Northern customers can swap their train tickets if their plans change

People travelling on ‘Advance Purchase’ tickets with Northern can now benefit from 'on the day' flexibility if their plans change.

Northern has teamed up with revolutionary rail ticketing app to offer customers the opportunity to swap their ticket to another train on the same day.

The new feature aims to reduce the barriers to changing trains making it easier for passengers to swap their tickets from £2.20 through the Seatfrog app.

It marks a shift for the use of ‘Advance Purchase’ tickets, which until now, once purchased, were only valid on one service.

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “Railcard discounts aside, ‘Advance Purchase’ tickets offer the cheapest fares on our network. But with those low prices came strict restrictions on travel dates and times.

“As such, we know some customers that had ‘Advance Purchase’ tickets were frustrated when their plans changed but they couldn’t easily change their train ticket."

Using Seatfrog, Northern customers are able to change their ‘Advance Purchase’ ticket starting from one day before their original departure date, up until just 10 mins before their original train is due to leave the station.

Iain Griffin, co-founder of Seatfrog, said: “Two thirds of the 1.8 billion train tickets purchased every year are advanced tickets which cost less, but lock passengers into rigid travel plans with no wiggle room. We know life doesn’t work to a set timetable and from today Northern passengers will no longer have to miss out on unplanned life moments because of ticket restrictions."