Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

matty_25_gy

hi need some help... i take my son back home on 5th Jan. i live in great yarmouth and he lives in Portsmouth, and i don't get much income just benefits so money is low. the cheapest Ive found is £55 which is a return on the train with east coast and is just for me which is going to leave me very short can someone help me to find something cheaper ? be very great full

thelawnet

Are you travelling from Great Yarmouth to Portsmouth, returning the same day?

How old is your son?

I would try for Gt Yarmouth - London National Express coach

07:00 Great Yarmouth arriving Victoria 11:05

returning
Victoria 19:00, arriving Gt Yarmouth 22:40

Total: £20.60

Then from Victoria to Portsmouth (note Victoria coach and train stations are not on the same site, and there is a walk of about 15 minutes between them):

12:02, £10, arriving 14:02

Returning:
16:12 arriving 18:16 £7.50

Total for train + coach: £38.10, for one adult

miller

Maybe there is a way to take advantage of Southern's Kid's for £1 offer by splitting in London/Victoria and travelling "long way round" to Portsmouth.

http://www.southernrailway.com/offers/kids-for-1/

Edit: The kids offer does not appear on the journey planners on advance tickets and would have to be purchased at the ticket office at Victoria... but if your son is under 5 then he's free anyway (probably why thelawnet asked about his age).

A return from Ely to Kings Cross is £21 (adult £19 plus £2 child, if necessary), but the leg from Great Yarmouth to Ely seems too expensive to make use of this.

llcooldre

Can anyone help i want to travel to newcastle from birmingham on the 22nd march on the train if poss but the prices are coming up 80+ quid. does anyone know any cheap sites?

terryw

llcooldre wrote: »

Can anyone help i want to travel to newcastle from birmingham on the 22nd march on the train if poss but the prices are coming up 80+ quid. does anyone know any cheap sites?

Don't panic! The tickets are not out yet......They usually come out Thursdays about noon on https://www.eastcoast.co.uk .

ollybenson

Hi,

As this is the season for getting new annual Gold Cards (season tickets in the south-east), it's worth reminding people that if you don't have a travel card but use Oyster PAYG, you can get 1/3rd off all your tube and bus fares by registering your Gold Card on your Oyster PAYG. Simply take both your Gold Card and Oystercard to a tube station and ask them to do it.

Reckon it saves me about £20 a month.


Olly

pjrobertson

If there's anybody wanting to find cheaper rail tickets / split tickets, then I've created a website called TwoTix that will find the best splits for you.

It's more advanced than the MoneySavingExpert app, as it can:

• Split walk on fares for any day
• Split return tickets
• Split return journeys into two single journeys (then split these)
• Split advance fares

TwoTix: it's a proof of concept website, with more fine tuning needed.

headpin

tube_user_hampstead wrote: »

I haven't been able to find out any information online as to the legality of this trick:

Touch in zone 1, travel to your destination without leaving the station (say, picking up friends at Heathrow, so you don't have to touch out), then returning to zone 1 and touching out.

I've done this before and oyster charges me the maximum daily rate, but then the ticket offices always refund me once I show them my journey: zone 1 to zone 1 (instead of to Heathrow and back).

Whilst I appreciate this is dishonest, is it against TfL rules?

I'm very curious to get some advice on this.

Thanks

Further to the previous response, Oyster not only logs date and start and end point of touching in/out but also the time. So, the ticket office may well ask why your journey was so long if you were going all the way out to Zone 6 or similar distance that would not be reasonable for a Zone 1 only journey. The system also logs all your journey history, so regular refund requests will know doubt flag up after a specified number.

llcooldre

does anyone know where i can find cheap train tickets to newcastle from birmingham. someone on here suggested a website but the chespest is £80, which seems a lot

p00hsticks

llcooldre wrote: »

does anyone know where i can find cheap train tickets to newcastle from birmingham. someone on here suggested a website but the chespest is £80, which seems a lot

Is that for a single or a return ? And when are you planning on travelling ? The National Rail website suggests that advance fares are £37 (single) (cross country trains), altohugh there are some cheaper ones (around £29) showing if you are not travelling until February sometime

http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/travel-tools/best-fare-finder