Cheap Train Fares guide discussion

dzug1

If you are going via London it may be worth checking London Midland Virgin and Megatrain for London/Birmingham

Remember with singles you don't have to use the same route both ways.

MultiCat

Jeff_Bridges_hair wrote: »

Check Chiltern railways website. If you dont mind the longer trip to london you can get both of you to London one way for £8.30. Returning is going to cost around £24.

East coast are then doing tickets from £11 going to Peterborough and around £16 back for the pair of you.. thats roughly the price you have found above which I would go with if i were you

dzug1 wrote: »

If you are going via London it may be worth checking London Midland Virgin and Megatrain for London/Birmingham

Remember with singles you don't have to use the same route both ways.

I tried both of these but still so much more expensive. Just going to have to pay the £100 I guess.

katfishh

apologies for highjacking this thread but dont know how to start a new one - sorry

Trying to find cheap way of doing commuter route London to Brighton Mon - Friday leaving at 7.30 ish and leaving between 17.10 and 17.30. Journey is currently costing £530. :eek: On an NHS salary this isnt feasable so having to consider getting a new job locally. Looked at coach but its taking way too long at over 2 hours.

Anyone have any ideas how to get this down or can anyone recommend a reputable car share site for a few days a week?

Thanks in advance.

Livingthedream

katfishh wrote: »

apologies for highjacking this thread but dont know how to start a new one - sorry

No highjacking required, this is what the thread is for

katfishh wrote: »

Trying to find cheap way of doing commuter route London to Brighton Mon - Friday leaving at 7.30 ish and leaving between 17.10 and 17.30. Journey is currently costing £530. :eek: On an NHS salary this isnt feasable so having to consider getting a new job locally. Looked at coach but its taking way too long at over 2 hours.

Don't know where you got £530 from but a London Terminals to Brighton monthly season ticket First Capitol Connect only is £325.70

Jeff_Bridges_hair

MultiCat wrote: »

I tried both of these but still so much more expensive. Just going to have to pay the £100 I guess.

Chiltern STILL have cheap tickets for the Brum - Lon leg.

MikeMarshall

Currently costs £44 open return (anytime within a month).

Except for buying a 16-25 railcard (£28 for 1 year), is there anyway to get this cheaper?

Even booking 12 weeks in advance gives no savings on tpexpress.

dzug1

MikeMarshall wrote: »

Currently costs £44 open return (anytime within a month).

Except for buying a 16-25 railcard (£28 for 1 year), is there anyway to get this cheaper?

Even booking 12 weeks in advance gives no savings on tpexpress.

Can't see anything using all rail to make it cheaper

What could be cheaper is to get the train to Hull (£17.70 open return) then get this bus:


http://www.travelineeastmidlands.co.uk/em/TTB/EAEM_97__0000392d_TP.pdf

Don' worry about the 1 minute connection - I understand it's the same bus

MikeMarshall

Unfortunately I have to go via York + Doncaster to pick up things on the way.

yorkie2

MikeMarshall wrote: »

Currently costs £44 open return (anytime within a month).

The ticket that used to be called Standard Open Return (SOR) now called Anytime Return is £91.00.

The £44.90 ticket is a Super Off Peak Return (SSR) and is not valid "anytime within a month"; it is not valid between 0300 and 0930 M-F.

There is a ticket priced at £44.90 that is an Off Peak Return (SVR) and is not valid between 0115 and 0400 (there are no trains at this time anyway so it is effectively valid on any train).

MikeMarshall wrote: »

Even booking 12 weeks in advance gives no savings on tpexpress.

There are no Advance tickets, the prices are the same whether you book them a year in advance or immediately before travel.

Advance tickets are available for other flows and may be combined for this journey to save on the cost of a through ticket.

dampsquib

"Oh, Mr Porter, What shall I do? I want to go to Manchester but I need to split at Crewe!":)
Getting the best price these days seems to take as long as the actually journey itself, is this progress?:eek:
This week I need to go to Manchester from Telford.
As I need to be there before 9:30, I can't make use of ArrivaTrainsWales's (excellent) Club 55 £19 offer.
Now if I was in Shrewsbury, I could buy an Anytime Day Return for £25.20, but even though I'm just 15 mins away from Shrewsbury, I can't buy a Day Return from my station. A return from my station is a massive £62.:eek:
To avoid having to go by car, my first idea was to buy a Day Return to Shrewsbury, then buy a return to Manchester. This would reduce the £62 down to a more reasonable £29.40.
I then played with more options and found that if I split my journey at Crewe, I can further reduce the cost down to £26.90.
I wanted to avoid having to buy tickets on the day, but it was too late to get the tickets posted to me. I then wondered if I could order the tickets online via Virgin as I would then be able to collect my tickets from the machine at my local station. Even though, I wasn't planning to travel with Virgin, and they don't even run trains on my line, I was able to order my tickets via their website. Ordering via Virgin also meant I could go to the Virgin site via TopCashBack, so shaved another few pence off the price.
Bottomline is that instead of paying £62 (or going by car), I'm paying £26.36 and I even have seat reservations. By chance, the system has even even allocated me the same seat on the outgoing jouney both to and from Crewe.:)