternn

Yeah, the €16.99 fares are all at times when most people like myself cannot travel. No discounts for standard travel times and no longer discounts for booking online or booking return. Until recently they actually had pretty reasonable online fares.

Looks like I'm going to be travelling with Dublin Coach as it was suggested above.

Thanks for the responses.

Sean9015

CptSternn wrote: »

Yeah, the €16.99 fares are all at times when most people like myself cannot travel. No discounts for standard travel times and no longer discounts for booking online or booking return. Until recently they actually had pretty reasonable online fares.

Looks like I'm going to be travelling with Dublin Coach as it was suggested above.

Thanks for the responses.

As others have mentioned, it is market pricing; as demand goes up, so does the price. If IÉ can fill a seat at say €25, why should it sell it for €16? On the other hand, if you can be flexible and fill an otherwise empty seat, you get a discount. Most transport modes now operate along similar lines in some form. If you want cheap fares all the time, pay higher taxes to increase the subvention

LXFlyer

CptSternn wrote: »

Yeah, the €16.99 fares are all at times when most people like myself cannot travel. No discounts for standard travel times and no longer discounts for booking online or booking return. Until recently they actually had pretty reasonable online fares.

Looks like I'm going to be travelling with Dublin Coach as it was suggested above.

Thanks for the responses.

There are €16.99 fares from Dublin to Limerick on the 25th at:
09:00, 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:25, 16:25, 18:00 and 21:00


There are €16.99 fares from Limerick to Dublin on the 28th at:
08:25, 10:25, 12:25, 14:20, 15:45, 16:20, 17:45 and 18:20


That's hardly a bad spread of times?

Hilly Bill

CptSternn wrote: »

Yeah, the €16.99 fares are all at times when most people like myself cannot travel. No discounts for standard travel times and no longer discounts for booking online or booking return. Until recently they actually had pretty reasonable online fares.

Looks like I'm going to be travelling with Dublin Coach as it was suggested above.

Thanks for the responses.

What time did you want to travel at?

foggy_lad

Just checked a midweek fare for Dublin-Waterford on 29th October and it is showing NO discount at all for booking online! fares are actually more expensive than the walk up fares when the credit card charges and fees are included!

goingnowhere

There are no booking fees or credit card charges

n97 mini

goingnowhere wrote: »

There are no booking fees or credit card charges

Were they done away with?

Hilly Bill

Yes.

n97 mini

When?

LXFlyer

They vanished in the last couple of months thankfully.

efb

The €9.99 debacle and eu laws I think

Jamie2k9

n97 mini wrote: »

When?

13 June, the fee was transferred to fares instead!

EU credit card charges law required it to be scrapped.

n97 mini

It was a bit of a sham. Airlines had stopped charging it years ago and in all my time booking on nationalrail.co.uk or on translink.co.uk I was never charged the like.

bk

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

EU credit card charges law required it to be scrapped.

I pointed that out at the time, but many here said I was wrong and it was ok for Irish Rail to distort their prices unfairly in this way!

Glad to see that the EU agreed with me that it was fundamentally immoral practice.

Sean9015 wrote:

As others have mentioned, it is market pricing; as demand goes up, so does the price

You'd think so, but it doesn't really seem to be the case.

I got the train to Killarney two weeks ago, the first time I've been on the train in about 3 years! I booked online one day in advance because my girlfriend didn't know her work schedule till then. So I ended up paying full price, a very expensive €80 return each!

But here was the thing, the train was almost empty, literally there was one other person sitting in the carriage other then us!

I wouldn't call that demand pricing at all! It doesn't really seem to be based on demand, more on booking time.

Now I wouldn't exactly call that a Ryanair model of doing business there. In fact I'm pretty sure Ryanair would cancel the flight and probably the entire route if it was doing that badly.

I'm really glad we have reasonably priced direct non stop private bus operators to every major city now. Pity we don't have similar services to Kerry and Mayo, these are pretty much the only reason I'd take the train any more. It really is far too expensive a service.

One new thing that I like and hadn't seen before was the trains screens now tell you how many KM to the next stop. Good as it helps you prepare for your stop.

But I saw little else to motivate me to move back to the train from private direct bus services where available.

laoisfan

bk wrote: »

Now I wouldn't exactly call that a Ryanair model of doing business there. In fact I'm pretty sure Ryanair would cancel the flight and probably the entire route if it was doing that badly.

Do Ryanair do multiple stops on the journey? Not really a like for like comparison is it?

bk

laoisfan wrote: »

Do Ryanair do multiple stops on the journey? Not really a like for like comparison is it?

Even after all the stops, there wasn't more then 10 people in the carriage! :eek:

LXFlyer

Was it an off-peak time?

bk

lxflyer wrote: »

Was it an off-peak time?

Just barely, but the Cork train it connected with was peak and it was just as quiet.

The point is the pricing certainly isn't based on demand, it is based on time and isn't anything like a Ryanair model.

flyingsnail

As I understand it the system is based on a combination of both time and demand. The closer you get to departure date/time the more you pay for the ticket but the cheaper tickets can also sell out even though there is still a lot of time left.

bk

flyingsnail wrote: »

As I understand it the system is based on a combination of both time and demand. The closer you get to departure date/time the more you pay for the ticket but the cheaper tickets can also sell out even though there is still a lot of time left.

In other words the worst of both worlds and the least customer friendly.

Hilly Bill

The customer will only be happy if its free ( OK, some arnt ) picks them up at the door at the time they are ready at.

Jamie2k9

The point is the pricing certainly isn't based on demand, it is based on time and isn't anything like a Ryanair model.

Its very similar to Ryanair who base some prices on time and the time of year.

Eg in November you can purchase a 9.99 fare to Manchester everyday except Friday when its 23.99. Supply, Demand and Time.

If IE kept the cheap fares at peak times especially on a Friday afternoon we would have threat after threat about the major overcrowding. Its bad at times now, dumping lots of cheap fares is not a good idea.