Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

millie7000

try booking advance fares at the booking office ,brighton /birmingham. Birmingham/ darlington as singles and then in reverse. Dont get caught out using the internet sites (train line .com.etc) as these are their to confuse nyou and make you buy the wrong sort of tickets, the train companies love prople to use these sites as 90% of people book the wrong tickets .ie more expensive, wrong sort of restrictions of when to travel etc. Charge you fees for using cards, charge you booking fees etc. These sites are there to confuse you and to get the most money from you. Use your local ticket office where you will be sold the best ticket for your journey its the law. I work in a ticket office and we must sell the cheapest ticket in respect of the journey being made. Avoid internet sites they are there to fleece your wallet and the train companies just love them it makes them more money,forget all the hype about using the internet.

its a rip off!!!!

Gurj73

wealdroam wrote: »

Neither Chiltern or Virgin have released the cheaper tickets for your date yet. When the time comes, also consider London Midland Trains, who also have yet to release the cheaper tickets..

If you read the post immediately before yours, you will find a link which may help.

Oh ok, many thanks for your information.

I will keep checking that link to see when those companies put these on sale. Cheers again

dzug1

millie7000 wrote: »

try booking advance fares at the booking office ,brighton /birmingham. Birmingham/ darlington as singles and then in reverse. Dont get caught out using the internet sites (train line .com.etc) as these are their to confuse nyou and make you buy the wrong sort of tickets, the train companies love prople to use these sites as 90% of people book the wrong tickets .ie more expensive, wrong sort of restrictions of when to travel etc. Charge you fees for using cards, charge you booking fees etc. These sites are there to confuse you and to get the most money from you. Use your local ticket office where you will be sold the best ticket for your journey its the law. I work in a ticket office and we must sell the cheapest ticket in respect of the journey being made. Avoid internet sites they are there to fleece your wallet and the train companies just love them it makes them more money,forget all the hype about using the internet.

its a rip off!!!!

Well I've been sold wrongly priced tickets at ticket offices and (from an unstaffed station) on the train so ticket clerks can get confused too.

There's no substitute for knowing exactly what ticket you want and how much it costs.

SPUDDY

With all due respect how can you get sold a wrongly priced ticket from an unstaffed station ?

Surely the machines can only issue what information you put in the system.

pompeyrich

SPUDDY wrote: »

With all due respect how can you get sold a wrongly priced ticket from an unstaffed station ?

Surely the machines can only issue what information you put in the system.

Being pedantic but Dzug1 doesn't mention ticket machines, only that when he has travelled from an unstaffed station the conductor on the train has issued him with an incorrectly priced ticket.

Ticket machines round here don't offer "groupsave" tickets, so 4 people travelling together would pay twice as much than if they bought from a manned office.

dzug1

SPUDDY wrote: »

With all due respect how can you get sold a wrongly priced ticket from an unstaffed station ?

Surely the machines can only issue what information you put in the system.

The ticket price wasn't in the machine. The conductor looked it up in the fares manual and got it wrong. Well actually I don't think he looked it up but just guessed.

I later got a generous refund in vouchers.

danmmurphy

I'll be commuting in to London from Didcot as of the end of the month and am trying to find the cheapest way of doing it.

So far the season tickets I've looked are more than I'd like to pay (and considerably more than a journey of a similar and distance from other parts of the South East), so I was considering doing this...

I'll be travelling from Didcot to Farringdon so was hoping to get a season ticket from Didcot to Reading (the only stop between Didcot and Paddington) and then using an all zones Travelcard to cover my journey from Slough onwards.

This means that my journey between Reading and Slough isn't covered by either ticket, but I'm working on the assumption that if I happen to get asked for my ticket between the two, I can just get a single from Reading to Slough - assuming this doesn't happen too often I should be better off financially.

Anyone see any glaring errors in my maths?

wealdroam

danmmurphy wrote: »

I'll be commuting in to London from Didcot as of the end of the month and am trying to find the cheapest way of doing it.

So far the season tickets I've looked are more than I'd like to pay (and considerably more than a journey of a similar and distance from other parts of the South East), so I was considering doing this...

I'll be travelling from Didcot to Farringdon so was hoping to get a season ticket from Didcot to Reading (the only stop between Didcot and Paddington) and then using an all zones Travelcard to cover my journey from Slough onwards.

This means that my journey between Reading and Slough isn't covered by either ticket, but I'm working on the assumption that if I happen to get asked for my ticket between the two, I can just get a single from Reading to Slough - assuming this doesn't happen too often I should be better off financially.

Anyone see any glaring errors in my maths?

Even if you are asked for your ticket between Slough and Paddington, can you not see a problem?

"How did you get on this train at Slough, sir?"

And on the return leg... "How do you plan to alight at Slough, sir?"

miller

Splitting a Didcot annual travelcard at Reading saves £60.

dzug1

One snag is that the Reading to Slough ticket will be at penalty fare rates, not normal ones.