Rail travel has become very difficult/expensive in the past year.
Advance tickets are not being released until very close to travel, and the cheapest fare bands are not being released at all in many cases.
Throughout the pandemic, long-distance operator London North Western has refused to introduce seat reservations and their Twitter account is littered with daily postings of trains "having reached social distancing capacity" and advising passengers not to travel on the train.
Under the cover of the pandemic, Avanti snuck through a huge fare increase last summer on off-peak tickets (that are supposed to regulated) by abolishing the SVH ticket, also known as the half-saver, but labelled as "Off-peak single (online only)". Contrary to that description, it was not a single ticket, it could only be used to construct one leg of a return ticket. It was priced at half of the off-peak return fare.
It was very useful in two situations:
- To combine an SVH in one direction with an Advance ticket in another, when you needed time-flexibility in only one direction;
- To combine an SVH using a railcard in one direction, with an SVH for travel before 09:30 (when a railcard was not available) in the other direction.
I used the latter on a regular basis for evening kick-offs, travelling to Lime Street with a railcard discount, and travelling back early the following morning on a non-railcard fare. The cheapest way I can now do the same journey is over a quarter more expensive.