Cheapest Train Fares Discussion Area

dzug wrote: »

The problem is that you are too early - just keep checking and the cheaper fares will appear.

Even if they don't that £59.50 is available on the day so you won't lose out.

Bluegel is probably going to have to go via Sheffield to get to and from Manchester. I've recently been researching a similar journey and had no end of trouble getting a cheap fare (see moroting/public transport forum). I had to give up on Virgin altogether.

Between Xmas and New Year there are all sorts of engineering works going on at both the Euston and Manchester ends of the Virgin route, which means, if you can do the journey, you have to make 3 or more changes, including a bus from Stockport to Manc at the end. So it makes more sense to go via Midland Mainline to Sheffield and then change onto the Transpennine Express to Manc.

Happily, you can get some very cheap fares. Bluegel could do the following:

OUT: [Book this soon since tickets seems to be being snapped up!]
London St Pancras dep 15.25
Sheffield arr 17.48 dep 18.11
Manchester Piccadilly arr 19.15
Cost £12.50 (or £16.00 1st class)

RETURN: [not so urgent to book this leg]
Manchester Picadilly dep 11.14
Sheffield arr 12.08 dep 12.27
London St Pancras arr 14.44
Cost £7.00 (or £14.00 first class)

Total cost £19.50 to £30.00 depending on if you go first class or not on either leg. Travel time between 3.5 and 4 hours each way.

It's
<IMG title=http://tr.email-thetrainline.co.uk/rsp01/c2.php?THTR/16641407/15438/H/N/V/http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/SeatSale/SeatSaleOct07.htm height=363 alt="A Devil of an offer for travel anywhere on the GNER route - tickets from £5.00 one way - book now >>" src="http://iln-campaigns.com/gner/images/SeatSaleOct07.jpg" width=547 border=0>

Christa1 wrote: »

Sorry that might be gobbldy gook- basically it's GNER. The offer is not available on all journeys or all days. For example my daughter wants to go to Glasgow School of Art at the end of November and I can get us there and back for £20.00 total, however we want to get to Huntingdon on 22 November( Cambs) and can't find anything less that £72.00 for both of us. If anyone has any suggestions i would be very greatful- we only need a one way ticket.

Where from might help.

However GNER don't stop at Huntingdon so I doubt if the offer will apply there - try Peterborough instead

I've received an e-mail from GNER promoting their new website. They were initially offering free first class tickets but it looks as though these have sold out. It' still worth a look though as it's much easier to find cheap tickets than on all the other sites out there which are basically the trainline.

http://tickets.gner.co.uk/gner/en/JourneyPlanning/GnerWebTISHomePage

There is a button in the bottom left once you've got thorugh called' find the lowest fares' which seems to show the cheapest fare avaialble for any two trains, whether that be 2 singles or a return.

Also you can look at all trains in the day rather than prices fo rjust 5, and it's done away with listing all the ticket names. It takes a little bit of getting used to but is really easy and quick once you've worked it out. You can get ticekts anywhere in the country and it doesn't charge for credit cards. It seems to be just a pilot site that they are trialling but I've bought some tickets and they arrived the next day. Hopefully they'll make it available soon. You can get it on the linkn above at the moment but it's not on thier main web site. You can get the current £5 fares on it though.

Hi Martin,

What's happended about your idea for a free automated "Train Ticket Calculator" mentioned in your original article? See quote below...

Is there an automated system that does this for you?

Not at the moment. Yet this article is so popular, I'm exploring creating a free automated Train Ticket Calculator with live info to calculate the cheapest tickets for you. It's actually so complex it needs a research mathematician to build the algorithms to get it automated; but we're getting there. If you're interested, keep up to date via the weekly email.

I saw Matthew Finn's Cheaper Train Fare Finder and managed to contact him by email. He said he "gave the source code to moneysavingexpert.com".

I'm a software developer and I was wondering if you'd considered making the software open source. If you did, I know a few developers who might be prepared to help work on the project.

Regards, James.