London to Carlisle - Cheaper tickets?

beautiful*dangerous

I live in Carlisle, my boyfriend lives in London...problem? Yes, bloody train ticket prices!
Currently it costs him £92 for a return ticket. I've tried searching 6-8 weeks in advance (as advised by someone working for Virgin Trains) but the prices are still the same!

Can anyone help?
I have a railcard, which makes my ticket around £60, but he's too old to get one of those.

Thanks

wealdroam

beautiful*dangerous wrote: »

I live in Carlisle, my boyfriend lives in London...problem? Yes, bloody train ticket prices!
Currently it costs him £92 for a return ticket. I've tried searching 6-8 weeks in advance (as advised by someone working for Virgin Trains) but the prices are still the same!

Can anyone help?
I have a railcard, which makes my ticket around £60, but he's too old to get one of those.

Thanks

That £92.00 is an Off Peak return.

Think about travelling via Newcastle.
Will take longer, probably over five hours, but the savings are great.

Picking two midweek days at random, Wed 24 and Thur 25 November, Can be done for £24.05 out and £12.90 for the return leg using Advance Singles.

To get those prices, you must book via East Coast Train's website, and you must travel on the booked trains.

p.s. when you travel, you can knock a third off those prices with your railcard.

opinions4u

beautiful*dangerous wrote: »

I live in Carlisle, my boyfriend lives in London...problem? Yes, bloody train ticket prices!
Currently it costs him £92 for a return ticket. I've tried searching 6-8 weeks in advance (as advised by someone working for Virgin Trains) but the prices are still the same!

Can anyone help?
I have a railcard, which makes my ticket around £60, but he's too old to get one of those.

Thanks

He might save a fiver off peak by splitting tickets at Penrith.

Alternatively, advance bookings and walking across Manchester should save a little bit more with carefully selected timings.

7 hours on a coach could be done for £70 return before coachcard discount.

Personally I'd suggest trading him in and getting somebody new .

(EDIT: The reply above looks significantly better from a money saving point of view)

beautiful*dangerous

wealdroam wrote: »

That £92.00 is an Off Peak return.

Think about travelling via Newcastle.
Will take longer, probably over five hours, but the savings are great.

Picking two midweek days at random, Wed 24 and Thur 25 November, Can be done for £24.05 out and £12.90 for the return leg using Advance Singles.

To get those prices, you must book via East Coast trains website, and you must travel on the booked trains.

p.s. when you travel, you can knock a third off those prices with your railcard.

Sounds good. The only thing is that visits are usually done over the weekends because of work etc. So friday night and Sunday night trains.

beautiful*dangerous

opinions4u wrote: »

7 hours on a coach could be done for £70 return before coachcard discount.

He's done the coach before for £50 but it's a really long time to sit on one of those! And the times aren't brilliant

opinions4u wrote: »

Personally I'd suggest trading him in and getting somebody new .

Hahaha very funny

Hammyman

Why can't you go to London? Surely that's got to be better than a weekend in Carlisle?

beautiful*dangerous

Hammyman wrote: »

Why can't you go to London? Surely that's got to be better than a weekend in Carlisle?

Lmao! That made me laugh :rotfl: It's very true, Carlisle isn't exactly the most exciting place in the world lol.
Anyways...I do go to London, we just take it in turns.

wealdroam

beautiful*dangerous wrote: »

Sounds good. The only thing is that visits are usually done over the weekends because of work etc. So friday night and Sunday night trains.

OK. Will be difficult.
Friday night and Sunday night are very popular.

I gave you a link to the website.
Explore. See if there is anything suitable.

beautiful*dangerous wrote: »

Anyways...I do go to London, we just take it in turns.

As you have a railcard, perhaps best if you take more turns travelling?

beautiful*dangerous

wealdroam wrote: »

As you have a railcard, perhaps best if you take more turns travelling?

Haha yeah I did think about that! I was down there twice last month so it might be something I have to do more often.

redux

also look at sleeper trains on the Scotrail website

£24.50 single isn't impossible, in either a reclining seat or occasionally even a bed for that price (more likely £53.50 for bed if early enough)

the later ones at near midnight from Euston or 0140 from Carlisle are the cheaper ones

depends if you can put up with some lack of sleep, and maybe taxi cost on top, especially arriving at Carlisle at 5 am

or play about with the National Rail website - as well as the obvious heading where to enter stations and times is a bit which says slightly more flexible with your journey? and a button Cheapest fare finder, though the top one will also find cheap fares once you get an idea what times to try out

enter stations, press Show me, then you get to choose between 3 providers, e.g Virgin, East Coast and Scotrail, also tick to say flexible with dates, just to help see more at a time to start with, and zooming a time zone bar to early morning finds for example fares from £14 or £14.50 single leaving London at 0530 or 0600 on 14 to 16th December or 11th to 14th January, plenty of time to go back to sleep once on the train, from £36 a bit later in the morning, or the £24.50 Scotrail overnight again

n.b. it may be my browser, but once those fares are displayed I don't get to choose earlier or later trains; however go back and search again and adjust the time slider bar on the right

those fares are presumably also on those providers own websites ...

I'm no expert on this, but the other day I was browsing a bit and was surprised to find I could get from the south of England to say Aberdeen by sleeper train for around £30, if I split the booking and go by Megabus to London for £1, Scotrail the rest

p.s. if you can put up with a coach for all or maybe part of the way, Megabus starts from about £5 if booked far enough ahead