First Class train ticket prices WTF!!!

I’ve just been looking to book some day return tickets from Leeds to Bristol and was flabbergasted by the price they think they can ask for First Class.

£568 for an open return!! There are return plane tickets to Oz on the web for £599.

Do they just make these numbers up or do they think that there’s value in that price?

Needless to say I’m going standard.

Some companies will send their staff (or provide costs for clients) at that standard – as it’s expected.

A good friend of mine has a private PLANE at his disposal!!!

(He’s on the Board of Directors for a very large cruise company)

Knowing the logic of ticketing the standard tickets are probably more expensive than the first class.

All open tickets are expensive, flights or rail.

Check the price of a business class flight to Oz, it will be about £3000 – £4000 return.

If you travel off peak and book a couple of weeks ahead then you can get some very good deals on First Class rail.

Its also a really pleasant way to travel if you are sticking to mainline services.

Same train, same design of coach, same windows,same annoying announcements, and sometimes a more snotty type of passenger.

Why do you think first class is always empty? Luckily the new Virgin Pendolino’s only allocate half the train to the 2 people who can afford it

Its almost as if some total **** sat on his tax haven island in the Caribbean and designed it as a massively ****ing obvious metaphor for our entire society, then cackled into his stupid ****ing beard (ironically given his location) like a bond villain

Same train, same design of coach, same windows,same annoying announcements, and sometimes a more snotty type of passenger.

Just like flying anything other than economy then?

Well aren’t you a little ray of sunshine, project! 🙂

For long haul travel, a lot of people find that travelling in economy/standard makes it virtually impossible to do any work. As such, any time on the train/plane is effectively ‘dead’ time. Many employers will see a benefit in having someone working while travelling, which is offset against the cost of the travel itself.

That said, re flights to Oz, my last trip out there was to speak at a paper clip convention (natch) and I hadn’t really done my presentation in advance. It was done on the outbound flight (Qantas A380 business) and was very much helped by the excellent selection of wine on board….

Had to redo most of it the night before the event in my hotel room! Sober. 😳

Wrap yourself in brown paper and get down to your Post Office, they’ll send you there for about fifty quid 😆

Flashy jetting off to the office earlier….

I got a First Class return to Birmingham (from Manchester) for about £40 all in recently – booked it well in advance and (slightly annoyingly) I was restricted to specific trains but it was only £8 more expensive than Standard at the time of booking and the journey was great.

Free wifi, MUCH quieter in the carriage, loads more legroom, free coffee and biscuits.

But yes, try and travel tomorrow and return anytime within a month and they’ll charge whatever they want!

As such, any time on the train/plane is effectively ‘dead’ time. Many employers will see a benefit in having someone working while travelling, which is offset against the cost of the travel itself.

But then the same could be thought of as when driving to work in a vehicle or riding a bike, strange how some company employees accept traveling time is work time,and sometimes actually do work/facebook/forums etc.

I used to travel to London a lot first class with work and often the first class tickets were cheaper than standard class. Booking singles is the trick. Free tea, cake and booze, win win.

You could probably hire a limo for less. 😐

You could probably hire a limo for less.

http://yourtaximeter.com/

Reckons £315 for a taxi which would go door to door.

Yeah, but in a taxi you wouldn’t get free tea and a newspaper 😀

Surely that is easily worth the additional 250 quid!

If you went into a first class carriage- I wonder how many public sector workers there would be in there.

I took a flight to Houston last week, booked last minute and only Business class available – £6500. An economy flight can be had for £650.

You can also get a train ticket for less than £50 return.

Not sure why this should come as a surprise?

If you went into a first class carriage- I wonder how many public sector workers there would be in there.

When I worked for a Public Sector employer I used to book train tickets for my boss. The policy was that if you were above a certain grade you got to travel first class, I presume so that you can do work on the train. Although you were still able to claim travel and subsistence costs back…

Back the the ticket cost was £225. This was from Cardiff to London so only a 2 hr journey!

lancaster to london – first is sometimes cheaper than standard on the early morning services, which makes getting a train at 5.30am more pleasant,

If you went into a first class carriage- I wonder how many public sector workers there would be in there.

When I worked in the public sector is was standard class all the way. Private sector now and they trust us to do what’s appropriate. I travel London – Birmingham quite frequently, and it’s cheaper to go first class one evening and stay in a hotel than it is to go standard class in the morning peak. Much more pleasurable, and I get more work done too.

First Class is actually much BETTER value in many businesses.

Say you’re a client and you want an adviser/consultant etc to attend a meeting. That consultant is charging your company £500 per hour.

If it’s 6 hours travelling time in total then that’s £3,000 to pay for them to sit on their backside doing **** all…unless they can guarantee that they will be able to do some other work and therefore not need to charge you travel time.

Generally, the only way you can get into a position where you can definitely get work done is travelling in first. So for a £500 quid ticket you avoid £3,000 in travel time costs.

Also, if you travel regularly, it’s almost impossible to keep up with work unless you can make good use of travel time. I go through periods where i’m flying twice a week, or catching long trains. that’s too much dead time, completely not workable to be sat doing nothing.

Generally, the only way you can get into a position where you can definitely get work done is travelling in first.

How so? Standard class has reservable seats, tables, power connections and wifi.

What extras does First Class offer other than moderately more comfortable seats, free tea and less oiks?

less oiks?

Shut up and take my money!

🙂

What extras does First Class offer

Come the Revolution, it means they are all in one place.

How so? Standard class has reservable seats, tables, power connections and wifi.

What extras does First Class offer other than moderately more comfortable seats, free tea and less oiks?

There’s been lots and lots of occasions where i’ve not had space to work in standard (not everyone can book in advance and guarantee a table seat).

Personally, I don’t care either way most of the time, since if I can’t work then I just get to chill out for a few hours. but that doesn’t really help the person paying the bill.

less oiks?

fewer?

I purposefully wear scruffy stuff if gong in 1st.

and at €39 e/w for Frankfurt-Geneva in cattle (with 1 power socket per 2 seats), and a whopping €10 upgrade e/w to 1st class, I thought sod it. Prolly a bit more space to stow skis, bag, rucksack,…

Well yeah, if there were no table reservations left in all of standard class then I can see it might make sense for a company to upgrade you then if your time was really that precious.

Just seems odd for that to be the default as some suggest.

But then if I’m traveling on business then I’m grateful if I don’t have to share a hotel room 😀

My dad worked for British Rail for many years, and retained free first class for life upon leaving. I got this benefit until I left Uni – could just jump on any train first class, no ticket needed. I used to thoroughly enjoy travelling back and forth to uni looking like an oik, getting sarcy comments from train staff until I showed them my “son of executive staff” pass. Amazing how polite they’d then become!

Miss that now, had every intention of doing a mini inter-railing trip around the UK, just never got around to it. Gutted.

Check the price of a business class flight to Oz, it will be about £3000 – £4000 return.

About £1500 last time I looked..

Graham, you’re missing the point. When someone is paying you on a time spent basis, then your time is precious to THEM

About £1500 last time I looked..

When was that, 1980? “Business class” is a bit of a difficult one though innit – you’ll be bloody lucky to get WTP on BA for that, let alone Club or First. Personally I’d say you’re looking at the ‘Club’ level on BA for what I’d call business class, and you’re sure as hell not getting that for £1500 return to Sydney.

In fact I just looked, flying in January on some random dates the cheapest is £4050 return, to have some flexibility it’s £7950. So the point stands.

Yep, BA Club has been around 4k for my last trips. (One was a QA codeshare, as mentioned above, back back with BA though. Had a lovely upgrade on that one as well. Very much dismissing the ‘dress smartly and ask nicely’ myth. I was scruffy as anything with a raging hangover as I checked in! 🙂 )

What extras does First Class offer other than moderately more comfortable seats, free tea and less oiks?

In the UK: very slightly larger seat and a tiny bit more legroom, ‘free wi-fi’ that doesn’t actually work, really shit food (quite frankly you’d be better off bringing a cold McDonalds meal with you) and the annoyance of having to sit near complete **** blethering inane corporate bullshit down their ‘phones, or tapping furiously away at laptops for the entire duration. Or worse, groups having a ‘conference’ while you’re trying to relax.

I see Standard class as an upgrade.

It staggers me that they have the audacity to charge anything at all for train travel. I love trains, but am currently sat in a car park waiting for my wife. Her first train we twenty minutes late. The next one she is on but they have turned the engine off because they can’t find a driver.

The train company can’t find a driver for their train. In Leeds train station. How can this happen?

The trains need nationalizing again. This privatisation experiment has utterly failed, trains are later and more expensive.

I see Standard class as an upgrade.

Me too, I was also kicked out of first class once for calling Tony Christie a ****.

And if you have to actually work whilst travelling, you’re obviously not high enough up the ladder. 😉

OP that is ridiculous. Go onto thetrainline.com and look at advanced tickets, you have to book in advance. Train companies charge ridiculous fares for first as they know most passengers are on expenses.

For £500 you can get a chauffeur driven car (e.g. merc) I would think

Re debate. I’ve commuted by train most of the last 30 years (35 mins train journey). I had a first class season ticket for about 10 years, it was £25 a week more expensive so £110 vs £85. I could guaranty a seat whereas standard is often standing on the way in and you need to be at train home 5-10 mins early to get a seat on way home. Plus more space. Haven’t done it for last 5 years as price difference went to 60% higher and redesigned trains had less first class carriages and much less space. FWIW you cannot compare BA business / coach with first / second class rail as the difference in the flying experience is massive, first v second on the train is closer.

the annoyance of having to sit near complete **** blethering inane corporate bullshit down their ‘phones, or tapping furiously away at laptops for the entire duration. Or worse, groups having a ‘conference’ while you’re trying to relax.

I see Standard class as an upgrade.

Amazing how two peoples experiences on the same rail network can be so different.

I think I could count the number of times on one hand that I’ve heard someone speaking loud enough to actually pick up on what they’re saying in first, never mind be bothered by it. Same with “conferences”. The main difference between first and standard for me is the difference in volume. I always find first to be extremely quiet. This is helpful when working. Standard is a lottery for volume. You could luck out and get a perfectly quiet carriage and a table to yourself, or you could end up having to catch a peak train and it’s really noisy and you get seat with a crap wee fold down table. If you’ve got stuff you need to do, it’s a bit of a pointless and unnecessary risk to take.

If I’m travelling and it’s not for work, I couldn’t care less what carriage I’m in.

If you went into a first class carriage- I wonder how many public sector workers there would be in there.

🙄