Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

dzug1

bigdic wrote: »

Can anyone help me out please?

I'm traveling from Ayr to Chester on the 19/03/10 Morning, and returning on the 21/03/10 afternoon. There are around 8 people traveling.

The best (only) price I can find is £90.20 for the full journey. We don't have or qulify for any railcards I can find.

I don't use the train very often so I was wanting to make sure this was the best fare available.

Also I've seen that Virgin do a group discount for groups of over 10 (there may be additional people traveling), is it worth it to give them a call if numbers increase?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

Try split ticketing at Manchester - there's certainly a few advance singles that way for single travellers - haven't tried multiple ones. It may be that there are not 8 tickets available at the lowest price

Try GROUPSAVE4 under railcards as well

scotlandgh

Can anyone help please?

I'm traveling from either lockerbie or carlisle to london on the 1/04/10 Morning, and returning on the 3/04/10 afternoon. There are 2 adults traveling.

The best price I can find is £120 for the full journey. We don't have or qulify for any railcards I can find.

Thanks jen

dzug1

scotlandgh wrote: »

Can anyone help please?

I'm traveling from either lockerbie or carlisle to london on the 1/04/10 Morning, and returning on the 3/04/10 afternoon. There are 2 adults traveling.

The best price I can find is £120 for the full journey. We don't have or qulify for any railcards I can find.

Thanks jen

Looks like that's the best you will do - the outward journey's the problem.

If you can go the previous evening you can do it for £28 a head, return, from Carlisle

Steve_xx

KeithP wrote: »

Correct.


Virgin West Coast.
It's part of Richard Branson's business empire.

I forgot to add. I'm not too happy with Southern Railways response to the effect that my tickets are exclusive of the cross London leg and I have emailed them about it and will be interested to read their response.

I ordered these tickets online and in the emails to Southern I gave them the booking reference so they ought to be fully aware of what ticket types they have provided. It's a tad worrying if their staff are giving the wrong information to their customers I guess.

smiths84

Just a tip for anyone looking to buy advance tickets on Southern railway..

I went on the Southern website to buy an advance ticket for mid-March Eastbourne-London. The cheapest they advertised was around 13 quid. But checking other operators' sites I discovered they were offering tickets on the same trains for just 5 quid.

I emailed Southern who said its because they don't release advance tickets until 6 weeks before. But when I checked loads of other dates in Feb and March there were absolutely no tickets on sale for a fiver on this route on the Southern site.

So I gave up and decided to book via the National Rail website..which then connected me to the Southern site "to complete your purchase" which lo and behold offered me the ticket for the special internet booking discounted price of three quid!!!

I've emailed Southern to alert them to this anomaly...heaven knows what the problem is....but I have to say that 3 quid fare - when eventually you can find it - is a bloody bargain!!

dzug1

smiths84 wrote: »

Just a tip for anyone looking to buy advance tickets on Southern railway..

I went on the Southern website to buy an advance ticket for mid-March Eastbourne-London. The cheapest they advertised was around 13 quid. But checking other operators' sites I discovered they were offering tickets on the same trains for just 5 quid.

I emailed Southern who said its because they don't release advance tickets until 6 weeks before. But when I checked loads of other dates in Feb and March there were absolutely no tickets on sale for a fiver on this route on the Southern site.

So I gave up and decided to book via the National Rail website..which then connected me to the Southern site "to complete your purchase" which lo and behold offered me the ticket for the special internet booking discounted price of three quid!!!

I've emailed Southern to alert them to this anomaly...heaven knows what the problem is....but I have to say that 3 quid fare - when eventually you can find it - is a bloody bargain!!

Did you specify London Victoria or just London? ISTR that you have to do the former to get the cheap fares. But that could be a red herring and I'm misrembering something.

Steve_xx

smiths84 wrote: »

Just a tip for anyone looking to buy advance tickets on Southern railway..

I went on the Southern website to buy an advance ticket for mid-March Eastbourne-London. The cheapest they advertised was around 13 quid. But checking other operators' sites I discovered they were offering tickets on the same trains for just 5 quid.

I emailed Southern who said its because they don't release advance tickets until 6 weeks before. But when I checked loads of other dates in Feb and March there were absolutely no tickets on sale for a fiver on this route on the Southern site.

So I gave up and decided to book via the National Rail website..which then connected me to the Southern site "to complete your purchase" which lo and behold offered me the ticket for the special internet booking discounted price of three quid!!!

I've emailed Southern to alert them to this anomaly...heaven knows what the problem is....but I have to say that 3 quid fare - when eventually you can find it - is a bloody bargain!!

Oddly enough I had the reverse problem from you. The journeys I mentioned above would normally show up cheapest on Virgin Trains, yet the cheapest tickets were actually shown on Southern Railways site!

smiths84

dzug1 wrote: »

Did you specify London Victoria or just London? ISTR that you have to do the former to get the cheap fares. But that could be a red herring and I'm misrembering something.

Hey you're right! I just checked and putting london Victoria in the Southern website, rather than just London, got me the cheap ticket!

Isn't it amazing that two phonecalls and three emails to Southern itself couldn't get me that answer...yet one posting on here did. Thank god for the brilliant people on MSE, cheers!

smiths84

smiths84 wrote: »

Hey you're right! I just checked and putting london Victoria in the Southern website, rather than just London, got me the cheap ticket!

Isn't it amazing that two phonecalls and three emails to Southern itself couldn't get me that answer...yet one posting on here did. Thank god for the brilliant people on MSE, cheers!

I just double checked and just putting "london" in nationalrail website DOES get you the cheap fare...hey ho...

CAPMguy

Hey smiths thanks for your post you really help us a lot ! You solved my problem.