To Graham and Lisa a son, Virtual Person Ellis. Virtual is a Designer child, conceived with the assistance of P and O Irish Ferries' web site support team to assist his father in the booking of a cabin on a sickly web site. At the tender age of 4 days, he's booked to accompany his father on a crossing from Liverpool this coming Sunday evening, and his father is hoping he sleeps through.
There are some daft booking systems and prices around! "Invent an infant" was the advise given to me by the ferry operator as I wrestled with their web site the other day. "That way, you get the booking you want, and the web discount. There's no charge for an under 4, but if I book it for you you won't get the web price".
If you're travelling by train on an expensive route, it's sometimes cheaper to buy two tickets for different halves of the journey. For example, from Chippenham to London, you'll pay less in some circumstances of you buy a Chippenham to Didcot ticket and a Didcot to London ticket. The booking office at your staring station should be able to issue both tickets (I'm not saying they'll be please to), and you're totally within the rules provided that you travel on trains that actually stop at the intermediate point rather than ones that pass through express.
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but if you're travelling between Tonbridge and London, a ticket from the next station away from London (High Brooms) use to be cheaper. There was a bit of a rumpus at Tonbridge when travellers were refused permission to cut their journey short and leave the station one day.
Cross Channel ferries are notorious. Just this weekend, the Daily Telegraph carried an article describing how return fares from Dover are around 100 pounds, but return fares from Calais are about 30 pounds. The web site refuses to take bookings for trips originating in Calais with UK postal addresses, and the article questioned whether this was legal within the community.
A note of caution. If you book a cheap return trip from Dover to Calais on a credit or debit card and don't turn up for the return crossing, the ferry company will charge your card for the full price of a single for the journey you took to Calais in addition to the cheap return trip. I've been warned about this one ... although I don't personlly know anyone it's happened to.
Finally, single air fares on some routes (especially Transatlantic) are much more expensive than return flights. To the best of my knowledge, no financial penalties are imposed if you don't use the return half (with such a network or airlines and agents I think that would be difficult), and I've not heard of future bookings with the same airline being denied because of unused tickets.
Any experiences of daft fares / practises here?
