Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

greyhoundcrazy

dzug1 wrote: »

WHEN do you want to travel?? Makes a huge difference.

However sounds as though something is wrong if you are travelling off-peak. The walk on fare with Virgin is less than £40, nowhere near £45.

I always travel off peak deliberately so that I get a cheap fair. I usually get a slow train (midland mainline) for the out journey and I get on a late virgin train home. There are usually singles available for that from £5. I've never paid more than £16.50 for the return journey.

Since Martin put the warning out about the fair increase on 2nd Jan I thought I'd try and book my ticket now... seems like they already put the prices up :rolleyes:. I stills have 2 weeks til travel so will hold off and see if any cheap ones come up.

just_looking_2

Anybody any idea why I can't book a train ticket from Birmingham to Leicester on Sunday 1st Feb?? Can't find a train???????

dzug1

just_looking wrote: »

Anybody any idea why I can't book a train ticket from Birmingham to Leicester on Sunday 1st Feb?? Can't find a train???????

Two possibilities - there are no trains due to engineering work, or the timetable hasn't been decided yet.

But why book? The tickets are the same price on the day on this route and AFAIK there are no seat reservations.

tycumagain

just_looking wrote: »

Anybody any idea why I can't book a train ticket from Birmingham to Leicester on Sunday 1st Feb?? Can't find a train???????

No direct train
Birmingham New Street - Coventry
Coventry - Nuneaton
Nuneaton - Leicester
Puts extra hour on journey time :eek: but gets you there. £9.30

just_looking_2

dzug1 wrote: »

Two possibilities - there are no trains due to engineering work, or the timetable hasn't been decided yet.

But why book? The tickets are the same price on the day on this route and AFAIK there are no seat reservations.

I wanted to know what times I could get back, fortunately I checked rather than turning up at the train station and realising there was no train, as I would've done if I hadn't checked!

just_looking_2

tycumagain wrote: »

No direct train
Birmingham New Street - Coventry
Coventry - Nuneaton
Nuneaton - Leicester
Puts extra hour on journey time :eek: but gets you there. £9.30

How ridiculous, and people are supposed to be encouraged to use public transport- an absolute joke- well, driving it is I guess!

just_looking_2

is there anywhere that shows planned engineering works, I've looked but doesn't appear to be anything scheduled for the 1st feb on birmingham to leicester line, so am at a loss as to why I can't find a direct train, I'm presuming the t/t would be released by now, we are talking only a month after all.

tycumagain

just_looking wrote: »

How ridiculous, and people are supposed to be encouraged to use public transport- an absolute joke- well, driving it is I guess!

Not sure if it helps you any but you can get a day return on National express coach £8.10

AirlieBird

Looking at Crosscountry trains pocket timetable there are no timetabled services between Birmingham and Nuneaton on Sundays between 1 Feb and 22 Mar. There are road replacement services.

hv6500

Hello everyone!I am new in this forum.Can anyone to help me to find cheap tickets from London area to Grantham?Normaly I travel Friday evening or Saturday Morning and I return Saturday evening or Sunday evening.MegaBus(train) only travel to Nottingham and I suppose do not go via Grantham.Sometimes I buy in advance and I can get prices like 15 pounds less 11% (online).Next week ticket costs 20 pounds.Any ideas?Thanks in advance!