Shocked at Virgin Train Prices!!

cliffg_2

Hi there,

A few weeks ago, a 'friend' of mine said travelling from manchester to London should cost about £25 return on virgin trains. This included travelling at peak times (arriving in london around 9am, leaving london at 7/8pm)
Problem was I couldn't book any tickets yet as it was more than 3 mths in advance of when i wanted to travel..

This morning, I was all abouts ready to book my ticket when I find the cheapest ticket I can get to london is £398 (for 2 people return)!!! shocking!!!
I check British Airways about flying there and it's miles cheaper at £126 (for 2 people return)!!!

In a time when everyone is barking on about the enviroment and discouraging short hop flights (which are really bad on the enviroment), I can't understand how virgin can justify those sorts of prices..

Has anyone got any advice, I'm not too keen on flying (if only for enviromental reasons), but with what's on the table at the minute, I don't see any choice..

evesham1988la

Did you try clicking on the "Singles Tab" and buying 2 singles. Yes a return is £202... but click to buy two singles and it is £12.50 each way.

StockportGerbil

Hi!
I do the Stockport to London trip quite regularly, booking cheap tickets can be a real problem and it's not all Virgin's fault....

In general if you book sufficiently in advance (three weeks or more) you stand a reasonable chance of getting single tickets each way for £12 or £17. If you can be flexible about times you really should be OK. At weekends Virgin can't sell cheap tickets until Railtrack have told Virgin what engineering works they are planning to do that weekend. Unfortunately Railtrack usually only makes that announcement a week or two in advance so you can't book the cheapest tickets which specify which trains you travel on and are rationed. Part of the reasoning for the rationing (and this is Virgins fault) is the trains have 8 carriages 4 of which are first class and usually empty.

I would expect you to be able to get a standard return for £55 unless you are travelling immediately. Alternatively if there are problems with Virgin try going via Sheffield, the journey is much nicer over the peaks, midland mainline quite regularly have offers on and they always used to give you free tea and coffee :-)

I hope that helps

Kev

cliffg_2

evesham1988la wrote:

Did you try clicking on the "Singles Tab" and buying 2 singles. Yes a return is £202... but click to buy two singles and it is £12.50 each way.

cheapest single ticket is £110 (per person)..

Travelling on 21st July (Friday).. so in 3 months...

Has anyone got any links to sites where i can get these fabeled sub-£20 tickets? Virgin doesn't wanna show me the money

isasmurf

cliffg wrote:

Travelling on 21st July (Friday).. so in 3 months...

Tickets for 21st July that require seat reservations (as most advance purchase tickets do) are not yet available.

Under the terms of Network Rail's licence it must give Train Operating Companies 12 weeks notice of revisions to the published timetable. The train companies then have, under the terms of their licence, up to a maximum of 3 weeks to make this available to passengers.

I make 21st July will be in 13 weeks time, so you might like to try again next week.

nearlyrich

You will struggle to get peak time tickets for £12 ( I think it has gone up to £15 anyway)
I am almost sure that the first train you can get the cheap fare gets into Euston just after 11am.

I travel to London fairly frequently and the most I have paid is £23 (or £27 for 1st class) each way in the past year or so.

To get the cheaper fares I go to the station and quiz the ticket office, www.thetrainline.com rarely has the cheapest fares and they charge a booking fee anyway.