Cheapest Train Fares Discussion Area

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morg_monster

I noticed that Martin missed a trick on the Network cards (for the South East area). They are half price at the moment, as he said, but if you hold any annual travelcard for London Underground, you can buy a Network card for anyone for just £1 (You can only do this once during the lifetime of a Travelcard)

Also with your Travelcard you can save 1/3 on most offpeak journeys in London and the SE - I don't know for sure but I expect these are the same journeys you can save on using your Network card, although there's NO MINIMUM FARE.

[Not strictly on topic - but there are other things you can do with your annual London Travelcard within London:
Buy Zone 1-6 day travelcards for up to 4 under 16 year olds at a time, for £1 each (Off peak - so for travel after 09:30)
Buy Zone 1-6 day travelcards for adults for £4.80 each (also offpeak - this gives you the oyster card price on a paper ticket - saving £1.50 on the price of a usual paper Z1-6 card. Also a paper Z1-2 day travelcard is £4.90, so worth it even if you don't need all the zones).]

Useful if you have an annual travelcard, or even if you just know someone who does and doesn't mind a trip to the tube station to buy you some tickets!

richardw

Some machines at stations don't know when Sunday finishes, ie 04:30 am Monday morning, so if you buy a ticket at 00:10am it won't give you the Network Card discount.

crofty

Anyone had real difficulties getting reservation for bikes on virgin trains. I had no luck a week in advantage for a single journey from exmouth to redditch on the 8th august , I did not have 1 going down on the 1st august , was told off for being a 5th bike on the train. I was not warned when I brought the tickets online with midland mainline website or when I got to the platform at birmingham exeter train. Anyway had no really problem with being a 5th bike going down. I did get home on the train , but with a warning that I would be kicked off the train if there was 4 bikes with reservation coming at the stations on the way up.

I wish could book the bicycle reservation online too , I would be happy to pay £1-£4 for that as well to make sure enough room for everyone bikes , Having just room for 4 and a push with 5 << it was illegal the whole train was told over the PA system but not action was taken , i thought the train was going to wait for me the owner to get kicked off with said bike.

Anyway i waffled enough in bad english for this to boring enough.

Mark

HeaddyMX

At the moment I work in Reading travelling from London, so the first half of the journey is always at peak time. Haven't done any maths yet, but it might work out cheaper in the long run for me - I currently pay £88/week for a travelcard.

morg_monster

Headdy MX - is that £88/week including an underground section?

According to national rail website at the moment a return ticket (travelling at peak times) from london - reading is only £17.10 with a network card - working out at £85.50 for 5 days. I did wonder whether this was just a summer thing, so checked for a september date, and the same price came up.
of course if the £88 is including an underground part, that is better value. And also buying 5 separate tickets is a hassle - although I suppose you could buy them all at once but probably not worth it for £2.50 (less once you take into account the cost of the railcard).

(this was on the fast train to paddington, btw, not the slow waterloo one).

alared

Having searched National rail site for a bargain fare and finding one for £2 return for a distance of about 180 miles,i clicked on "purchase tickets".
This then asks you which vendor you would like to buy from.
I then click on the train company who`s route I`ll be travelling on,GNER.to buy my tickets.
I`m redirected to their site and have to go through all the rigmarole again of entering my details of the journey etc.
Low and behold there are no £2 return tickets to be found.

freeloader

all this daftness leads me to the conclusion that the railways should be renationalised ... tomorrow!

firespire

freeloader wrote:

all this daftness leads me to the conclusion that the railways should be renationalised ... tomorrow!

There were many quirks of railway tickets under nationalisation maybe more.
Finding quirks and loopholes save people money, you give the impression you want it stopped?

grex9101

...Just to add...

Martin suggests splitting the tickets up to save money ("Return from York to Plymouth" boxout). Which is fine and all that.

BUT.

according to the national conditions of carriage, the train operating companies are perfectly entitled to put you off at each point of the journey, You would then be obliged to get the next train.

This is true, and is commonly seen with other ticket types e.g scottish oaps can travel for 40p single or 80p return on routes less than 10 miles, or pay half the full adult fare on journeys over 10miles, the cheeky pensioners will do exactly the same as Martin suggests i.e buy single tickets, but they DO have to get off the train and wait for the next one.

Just watch out

davidlizard

South West Trains do a "Group Save" where 4 or 3 people can travel for the same price as 2. The two main drawbacks are (a) you have to travel together, so you all have to go to the pub, or no-one can and (b) its off peak only.

However, with an average of 8 of us per day travelling to the Oval Test match, we saved about £250 in total with a bit of organisation.

They don't seem to advertise this as much as they ought, so you may have to ask.