No, Express Deals and Escape Fares are two different things.
Escape Fares are the cheapest fare category in coach (economy)
class. In principle, they're available for all trains on all
dates, between any two station pairs, though in practice they
may be sold out for some dates and station pairs.
Escape Fares were introduced in June 2012, replacing what
were formerly called Special Fares. At first, they were only
offered between major corridor stations, but about a year later,
they were extended to non-corridor and smaller corridor
stations.
Express Deals are only offered for a few specific dates. In
recent months, they've only been offered for the Ocean, Canadian
and Skeena. They're only offered between a limited number of
stations: Halifax, Moncton, Ste-Foy, Montreal for the Ocean,
Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper, Vancouver for
the Canadian, and Jasper, Prince George, Prince Rupert for the
Skeena. They can be offered for any class of service, not just
coach. A specific deal will be for only one type of accommodation.
There are currently no Express Deals on offer, and I don't know
if they will return or not.
Post by 'Mark W. Walton' mark.walton-***@public.gmane.org [Canadian-Passenger-Rail]For the past month or so, I've been getting weekly e-mails
from VIA, usually on Tuesday about the Escape Fares.
The Tuesday mailings are about a subset of Escape Fares called
Discount Tuesdays. They're cheaper, but much more restrictive
than ordinary Escape Fares: they're only available for booking
on one day, only up to one week in advance, only in coach, only
on certain selected trains, and only between certain corridor
stations (Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara Falls,
London, Sarnia and Windsor). Not all station pairs are on offer
every Tuesday -- different pairs are offered each week.
Tom Box
tbox at ncf dot ca
Port Hope, ON, Canada (where Express Deals and Discount Tuesdays
are never on offer, and Escape Fares are hard to get for travel
Monday through Thursday)
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Posted by: Tom Box <tbox-***@public.gmane.org>
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For help, send an email to Canadian-Passenger-Rail-help-***@public.gmane.org