Rail Travel: Tips on Cheap Tickets

pompeyrich

Badger_Lady wrote: »

I then went back to theTrainline and, purely by searching in a different way, found the deal for £25 (including my railcard discount). I then made a decision to catch a marginally later train (although this also meant catching a later ferry), for the bargain price of £21.10.

What a difference!!! :rotfl:

How did you alter your search to get such a great price? It never ceases to amaze me how many anomallies there are when trying to get the best price on rail websites.

Badger_Lady

I genuinely don't know - I just spent ages fiddling about :-( I did the "search for best fares" at one point, and read the "terms of carriage" and "ticket type" information to try and work out which ones would be allowed.

I wish I could provide instructions, but I think it's just trial and error sometimes!

alanrowell

pompeyrich wrote: »

How did you alter your search to get such a great price? It never ceases to amaze me how many anomallies there are when trying to get the best price on rail websites.

All the train booking websites default to taking you the fastest route so avoid any slower routes that may be cheaper unless you force it to look at the slower routes. This can be done in several ways

Step 1 of 7 in the booking process on thetrainline gives you options to route via or to avoid certain stations

Step 2 of 7 has a line that says "There may be alternative, slower routes with cheaper tickets. Click here for more information.

For example London to Bath, the normal route is direct from Paddington to Bath Spa. However you can also go from Waterloo via Salisbury. Unless there's something wrong with the Paddington route the Salisury route never shows up unless you use the above.

The National Rail website has "advanced search options" which give the above and a lot more though how you then convert that into a booking is problematical

MiserlyMartin

We are short of a lift to take us to Gatwick so we are considering the train! The cheapest I've found is via Virgin trains from Milton Keynes to Gatwick, £32.00 return (each). The same price also via national rail enquiries (silverlink trains and then Victoria - Gatwick via Underground) . I can't seem to find any book early save £££'s deals on this route despite following Martin's tips. Is this just a route that hasn't got any deals? Or am I not looking enough?

dzug

MiserlyMartin wrote: »

We are short of a lift to take us to Gatwick so we are considering the train! The cheapest I've found is via Virgin trains from Milton Keynes to Gatwick, £32.00 return (each). The same price also via national rail enquiries (silverlink trains and then Victoria - Gatwick via Underground) . I can't seem to find any book early save £££'s deals on this route despite following Martin's tips. Is this just a route that hasn't got any deals? Or am I not looking enough?

There are no book early deals on this route but it can be done considerably cheaper by avoiding London. Get a train to Watford Junction or Harrow and change to the hourly Southern service to Gatwick (via Kensington Olympia) A saver return is £19.70 and on a quick look doesn't seem to have any time restrictions.

Anomaly_2

I need help, please.
I need to travel to Gatwick airport on the 5th November departing from Preston. I need a one-way fare which leaves Preston at around 10-11am. I've searched on thetrainline and virgin's website but all I find is rediculous £70 fares and I cannot afford that. I'm usually great at this kind of stuff but this time it's got the better of me, could someone see what they could do? I'd be very grateful, thanks.

Crabman

Anomaly wrote: »

I need help, please.
I need to travel to Gatwick airport on the 5th November departing from Preston. I need a one-way fare which leaves Preston at around 10-11am. I've searched on thetrainline and virgin's website but all I find is rediculous £70 fares and I cannot afford that. I'm usually great at this kind of stuff but this time it's got the better of me, could someone see what they could do? I'd be very grateful, thanks.

Hi

Found a £20 single advance fare - however, the catch is that I couldn't search for 5th Nov as the Virgin Trains site & the National Rail site said they only hold journeys 12 weeks in advance.

To check whether an advance ticket was an option - I searched for mid october and was shown the £20 advance option, hopefully this will be available when your date enters the 12 week timeframe

Route:

Preston - London Euston (Virgin)
London Euston - London Victoria (Tube)
London Victoria - Gatwick (Gatwick Express)

Anomaly_2

Thanks a lot Crabman. The thing is, I did the same, I realise they only go upto 12weeks in advanced so altered the date to a weekday in the end of Oct. The £20 one-way fares were there, as was a £17 one but they didn't have the small circle to select that fare, only the £70+ ones were selectable. Am I doing something wrong?
Cheers again.

Crabman

OK, it looks like you need to be on a direct train Preston - London for the cheap advanced fares to apply.

Found a £34.50 fare on a 09:49 departure:



And £20 on a later train though this may be a bit late for your flight:



Remember though that they allow excessively long periods of time for connecting via the underground so you could shave a bit off the final arrival time. Try again hopefully you'll be able to select the fares as I've done

pompeyrich

Badger_Lady wrote: »

I genuinely don't know - I just spent ages fiddling about :-( I did the "search for best fares" at one point, and read the "terms of carriage" and "ticket type" information to try and work out which ones would be allowed.

I wish I could provide instructions, but I think it's just trial and error sometimes!

Tell me about it!! I have spent many a long hour on the nationalrail website trying and usually finding the bargain fares. There are so many quirks in the system, I reckon you would need a degree to work out all the options. I was trying to get from Portsmouth-Birmingham, tried splitting it at Bristol but it was twice as expensive than a through fare from Portsmouth, 90 miles further away but half the price, would anyone in Bristol thought of trying to book a ticket from Portsmouth as a cheaper option?? I doubt it, so nothing surprises me anymore.