Help Required to find Cheap train Tickets

Matthew98

I am new to the forum, and would be grateful for any help on finding cheap train tickets. I hear stories of fares from £9, but whenever I do a serch I get £120.
Can someone help?
2 Adults & 2 Children are planning to travel from Durham (northeast) to London (possibly Kings Cross, never travelled by train before so only guessing).
Want to tavel on 28th Dec returning 30th, can be flexible with the times.
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thankyou in advance.

blindman

Matthew98 wrote: »

I am new to the forum, and would be grateful for any help on finding cheap train tickets. I hear stories of fares from £9, but whenever I do a serch I get £120.
Can someone help?
2 Adults & 2 Children are planning to travel from Durham (northeast) to London (possibly Kings Cross, never travelled by train before so only guessing).
Want to tavel on 28th Dec returning 30th, can be flexible with the times.
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thankyou in advance.

Post your request on this forum

spheric

Advance Fares can seem a little complicated, but they aren't too bad once you're used to them.

The train companies have different fare "buckets" for advance tickets, with each bucket having a different price. So If I were to run your Durham to London train, I might set 3 buckets up: One £10 bucket, One £20 bucket and one £40 bucket.

The train companies then allow X tickets to be sold from each bucket on a train. Busier trains have fewer (or no) tickets in the cheaper buckets, quiter ones have more. So my rush hour train might only have two £20 tickets available, and 4 £40 ones. My late evening one that's going to be quiet might have 12 £10 tickets, another 12 £20 tickets and 20 £40 ones (that will likely not get bought).

Advance tickets are made available about 3 months before travel, - you can check the dates currently available for booking on each train company by clicking "Booking Horizons" at this website: http://www.atoctravelagents.org/

Once available, customers buy advance tickets from the cheapest bucket first, once that's empty the next cheapest is used.

As an interesting aside, there's (or there was last time I checked) a bug in the web based ticketing computer that all the train operating companies seem to use behind the scenes: if I want 3 tickets and there's 2 left in a cheaper bucket, it sells all three from the more expensive one rather than 2 cheaper and 1 expensive.

Unfortunately, Christmas is a very busy time, so there will likely have been fewer advance tickets in the cheaper buckets, and because the tickets for your dates have been available for some time, the cheaper ones have all gone.

Anyway, enough lecturing. For your specific journey, the train company is currently selling tickets from 4 buckets (prices are each way, per adult... remember)

A £17.80 one only available coming home at 23:30 with an overnight change - yikes!)
A £29.80 one (only available going down at 04:54 - no thank you!)
A £38.25 one (a few trains to choose from)
A £46.30 one (lots of trains available)

Note: I havent checked how many tickets are left in each bucket, for each train... There may not be enough £38.25 ones on some trains)

So, looking at tickets for your whole family rather than just you, it looks like you won't get the tickets for much less than £140 each way, unless some split-ticketing wizard comes up with some voodoo.

However, - This is just the sort of journey a family & friends railcard was made for. - They cost £26 for the year, and when you travel together you get 1/3 off adult fares, and 60% off the kids.

If you pay the £26 and get a family and friends railcard, your journey will cost under £80 each way... More than recouping the cost of the card, never mind what you'll save if you use it again over the course of the year.

blindman

Excellent explanation

spheric wrote: »

As an interesting aside, there's (or there was last time I checked) a bug in the web based ticketing computer that all the train operating companies seem to use behind the scenes: if I want 3 tickets and there's 2 left in a cheaper bucket, it sells all three from the more expensive one rather than 2 cheaper and 1 expensive.

BTW
I don't think it's a "bug" as airlines seem to employ this method too.
It's a sneaky way to get more revenue.

If you buy multiple tickets on airlines\trains it's worth checking the price of 1 ticket before you buy IMHO.