"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message
...

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
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"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message
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"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
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"Marcus Fox" wrote
in
message ...
Travelled from Haywards Heath to Newark last Sunday. Asked for the
cheapest
way, and was told it would be £54. But when I got home, I checked
prices
online and found that a single From HH to Kings Cross Thameslink
is
£15.70
and a single from Kings Cross to Newark is £30.40. Total price
£46.10.
Why
such the difference in price?

Shows that you can't trust the answer given by the staff in a
station
(I
presume it was at HH ticket office that you asked for the cheapest
fare).
Given a question like "what is the cheapest fare from HH to Newark",
the
ticket office should have searched for the cheapest combination of
tickets
(not beyond the wit of a computer) and sold you the two tickets that
you
mention.

I bet you're well ****ed-off that they sold you a more expensive
ticket...


Doesn't that rather depend on the instructions given to the booking
office
staff and also exactly how the intending purchaser phrases the
question?.

It does: but I think "what is the cheapest fare from HH to Newark?"
should
elicit the cheapest possible fare even if that involves multiple
tickets.

The rule is that staff can sell multiple tickets - as the OP described - if
asked for them, but cannot offer them, because there could be an even
cheaper price by changing the place where you go from one ticket to the
next. Staff are only allowed to sell ordinary tickets unless asked
specifically for other combinations.

Actually, the OP was sold the cheapest ticket from HH to Newark, but what
was cheaper was a ticket from HH to London and London to Newark, but that's
a different question.

Michael