Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

vanoonoo

I've merged a couple of tips thread for rail together - hope no one minds

Finishrich

If your find yourself travelling by train in Switzerland, cheap tickets can be found Here. Tickets can only be booked 2 days in advance and can only be used on the train service that has been booked. Not all trains are available on this Click & Rail special offer, but it does offer quite a bit discount on the normal fares.


Or an alternate option is the Swiss Transfer Ticket which is valid for an outward and return journey between the Swiss border or airport and your destination station (valid for a maximum of 1 month). Only available online or from the My Switzerland Tourist Office in advance.

BigBelly

DAVID_BOYALL wrote:

IM A GUARD AND FOUND THAT SOME RETURN TICKETS ARE A LOT CHEAPER IF YOU BUY IT FROM B TO A INSTEAD OF A TO B AND THEN USE THE RETURN PART OF THE TICKET FIRST.
EXAMPLE
CHICHESTER TO LONDON PEAK DAY RETURN £34.40
LONDON TO CHICHESTER PEAK DAY RETURN £19.00

IVE SPOKEN TO A NUMBER OF TICKET CLERKS AND NONE SAID YOU COULDNT DO THAT

I'm afraid that's not true. If you are a guard then look in your fare manual (actually I'm surprised that this fairly elementary point was not covered in your training). The relevant bit of the fare manual is also on the net at:

http://www.atoc.org/traveltrade/manuals/nfm/sectione-pages1-17.pdf

If you look under "SD Standard Day", you will see that the footnote states that "The outward portion of a Standard Day Return is valid only in conjunction with the unused return portion"

girleight@

Any ideas on Oxford to Peterborough return a week on Sat? I have a student rail card but is it possible to go for less than £27?

girleight

jenyorkshouse

Another way to get cheap fares is to avoid using Virgin or GNER for long distance routes. This isn't always possible but sometimes can yield high savings. For example, travelling Leeds to Cardiff on the Virgin Voyager via Birmingham or Bristol costs around £80. Instead, going to Manchester on the Transpennine Express then changing onto Valley Trains only costs about £40, and only adds about half an hour to the route.

Which you probably make up anyway, since only 80% of Virgin trains run on time! Valley Trains are really old and rubbish but at least they don't have those annoying electronic reservation systems that always go down, automatic doors that squash you flat and horrible food for £5 per sandwich.

This doesn't seem to work with online bookings, but it does if you go into a ticket office and ask people. I have always found ticket people to be helpful in finding you the cheapest route, if you ask them nicely!

littlemoo_2

MMMIARMW wrote:

check out this website

http://www.thetrainline.com/default.asp?href=&T2ID=9272_2004721141249

For reasons I don't understand, despite both the trainline (link above) and http://www.virgintrains.co.uk being owned by virgin trains, it costs £7 to get a refund from the trainline and only £5 for virgintrains.co.uk Therefore, although it doesn't directly save money, in the unlikely event of needing a refund, it's better to have bought the tickets from virgintrains.co.uk
~moo

BigBelly

girleight&#64 wrote:

Any ideas on Oxford to Peterborough return a week on Sat? I have a student rail card but is it possible to go for less than £27?

girleight

If you don't mind going by bus/coach then you can go for less than £12, or as little as £5.50 if you are coming back the same day.

You could get the X5 coach from Oxford to Milton Keynes, then X4 to Peterborough.

Ask for an Explorer on the first Stagecoach bus you get - which should cost either £5.50 or £5.99, depending on whether you get on in Oxford or Peterborough. This lasts a day, so you need one each way, if it isn't a day trip. This is ideal if you need to get a connecting bus in Oxford or Peterborough - you can use the Explorer on these too as long as they are Stagecoach.

Timetables are on

http://www.scbeastmidstravel.co.uk/X5Timetable.html
http://www.scbeastmidstravel.co.uk/X4Timetable.html

Alternatively, you could get the X5 from Oxford to St Neots, then a WAGN train to Peterborough from there, but that would cost more.

crossleydd42

robinson-marshall wrote:

Any ideas about travelling by train and not breaking the bank?
I wanted to travel to Scotland to visit family and was quoted £130!

If anyone has any ideas I would be grateful.


Thanks Spike

You don't say where you want to travel from and your profile doesn't say where you live, either. However, if you want cheap travel, don't forget https://www.megabus.com where you can, for example, get a bus from London to Glasgow for £10 if you book three or four weeks in advance. It takes 9 hours, but is cheap, compared with £130!

crossleydd42

Remember that some routes are cheaper than others.

For example, it's much cheaper to travel from Birmingham Snow Hill to London Marylebone than Birmingham New Street to London Euston. The former just takes a little longer.

paulie558

crossleydd42 wrote:

You don't say where you want to travel from and your profile doesn't say where you live, either. However, if you want cheap travel, don't forget https://www.megabus.com where you can, for example, get a bus from London to Glasgow for £10 if you book three or four weeks in advance. It takes 9 hours, but is cheap, compared with £130!

Or London to Glasgow or Aberdeen for £1 with no booking fee with national express.Trying Aberdeen next month.