Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

kmmfc

I would like to travel from Motherwell to London Kings Cross on Friday 4th December and return on Sunday 6th December. I'd like the departure times to be between 12 noon and 6pm. The cheapest I have found so far is via the NXEC website for £90.75. Can anyone offer any help on getting this cheaper or if there are any special offers on at the moment?

Thanks in advance

jeppy

Hi, we are looking to travel from Leeds to Edinburgh 4/12/09 - 6/12/09.

I need to travel after 10am on the Friday due to commitments. I am happy to split. Someone did suggest Glasgow, which is great, but it went through Lancashire, so the overall journey was 6 hours, which is a little too long.

I've tried Newcastle but getting a little confused now with all the attempts Ive made.

The sad thing is we had the perfect journey at £90, but hummed and arred, it had increased by £30 the following day.

We were intending on driving, but I really like the idea of travelling by train!!!

jeppy

Just spent my lunchtime checking times and I may have come up with something. Travelling Leeds to Newcastle - Edinburgh.

Thanks for all your help - see other threads!!!

KeithP

kmmfc wrote: »

I would like to travel from Motherwell to London Kings Cross on Friday 4th December and return on Sunday 6th December. I'd like the departure times to be between 12 noon and 6pm. The cheapest I have found so far is via the NXEC website for £90.75. Can anyone offer any help on getting this cheaper or if there are any special offers on at the moment?

Thanks in advance

I think you have found the best train fares.

:beer:

gebes

I recently looked at travelling London on the 28th November , coming back on the 29th, to travel Edinburgh to London Direct and back direct was going to be a whopping £110.

I then keyed in for Edinburgh to Birmingham as a single and then Birmingham to London as a single, and

Edin-Birm was £15.50 and Birm to London was £7 , this was for the Saturday 28th November

Coming back from London to Edinburgh again via Birm I paid a total of £33 for Sunday 29th November.

By the time I'd booked a total of 12 train journeys the total price was £110 , which is what it would have cost to go direct edin-london.

Thetrainline.com told me I'd saved £236 by booking online compared to just turning up on the day for the train.

The only downside is due to how cheap the tickets were, It doesn't look like I'll get any cashback on quidco...

dzug1

You could have saved a bit more by NOT using thetrainline.com at all - any TOC site would have sold you the same tickets at the same price and charged no booking or card fees.

But an impressive saving nevertheless, at the cost of a longer journey.

KeithP

kmmfc wrote: »

I would like to travel from Motherwell to London Kings Cross on Friday 4th December and return on Sunday 6th December. I'd like the departure times to be between 12 noon and 6pm. The cheapest I have found so far is via the NXEC website for £90.75. Can anyone offer any help on getting this cheaper or if there are any special offers on at the moment?

Thanks in advance

Building on the very good information in Gebes post, I would like to change my earlier response...

Try splitting at Edinburgh and Birmingham.

4 Dec
Dep Motherwell 12:16, arr Edinburgh 13:52. Anytime Single = £7.40.
Dep Edinburgh 14:08, arr Birmingham New St 19:08. Advance Single = £15.50.
Dep Birmingham NS 19:53, arr London Euston 22:20. Advance Single = £5.00.

6 Dec
Dep London Euston 13:58, arr Birmingham NS 15:25. Advance Single = £7.00.
Dep Birmingham NS 16:03, arr Edinburgh 21:11. Advance Single = £15.50.
Dep Edinburgh 21:12, arr Motherwell 21:53. Anytime Single = £1.30.

So entire return trip can be done for £51.70.
(knock a third off that fare if you have a railcard)

Note that on the return leg there is no need to get off the train at Edinburgh.
The same train continues to Motherwell (and Glasgow).

With Advance Singles you must travel on the booked train.
You might like to catch an earlier train from Motherwell to ensure your connection at Edinburgh.

All information from the NXEC website.

edmund_blackadder

Hi,

I am going to be walking Hadrian's Wall for charity next year.

I am going to need to get to Newcastle from Kettering on 27/02/2010 (doesn't really matter what time).

I also need to get from Carlisle back to Kettering on 06/03/2010.

I have done a bit of research but I must confess I've only really used trainline.co.uk and nationalrail.co.uk so far and the prices seem very high! I am aware the most places don't have tickets available yet for these dates since it is so far in the future ... so my research has been based on dates that are currently available (if that makes sense?)

I was wondering if any of you split ticket guru's could advise a cheaper way of doing it?

I am happy to go via London (which is out of my way) if this would make things cheaper still? I'm also happy to use the bus for part of the journey if necessary.

Thanks

dzug1

Try the X4 bus to Peterborough and an NXEC advance single to Newcastle from there - they won't be on sale for another month at least.

Coming back Virgin to Milton Keynes (you'll probably have to change) and the X4 bus again

Rail_Staff

I think that Sheffield may be a good place to split the journey on that one, at the very least you could get an Off Peak Return between Sheffield and Kettering (valid for a month) and then purchase advance singles from Kettering to Newcastle and another one from carlisle to Kettering.

I'm not at work at the moment so I can't do a quick check for you but hopefully this will be a starting point for you. Advance tickets should become available 12 weeks ahead of travel.