Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

KeithP

tashmatthews wrote: »

brilliant thankyou, where have you seen the £3 singles as I cannot find them

East Coast Trains are showing them.

And so are First Great Western.

Bogof_Babe

Quick one... I've been checking daily for an Advance fare from Southport to Hereford on Friday 11th June (or Thursday 10th would do) but they only have the full price walk-on tickets on the East Coast site (also checked on Arriva Trains Wales - same thing). I was assuming they hadn't got around to putting them on yet, but now I find that there are Advance tickets available for Monday 14th June, so has the previous week been missed out for some reason? Is it possible that Advance tickets might still appear for this date?

Bit critical this - need to get back for OH's birthday on 13th!

jamesbrownontheroad

Bogof_Babe ... The 'booking horizon' varies from operator to operator, although they're generally all within a week or two of each other. You can check the up to date list of booking horizons here:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/booking_horizons.html

Bogof_Babe

Thanks James, but what really confuses me is that there are weekday Advance tickets available for w/com Monday 14th, but apparently none for the previous week, so it looks as if they have missed w/com 7th June out.

According to the link weekday Advance tickets should be available up to 18th June.

I know it's Arriva Trains Wales that I travel on. I only mentioned East Coast as they are the booking service I use (easy to navigate and no fees).

Looks like I might have to pay full price .

IamJen

Anyone have ideas about railcards for Oxford-Bangor? I was thinking about picking up a network rail card, but see that it's only for southeast (England) mostly. There seems to be a south Wales card, but Bangor's north Wales, and part of the journey isn't in Wales at all, of course?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. We've decided to take a last minute trip for Easter (yay!). We travel often, but never use a railcard because the advance fares are much cheaper. (£3.60 Oxford-London, for instance). Now that we've left this trip so late though, a rail card could save us a chunk of change, I suspect.

KeithP

IamJen wrote: »

Anyone have ideas about railcards for Oxford-Bangor? I was thinking about picking up a network rail card, but see that it's only for southeast (England) mostly. There seems to be a south Wales card, but Bangor's north Wales, and part of the journey isn't in Wales at all, of course?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. We've decided to take a last minute trip for Easter (yay!). We travel often, but never use a railcard because the advance fares are much cheaper. (£3.60 Oxford-London, for instance). Now that we've left this trip so late though, a rail card could save us a chunk of change, I suspect.

I don't think a Network Railcard will help for that trip.
Are you eligible for any of the others?
Senior Railcard, Family & Friends or 16-25 Railcard?

Btw... a railcard will give a discount on Advance tickets.
So you £3.60 example becomes £2.40. Ok, you need to do that trip about twenty times to recover the cost of the railcard.

jamesbrownontheroad

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Thanks James, but what really confuses me is that there are weekday Advance tickets available for w/com Monday 14th, but apparently none for the previous week, so it looks as if they have missed w/com 7th June out.

When you use the East Coast website, is there a button for the cheapest advance fares above the train times? Usually - and I say this advisedly - until the Advance fares are loaded into the system, you can't see the button to highlight trains with Advance fares. Once they've been sold out, it's visible but greyed out.

I would expect (if they're available for the next week) that you should be able to see at least a greyed out button to suggest they were there and have now sold out. Although perhaps it's possible none were loaded for that week due to some other situation...?

Bogof_Babe

Thanks again James. I'm delighted to say that a couple have appeared overnight, including my very favourite time and route one, so I have just grabbed it. Phew!

This rail ticket game can get very nerve wracking!

dzug1

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Looks like I might have to pay full price .

Well you've got several months before you are forced into that:) No point in booking now if that's the case - just buy on the day.

I expect something will turn up

Bogof_Babe

Problem resolved this morning dzug (see above), but thanks anyway. I would have bought a £4.35 single to Chester and a £23.60 from Chester to Hereford if all else failed - still loads cheaper than the headline £43.90 walk-on fare (which ironically uses exactly the same trains!).

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Thanks again James. I'm delighted to say that a couple have appeared overnight, including my very favourite time and route one, so I have just grabbed it. Phew!

This rail ticket game can get very nerve wracking!

dzug1 wrote: »

Well you've got several months before you are forced into that:) No point in booking now if that's the case - just buy on the day.

I expect something will turn up