Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

Livingthedream

maryarm wrote: »

Help Please

we need to go from aldershot to s!!!!horpe travelling on sat 5th nov returning on mon 7th nov. "We" are 2 adults and 4 kids and we have a forces railcard. The cheapest i have managed to find is £178, really hope someone can help me bring the cost down. have tried all sorts of split ticketing. dont really mind what times we travel as long as we are home before 6pm on the monday.
thanks for any help
mary

You can knock about £18ish of that price by booking through the East Coast website and getting a 10% discount on their advance singles.

If you are planning to do this trip again then think about getting a Family and Friends railcard and using that instead of the HMF one. One and a half trips and it would have paid for itself, normally there a discount code somewhere on MSE to get it cheaper.

Edit: a cheaper option would be to get another HMF railcard, I take it your partner is in the army, well get him/her to see his/her pay clerk with a passport photo of you and get a dependant HMF railcard (£13 if I remember right, always cheaper for me to buy a family one than 2 HMF ones) this will bring the price down to £139.60 Return on the East Coast website.

AntonM

I've done a search for the terms in the subject heading and found nowt, so I hope I'm not repeating an already-answered question.

Excited by the £1 Megatrain / Megabus tickets suggested by "cheap-coach-train-ticket-deals" on the "deals" section, I had a look around but found no £1 tickets. I'm sure they're there, but just not for the route I'm interested in.

Is a there a way of finding which routes are likely to sell for a quid? Got the missus pestering me for them cheap tickets.

Anton

wealdroam

AntonM wrote: »

I've done a search for the terms in the subject heading and found nowt, so I hope I'm not repeating an already-answered question.

Excited by the £1 Megatrain / Megabus tickets suggested by "cheap-coach-train-ticket-deals" on the "deals" section, I had a look around but found no £1 tickets. I'm sure they're there, but just not for the route I'm interested in.

Is a there a way of finding which routes are likely to sell for a quid? Got the missus pestering me for them cheap tickets.

Anton

Well I can see some Birmingham to London tickets for £1.00 on 13 December.
Probably not much use to you though.

I don't think there is any easy way of finding the £1.00 tickets without specifying origin and destination.
Then its a case of picking unpopular times.

What route are you interested in?

Book as soon as possible to get the best prices.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

Only way I can 'mark' the thread by getting email. Masses to read so probably less is best and less is more.:beer::money:

AntonM

wealdroam wrote: »

Well I can see some Birmingham to London tickets for £1.00 on 13 December.
Probably not much use to you though.

I don't think there is any easy way of finding the £1.00 tickets without specifying origin and destination.
Then its a case of picking unpopular times.

What route are you interested in?

Book as soon as possible to get the best prices.

I'm looking for Stafford-London trips, and just out of curiosity at the moment. Looking in advance up to the limit of bookable dates, the best I could get was £5 either way -- which, to be fair, is not a bad price -- albeit not £1!

ekkygirl

I am travelling to Liverpool next week from Kettering afyer 4pm. I have usually been able to split ticket at Nunaton and get to Liverpool for around £32 instaed of £48 buying direct from Kettering. This time I dont seem to be able to do this cheaply anymore. Can anyone help? Thanks

dzug1

You could try getting a bus to Northampton and see what you can get from there.

drwols

If you want a cheap way to get from Brighton to Southampton Central, booking in advance, do the following. (Works only on the service departing at 09.00 to Great Malvern)

1. Brighton -> Romsey (Advance, cheapest £2.95 with RC, £4.50 without)

2. Romsey -> Southampton (Day Single, £2.50 with RC, £3.80 without)

So that's a total of £5.45 / £8.30. Normally £12 (minimum fare before 10am) / £14.90

Use the first ticket. Get off the train at Southampton. Use the second to get through the ticket barrier ( as Romsey is past Southampton, and you don't want to travel back on yourself). This is technically travelling short, but the second ticket will alleviate any problems.

Not a whopping saving, but handy if you are making this specific journey

wealdroam

drwols wrote: »

If you want a cheap way to get from Brighton to Southampton Central, booking in advance, do the following. (Works only on the service departing at 09.00 to Great Malvern)

1. Brighton -> Romsey (Advance, cheapest £2.95 with RC, £4.50 without)

2. Romsey -> Southampton (Day Single, £2.50 with RC, £3.80 without)

So that's a total of £5.45 / £8.30. Normally £12 (minimum fare before 10am) / £14.90

Use the first ticket. Get off the train at Southampton. Use the second to get through the ticket barrier ( as Romsey is past Southampton, and you don't want to travel back on yourself). This is technically travelling short, but the second ticket will alleviate any problems.

Not a whopping saving, but handy if you are making this specific journey

Why not use a Millbrook to Southampton Central Anytime Single at £1.90 (£1.25 with railcard) as the second ticket?
Will work the barrier just as well.

Reducing the Brighton to Southampton fare to possibly £4.20.

dzug1

The problem with this that it is not only 'technically' travelling short, it is actually travelling short. Whilst the chances of detection are slim they are not completely zero with unfortunate consequences if they are

It also works on the 1700 from Brighton BTW though the fare is usually a bit higher