Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

mr_maniac

Hi everyone - I've got a question for you!

I'm looking to buy a short-notice day return train ticket from Hedge End to Brighton. I'm able to get it off the Southern website for a very reasonable price (with their current 15%-off Off-Peak ticket discount, though I'm annoyed I missed their 50% offer which ended on Sunday!) - a price which cannot be bettered elsewhere, due to that discount. However, I've hit a potential snag..

At this notice, the only option for getting hold of the tickets is the "Ticket on Departure" (TOD) method of collecting from a machine at the station itself. This is where it gets rather confusing; Hedge End is not listed on the list of National Rail TOD stations, and so the Southern website does not let me select it as my ticket collection station. However, I know for a fact that Hedge End DOES have a ticket machine which is TOD-enabled - and to prove it, I used the machine only a month or so ago to collect tickets purchased on the CrossCountry website - where, incidentally, you can still select Hedge End as your ticket collection point! (Hedge End is not a station served by CrossCountry, so it's not like it's some unique CrossCountry scheme being run there!!)

So here's what I need to know: Having booked your tickets, saying you'll collect them at a station on the Southern list (e.g. in my case, Fareham), can you then collect your tickets from any other station, regardless of whether or not you selected that station when booking? Theoretically, surely, providing you have your credit/debit card and the booking reference number, you can simply print the tickets off from any ticket machine, regardless if it's the one you selected when booking?

Please let me know if there's an answer to this one!!

Cheers

mr_m

wealdroam

mr_maniac wrote: »

Hi everyone - I've got a question for you!

I'm looking to buy a short-notice day return train ticket from Hedge End to Brighton. I'm able to get it off the Southern website for a very reasonable price (with their current 15%-off Off-Peak ticket discount, though I'm annoyed I missed their 50% offer which ended on Sunday!) - a price which cannot be bettered elsewhere, due to that discount. However, I've hit a potential snag..

At this notice, the only option for getting hold of the tickets is the "Ticket on Departure" (TOD) method of collecting from a machine at the station itself. This is where it gets rather confusing; Hedge End is not listed on the list of National Rail TOD stations, and so the Southern website does not let me select it as my ticket collection station. However, I know for a fact that Hedge End DOES have a ticket machine which is TOD-enabled - and to prove it, I used the machine only a month or so ago to collect tickets purchased on the CrossCountry website - where, incidentally, you can still select Hedge End as your ticket collection point! (Hedge End is not a station served by CrossCountry, so it's not like it's some unique CrossCountry scheme being run there!!)

So here's what I need to know: Having booked your tickets, saying you'll collect them at a station on the Southern list (e.g. in my case, Fareham), can you then collect your tickets from any other station, regardless of whether or not you selected that station when booking? Theoretically, surely, providing you have your credit/debit card and the booking reference number, you can simply print the tickets off from any ticket machine, regardless if it's the one you selected when booking?

Please let me know if there's an answer to this one!!

Cheers

mr_m

I would tread carefully with this.

Recently I booked a Southern Trains only Advance Single from Cosham to London Victoria.
As Cosham isn't 'on the list', I elected to collect them from the machine at Havant the day before travel.
Havant machine said "there's a problem, ask at ticket office".
I asked at the ticket office who told me they couldn't issue the 'Southern Trains Only' ticket because Havant station is not managed by Southern. Whilst we discussed this, a queue was building behind me.

I was told the only way to get my ticket was to use the machine at the nearest Southern managed station... Emsworth.

The Emsworth machine gave me my ticket without a problem.

Interestingly, Emsworth is also the nearest Southern managed station to Hedge End.

I don't know the answer to your issue, but, as I said, be careful.

15% may be a nice discount, but is it worth not getting the ticket at all?

mr_maniac

wealdroam wrote: »

I would tread carefully with this.

Recently I booked a Southern Trains only Advance Single from Cosham to London Victoria.
As Cosham isn't 'on the list', I elected to collect them from the machine at Havant the day before travel.
Havant machine said "there's a problem, ask at ticket office".
I asked at the ticket office who told me they couldn't issue the 'Southern Trains Only' ticket because Havant station is not managed by Southern. Whilst we discussed this, a queue was building behind me.

I was told the only way to get my ticket was to use the machine at the nearest Southern managed station... Emsworth.

The Emsworth machine gave me my ticket without a problem.

Interestingly, Emsworth is also the nearest Southern managed station to Hedge End.

I don't know the answer to your issue, but, as I said, be careful.

15% may be a nice discount, but is it worth not getting the ticket at all?

Cheers for that Wealdroam - that's exactly the sort of first-hand experience I was looking for! God, isn't it frustrating though!? Southern customers seem to get a lot of great deals, but us poor SWT saps don't even get the wonder of Advance Fares in almost all cases, let alone special offers for much of the year!!

When SWT DO give their customers an offer worth taking - like the £10 "anywhere on the network" weekend return fares last Summer - you have to grab it while you can! Very little for the day-tripper, though, just standard prices, all the time

Thanks though - I shall be looking elsewhere for my cheap tickets, as I was coming to the same conclusion myself actually! (i.e. that this wasn't going to work as far as Southern is concerned!)

I'd be interested to know, all the same, if you can collect train tickets from a different station to the one specified when booking And also why CrossCountry let you pick up tickets from Hedge End, but nobody else does!?

mr_m

wealdroam

mr_maniac wrote: »

I'd be interested to know, all the same, if you can collect train tickets from a different station to the one specified when booking And also why CrossCountry let you pick up tickets from Hedge End, but nobody else does!?

mr_m

I think generally you can pick up tickets anywhere (that has a suitable m/c of course).

In fact, as I said above, I eventually picked up my ticket at Emsworth having specified Havant.

BTW, for really good savings to London consider Megatrain from Southampton, Havant or Portsmouth.

Livingthedream

For those of you after a Family and Friends Railcard get it for £23.40, not much of a saving but better than nothing;

10% off Family and Friends Railcard valid until 31st Dec 2010 use Promo code 'Family10'

Online discount only

patricia1066

Hi everyone
we decided on the spur of the moment to try to take a train and ferry to from London Euston to Portlaoise in ROI 27/4 to 1/5.
SailRail came up with a combined train/ferry crossing via Holyhead of £77 each. This is described as standard rail ticket and is not a "from £77" price as I understand.
However no option to book online. I rang them and they cant sell it as the software to sell these tickets crashed, likely to be online again by Wed next week. He said even rail co cant sell these tickets as they all use the same software.
I am worried about waiting til Wed. I think there may be difficulties in getting even foot passengers on ferries due to flying restrictions at the moment, and wonder if there is another way to get as good a deal.

jamesbrownontheroad

patricia1066 wrote: »

Hi everyone
we decided on the spur of the moment to try to take a train and ferry to from London Euston to Portlaoise in ROI 27/4 to 1/5.
SailRail came up with a combined train/ferry crossing via Holyhead of £77 each. This is described as standard rail ticket and is not a "from £77" price as I understand.
However no option to book online. I rang them and they cant sell it as the software to sell these tickets crashed, likely to be online again by Wed next week. He said even rail co cant sell these tickets as they all use the same software.
I am worried about waiting til Wed. I think there may be difficulties in getting even foot passengers on ferries due to flying restrictions at the moment, and wonder if there is another way to get as good a deal.

SailRail tickets from UK railway stations to RoI stations are not quota controlled. They cost the same 12 weeks in advance as they do on the day, and returns are generally exactly double single fares. All staffed railway stations in the UK (and many ticket vending machines) should be able to sell tickets to all stations in Northern Ireland (suffixed NI) and Ireland (suffixed CIE) - although they may not do it very often and therefore it might be best to do it a day before. There is no way to normally reserve a place for a foot passenger on a ferry; I have no idea I'm afraid how the current situation is affecting sail rail ticket holders.

For lots of info see http://seat61.com/Ireland.htm (or http://seat61.com/NorthernIreland.htm for Northern Ireland, if anyone else is interested)

While I do not condone this, it might be of interest to London / Glasgow rail travellers that if you need to buy a ticket from almost anywhere in England to Glasgow at short notice, it's cheaper to buy a single to Belfast via Glasgow Stranraer (£46 from London) rather than a single to Glasgow (~ £100) and then just abandon the Glasgow - Stranraer / Stranraer - Belfast portion.

patricia1066

jamesbrownontheroad wrote: »

SailRail tickets from UK railway stations to RoI stations are not quota controlled.

Thanks James, that's helpful. I take it then, unless every standard class seat on the relevant train is booked, we should be able to get a seat. So the only risk is that the Holyhead ferry wont take foot passengers at the time of booking, as the Liverpool ferry has done.

jamesbrownontheroad

patricia1066 wrote: »

Thanks James, that's helpful. I take it then, unless every standard class seat on the relevant train is booked, we should be able to get a seat. So the only risk is that the Holyhead ferry wont take foot passengers at the time of booking, as the Liverpool ferry has done.

That is how I understand it. If you buy the ticket in advance (it is usually easiest to do this at the station ticket office) you can reserve seats for free. The current situation is putting a great deal of pressure on the ferry operators on the Irish Sea - there are many more passengers than usual so you would do well to contact the relevant operator for your crossing.

Good luck - if this continues I'll be going back to using the train and ferry for my regular Glasgow / Belfast commute from next week.

dzug1

patricia1066 wrote: »

Thanks James, that's helpful. I take it then, unless every standard class seat on the relevant train is booked, we should be able to get a seat. So the only risk is that the Holyhead ferry wont take foot passengers at the time of booking, as the Liverpool ferry has done.

Even if every seat on the train is booked (and it won't be) they'll still sell to a ticket and let you stand.

It's the ferry that has limits to the number of passengers it is allowed to carry