Why does my train trip cost more than a Malaga flight?
Simon Calder on expensive rail tickets, passports to Kenya, US border control and the Swiss capital
Q I am looking at a trip from Ayrshire to Liverpool in October. How come it costs £110 to get from Kilmarnock to Liverpool when a flight from the Ayrshire airport of Prestwick to Malaga is only £25?
Chris W
A I imagine the quote you have obtained for the 220-mile trip is the £110 standard “walk-up” fare (ie what you would pay immediately before departure) because no advance tickets are on sale yet for that day. If you try again in a couple of months the fare should fall sharply. On 10 August, for example, the cheapest rail ticket from Kilmarnock to Liverpool is just £14.20 – and, with a railcard, that comes down to less than a tenner. Four weeks from now, it’s £22.60. Even travelling tomorrow morning, the fare is £40.
Your question brings into sharp focus a serious problem for the railways: the apparent inability to book sensibly priced tickets more than a couple of months ahead. While long-suffering regular rail passengers like me will just shrug and make a note to book later, occasional travellers may understandably take one look at the outrageous fare quote and decide to drive instead.
Why does the rail industry make it all so difficult? After all, the basic schedule for each train operator is set in stone: ordained by the government in London or, for ScotRail, in Edinburgh. But rail firms are reluctant to sell advance tickets when there is a risk that engineering work may scupper the normal timetable.
Working on the basis that the passenger should wait for the bargains to appear, they set their own terms for when to release advance tickets. Typically this is 12 weeks ahead. But for your trip, three train operators are involved: ScotRail (to Glasgow or Carlisle), Avanti West Coast (to Wigan) and Northern (to Liverpool). Everything depends on the slowest common denominator.
In contrast, airlines typically put their schedules on sale 11 months ahead. For the example you mention, Prestwick-Malaga on Ryanair, a fare of £25 is remarkable value. But this is only buying the flying (baggage will push up the price), and close to departure that fare is likely to increase sharply.
Q I am travelling to Nairobi on Qatar Airways. According to the airline’s travel requirements, “Passports with manually extended validity are not allowed to enter Kenya”. By “manually extended validity”, do they mean UK passports with carried forward months are not allowed to enter Kenya?
SMV
A “Carried forward” months are common for the millions of British passport holders whose travel documents were issued up to September 2018. For decades, standard practice was that citizens should be encouraged to renew their passports in good time – with the understanding that they would get credit for up to nine months of unspent time. Someone with a passport issued on 1 April 2018 could have an expiry date of 1 January 2029.
This long-standing arrangement came to an abrupt halt when someone in government spotted the Brexit complication that the European Union does not admit “third country nationals” with a passport that has reached its 10th birthday – so that example document could not be used for the EU after 1 April 2028. In no sense, though, do these passports count as “manually extended validity”.
What the Kenyans mean by the term “something different”: a passport whose validity has been extended by the issuing authority physically changing the printed expiry date (usually by writing it in) and applying an official stamp confirming the change. HM Passport Office used to do this at times of bureaucratic stress, to help people with imminent travel plans when waits for new documents were long. But in an era of “machine-readable passports” the practice is problematic: the expiry date encrypted on the document will be different from the written-in date.
So don’t worry if you have a passport valid for over 10 years – but note that it should be valid for six months from the date you arrive. For the avoidance of doubt, that is the actual expiry date, not the passport’s 10th birthday. You will also need to obtain an e-visa on the cumbersome Kenyan government website evisa.go.ke, print it out as a PDF and carry it with you to Nairobi airport – whereupon you will have a stamp applied to your passport, which must have at least two blank pages.
Q When travelling from the UK to the US, do you have to update your Esta permit if you are staying at more than one address (ie travelling within the States)? I have looked at the FAQs on the Esta site but nothing is coming up.
Sue L
A The Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (Esta) is a relatively painless alternative to applying for a full US visa. Most British travellers to America qualify for one; the exceptions mainly comprise people who have visited Cuba since January 2021 or who have been in trouble with the police (even if simply arrested and then released without charge). The fee is $21 (£16.50). Prospective visitors are warned not to make travel arrangements until the Esta is in place. Normally permission is granted within minutes, though if a manual check of your data is required, it could take three days. The Esta is not a physical permit (although you could print out the confirmation); instead, a 16-character confirmation code is tied electronically to your passport.
You apply online at esta.cbp.dhs.gov and must answer questions ranging from passport details and employment details to social media activity. Your “address while in the US” is also required. For many travellers this can be a difficult question: they will be staying at multiple locations (or merely changing planes at an American airport). There is no opportunity for providing more than one address; use the location of your first night’s stay. Once you are admitted, you can basically go wherever you like and need not update your movements.
For a subsequent visit, you should change the first-night address (if necessary) by retrieving your application online: on the personal details line beneath “payment receipt”, click “update”.
Having said all that, it appears to me that the “address while in the US” is a mere formality, and that the US Customs and Border Protection officer will pay little heed to it. She or he assesses whether you are a “person of interest” – typically by asking a question or two about your plans. Assuming there is nothing untoward in your responses or demeanour, you will be waved through.
Q I’ve been lucky enough to visit plenty of European cities, and I’m now on to less-celebrated places. I’m intrigued by the Swiss capital, Bern, but I can’t seem to find any flights there. Is it worth a visit, and how do you suggest I get there?
Rebecca M
A Bern deserves to be much higher on the traveller’s radar. The Swiss capital is this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of its old town being declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. The city earned the honour for its well-preserved medieval townscape draped over hilly terrain – with plenty of fine panoramas, such as the view from the terrace of the Bundeshaus (Parliament building). Besides the quotidian business of government, Bern is a cultural draw. The main attraction celebrates the artist who was born just outside the city in 1879: Paul Klee. Renzo Piano’s Zentrum Paul Klee is a dazzling ripple of steel and glass, accurately claimed to be “a unique symbiosis of nature and culture”.
Albert Einstein lived in Bern for two years from 1903 and formulated his theory of special relativity in the city. His apartment, on the third floor of Kramgasse 49, has been restored to how it looked in 1905 – the year in which the physicist transformed humanity’s understanding of space and time with his theory of relativity.
Bern has a small airport suitable only for smaller aircraft, and occasional attempts over the years to link the capital with London have not endured. But the (equally) fine city of Basel is under an hour away by train. It makes sense to combine the two. Basel has plenty of flights from various UK airports, and the airport has fast and frequent swift 12-minute bus links to the beautiful main station. Alternatively, travel by train from London via Paris in about six hours. Bern lends itself to a day trip from Basel – and Swiss Railways offers a cut-price deal combining a return trip to Bern plus admission to the Zentrum Paul Klee; see sbb.ch/zpk for more details.
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