On 10 Jan, 18:03, Michael Hoffman wrote:
Instead, it achieves the opposite. Which makes me think that it's not
complex discrimination, but just a way of filling a few empty seats
very very cheaply to the company (and to the passengers, of course).

That's exactly what price discrimination does, it allows them to fill
empty seats with cheaper tickets without abstracting away revenue they
already have. It's designed specifically to keep people like the OP from
doing what he wants to do.

Yes of course, but if the restrictions were demand-based, they would
not have chosen the restrictions they have chosen.

It is possible they would still not have covered London - Guildford
journeys. But it's certain that they would have allowed Guildford -
Portsmouth journeys, because that's the point when the train is
emptiest and the cannibalisation is most limited - even compared to
London - Portsmouth journeys, which they currently do allow.

But Guildford - Portsmouth is not covered - and indeed, the list of
stations you *can* travel between is almost the opposite of the list
of stations you would find if their primary aim was purely to fill
empty seats with cheap tickets and not abstract revenue.

Rather, their aim is to do that as much as they can /without imposing
any additional costs on the business/, and that is what determines the
stations they're serving.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org