Unfortunately, this deal has expired 1 April 2023.
Selected Seats Reduced (Flexibility Required: Times Allocated To You) eg London Euston - Birmingham New Street £12 @ Avanti West Coast
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Posted 17 January 2023

Selected Seats Reduced (Flexibility Required: Times Allocated To You) eg London Euston - Birmingham New Street £12 @ Avanti West Coast

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Avanti West Coast have today launched a new website to fill the seats up on the trains. You can book by the website above up to one week before.

You don’t unfortunately get to pick your train. The trains will be allocated to you the day before. The time slots are 0700-1059, 1100-1659 and 1700-2300.

This will run for a three month trial and the prices each way will be as follows.

London Euston - Birmingham New Street £12
London Euston - Liverpool Line Street £15
London Euston - Manchester Piccadilly £20
London Euston - Preston £22.
Avanti West Coast More details at

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Edited by a community support team member, 17 January 2023
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46 Comments

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  1. singhster's avatar
    I don't use the train anymore - thanks to Avanti West Coast. It's literally impossible to get a train.
    farmphdbank's avatar
    I am no Avanti fan (see post above) but it's possible- I'm on the way back from London now and it departed on time. However, I took an earlier train because I was worried about getting stranded due to late night cancellations ... the stats look awful after 21:30. Train this morning was only 3 mins late.

    Edit: eventually got to Birmingham 10 mins late with no explanation or apology lol. (edited)
  2. farmphdbank's avatar
    Thanks for posting. I think you should tweak the wording as to me "You can book by the website above up to one week before" on my first reading sounded like you can book from 1 - 7 days before travel, but it's 7 - 21 days before travel.

    Also worth noting that the intermediate stations (e.g. Birmingham International) are not included, even though the train stops there. So you'd have to buy a BHI - BHM return for that (£7.90 any time / £5.50 off peak) or rely on encountering friendly barrier staff (they do exist..).

    So you commit a week in advance and then only find out the day before which train you will travel on. I can imagine this offer being useful for some. For my work rtips it won't make sense though

    I'm getting old but still remember those heady days of late 2019 when you could still easily get £8.50 advance BHI-EUS tickets (£6.80 via perksatwork) booking 8 weeks in advance. Even ignoring the perksatwork discount (which not everyone could get) that's a ((12/8.5)^(1/3) - 1)*100 = 12.2 % annualised increase for an objectively worse fare.

    I have an amazing innovative idea for Avanti to sell more tickets. They can run trains reliably, on time, sell advance tickets reasonably far in advance for cheaper than the cost of driving.

    Rant over

    Edit: Nope, rant not over. I started thinking about the implications of getting allocated to a late night train as I'm actually travelling tomorrow by train for the first time since summer. The late trains seem to have such bad records that ontimetrains.co.uk/ doesn't bother archiving full stats for them. The latest service that runs semi-regularly is the 21:36 and recently the following services were either cancelled or delayed so much you'd have got a refund (full or partial):

    Tuesday 20 December
    Wednesday 21 December
    Thursday 22 December
    Thursday 29 December
    Friday 30 December
    Wednesday 11 January
    Thursday 12 January
    Monday 16 January

    Seems I should aim for the 20:40, which doesn't have any actual cancellation recently. However, only 6% of services were on time and >50% over 10 mins delayed (edited)
  3. valuehunter2021's avatar
    apparently this is not meant to go live until next month hence the password access now
  4. ktalbot1's avatar
    I think Avanti should focus on releasing their advance tickets on time, so travellers can at least book returns rather than having to fork out for 2 x extortionate one-way tickets.

    These jokers need their Government contract taken away from them ASAP.
    Dinho's avatar
    Their website says tickets areadvertise 12-weeks in advance. BHM - EUS is currently only accessible 5 weeks in advance. It´s a freaking joke. (edited)
  5. iBourbon's avatar
    I thought this would be helpful but it really didn't, like really really didn't.
  6. bagand96's avatar
    Paying to book a ticket with no real idea when you'll actually travel?

    Not sure this is a new idea.... sounds pretty standard for Avanti West Coast. (edited)
  7. ara02's avatar
    the link asks for a login and password?
  8. dsmsli's avatar
    No Scottish stations for departure or return ????
    3010's avatar
    Author
    Unfortunately not. There was none in the advert I saw today. (edited)
  9. rotter023's avatar
    Can't see that much use for this myself for the majority of travellers. Those 3 time windows you can book for are ridiculously large.
    farmphdbank's avatar
    Yup. Aside from them not having my station included in the offer (despite the train stopping there) you could potentially be unlucky and get allocated a train out just before 11am and coming back just after 5pm. No good for evening socialising. You could also be unlucky and get allocated the 11pm service back, which despite being run by Avanti is a slow service.... if they can be bothered to to run it at all on the day.

    Hope someone can benefit from it though
  10. tina_Sing's avatar
    i cant get on the site with the link do you have to already be registered
    shabzz's avatar
    same issue am having
  11. purplewilde's avatar
    Live now. Although, it seems its only a fantastic deal for solo travellers. Seats together aren't even guaranteed when travelling with paying children, who might otherwise be free
    sanandreasgangstar's avatar
    the 5 hour window for a random train is just too much of a risk as well...
  12. HottUKDealer's avatar
    difficult to give heat to any deal involving a train as you just don't know if the train will actually run
    hotsir's avatar
    It’s a gamble, time, money
  13. sarah000's avatar
    Is this only for single trips?
    3010's avatar
    Author
    Can do returns just need to buy two tickets. May be hard though if trying to do a day trip with the timings
  14. innocent's avatar
    Good price for a fast train, says "flexibility" is required. I'd say there is lot of uncertainty with this deal especially when you get confirmation 24 hours before travel. Say you are living in Sussex and wish to travel to Birmingham, then getting to Euston on another cheap ticket could be tricky.
  15. joeannexxx's avatar
    great thanks
  16. royalkay's avatar
    Say sold out for all the dates i put in… does this work for anyone?
    farmphdbank's avatar
    Are you looking more than a week in advance? The booking window is 7 - 21 days ahead. Only a few slots in that window were sold out when I looked yesterday.
  17. purplewilde's avatar
    Yes. Asking for username and password
    Grant_C's avatar
    The old classid admin/admin doesnt work.
  18. hotsir's avatar
    Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
    Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
    Feelin' Hot Hot Hot
    Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

    Me mind on fire,
    Me soul on fire
    Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!
    All da people,
    All around me
  19. Ypnos's avatar
    Can we not just have a normal rail company like the do in most of Europe?
    hotsir's avatar
    We have British Rail
  20. chillyemily's avatar
    Typical, none for Scotland.

    I miss Virgin, with their £1 megatrain tickets! (edited)
    debschillen0704's avatar
    Same
  21. daydreamer01's avatar
    Broken link
  22. joeannexxx's avatar
    Has anyone got a working link please, i can not find the site now, thanks
  23. hopeitfeltgood's avatar
    Asking for login …. Any ideas?
  24. valuehunter2021's avatar
    the link doesn't work
  25. farmphdbank's avatar
    Meanwhile, trying to book a normal advanced ticket ~1 week away....
    49498057-9IIND.jpgAvanti genius: "No delay repay if you weren't booked on a specific train and we change the schedule a day in advance" <taps head meme>

    These tickets (i.e. early morning 14th Feb) did actually appear for sale last Fri/weekend but I didn't book as I hadn't confirmed my agenda <shrug> (edited)
  26. purplewilde's avatar
    Has anyone used this yet?
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