Cheap Train Fares guide discussion

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  • wanderlust5
    wanderlust5 Posts: 1 Newbie
    I hear people talk of £10 return train travel from Edinburgh to London and £1 tickets!!! I never seem to find any! Any ideas? This would preferably be a regular thing, am I cheaper booking flights?

    Thanks in advance
  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,181 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Combo Breaker
    wanderlust5 wrote: »
    I hear people talk of £10 return train travel from Edinburgh to London and £1 tickets!!! I never seem to find any! Any ideas? This would preferably be a regular thing, am I cheaper booking flights?

    Thanks in advance
    Have you read MSE's Cheap Train Tickets article?

    Also worth keeping up to date with the Any train promotion codes out there? thread.
  • AdeleBird
    AdeleBird Posts: 241 Forumite
    Hello! I need two tickets to get from Bexhill to London Euston on 26th Feb coming back the next day, cheapest I can get is about £60! Please can anyone find it cheaper? Thanks :)
  • dzug1
    dzug1 Posts: 13,535 Forumite
    First Post Combo Breaker
    edited 7 January 2013 at 9:41PM
    Your best bet is to use the Southern Railway site and buy tickets to London Victoria only. I can see £5 singles (per person) on a fair selection of trains each day - which leaves you a fair amount to get to and from Euston and still be cheaper than the fare you have found. Bus will be cheaper than tube, and both will be cheaper with an Oyster card
  • seebee73
    seebee73 Posts: 18 Forumite
    Best I can get is £87.00 with an advance ticket. Flights already booked because I have to go to a funeral. Any suggestions for splits. The bus journey would take hours and hours and involve a 4am start. Any advice or tips would be appreciated
  • cosmojohnson
    cosmojohnson Posts: 176 Forumite
    seebee73 wrote: »
    Best I can get is £87.00 with an advance ticket. Flights already booked because I have to go to a funeral. Any suggestions for splits. The bus journey would take hours and hours and involve a 4am start. Any advice or tips would be appreciated

    Without knowing times/dates it's hard to advise... The route avoiding London (i.e. change at Reading for the via Guildford service to Gatwick) is likely to be cheaper than going via London.

    I'd recommend not getting an Advance ticket for your return leg, as if you miss the booked train because your return flight to Gatwick is delayed then you will need a new ticket.

    A Super Off-Peak Swansea-Gatwick return is £81.50 (via Guildford/Reading) or £84 (via London). This lets you on a train from Swansea departing on or after 0845.

    If you need to leave Swansea earlier, the Off-Peak is £102.50/£104 (via Guildford/London respectively) and you can depart Swansea on or after 0715.

    Both the ticket types mentioned above allow return travel within a month of the outward journey.
  • thelawnet
    thelawnet Posts: 2,577 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    There's a £63.40 off-peak return valid to travel Swansea - Salisbury, Salisbury - Clapham Junction, Clapham Junction - Gatwick.

    There are no time-of-day restrictions on it at all, despite being an off-peak ticket.

    I think it will be a much slower route than Swansea - Reading, Reading - Guildford however.

    Otherwise you will want to find Swansea - London Advance singles for a low price, and just buy walk-up fares for the London-Gatwick section.
  • lesshaste
    lesshaste Posts: 51 Forumite
    I need to go from Bristol to London once a month at peak times. I leave at 7.01am and return at 19:15 on the same day. The open day return is 187 pounds. You can get this down to about 110 pounds by splitting at Didcot however. Even cheaper is to buy three singles, Bristol->Didcot, Didcot->London, London-> Bristol which comes to about 86 quid!

    Can you get any less than this given that I have to do the journey a lot and it still comes to almost 1000 pounds a year. Buying tickets in advance doesn't seem to save any money sadly. I was wondering if buying a network rail card and then buying london->didcot (which seems to be covered by a network rail card), then didcot->bristol might work. Any experts have any advice?

    I also need to get across london of course so maybe a Gold card makes sense if you can get one cheaply somehow?
  • dzug1
    dzug1 Posts: 13,535 Forumite
    First Post Combo Breaker
    A Network Railcard is not valid to leave Didcot until 1000am - so no good to you.

    You might look at travelling to London Waterloo via Salisbury - but it's a much longer journey
  • lesshaste
    lesshaste Posts: 51 Forumite
    edited 16 January 2013 at 2:29PM
    I was thinking I could use the network railcard just for the return part. So buy four single tickets for the journey in total and save money only on the london-didcot return part.

    Or maybe I would save money by buying a ticket directly to my final tube station rather than paddington and then oyster card?
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