Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

wealdroam

silvercar wrote: »

Yet a SOPS from Edinburgh to Kings Cross is 43.20 and from Edinburgh to Elstree & Borehamwood is 83.05.

Surely that is an error?

No, apparently not an error.

This page describes how East Coast have halved the price of Super Off Peak Singles, but only on selected routes.
Click on the Terms & Conditions tab to see the selected routes.
Edinburgh to London is a selected route, but Edinburgh to Elstree & Borehamwood is not.

silvercar

wealdroam wrote: »

No, apparently not an error.

This page describes how East Coast have halved the price of Super Off Peak Singles, but only on selected routes.
Click on the Terms & Conditions tab to see the selected routes.
Edinburgh to London is a selected route, but Edinburgh to Elstree & Borehamwood is not.

Thanks so much, this explains it perfectly.

miller

South West Trains are still offering £15 returns (£5 children) to selected destinations until Friday 30th October:
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/summer.aspx

miller

South West Trains are offering £15 returns (£5 children) to selected destinations between 26 January and 30 April (some dates excluded, tickets can be purchased from 21 January for travel from 26 January):
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/promotion.aspx#182317

It is worth checking the lengthy Terms & Conditions:
http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/Promotion-Terms-and-Conditions.aspx

Mrs_Arcanum

After much juggling, managed to get to Nottingham & Back for £29.95 including booking fee & postage.

Got times & prices via Ticketysplit, then booked all 4 journeys at once via the Trainline. Happy bunny. Over 50% saving on the best price standard return which was £62.50.

Kite2010

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

After much juggling, managed to get to Nottingham & Back for £29.95 including booking fee & postage.

Got times & prices via Ticketysplit, then booked all 4 journeys at once via the Trainline. Happy bunny. Over 50% saving on the best price standard return which was £62.50.

Apart from buying via the Trainline you could have saved more money by not paying various fees

yorkie2

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

After much juggling, managed to get to Nottingham & Back for £29.95 including booking fee & postage.

Got times & prices via Ticketysplit, then booked all 4 journeys at once via the Trainline. Happy bunny. Over 50% saving on the best price standard return which was £62.50.

When is the journey, and were from?

If the aim is to save money, why use thetrainline.com, which charges fees?

Mrs_Arcanum

yorkie2 wrote: »

When is the journey, and were from?

If the aim is to save money, why use thetrainline.com, which charges fees?

Checked every other ticket operator, they were all charging more for each ticket in the first place. So even with 75p booking fee the Trainline was cheapest. All other ticket operators were charging £2 more for the second part of the split & 20p more for the first bit.

miller

I assume it was London to Nottingham or something like that using East Midlands Trains (the Super Off Peak Return is £61). I guess if the last ticket in the advance bucket was held by trainline then the allocation may not have shown (EMT have loads of advance ticket price tiers about 2 quid apart so each probably gets used up quick).

http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/tickets-deals/deals-savings/The-cheapest-place-to-buy-train-our-tickets/

miller

Also, if it was EMT, topcashback/quidco gives 2.5% on journeys wholly with them (don't make the mistake I did of mixing up a non-EMT journey in the same basket as it lowers the cashback to the non-EMT rate for the whole booking).