Cheapest Train Fares Discussion Area

isasmurf

Despite what Martin says "Travelling Short" is permitted within the National Conditions of Carriage, although if your ticket does not allow a break in journey then "Travelling short" is a no go. The relevant paragraph states

16. Starting, breaking or ending a journey at intermediate stations
You may start, or break and resume, a journey (in either direction in the case of a return ticket) at any intermediate station, as long as the ticket you hold is valid for the trains you want to use. You may also end your journey (in either direction in the case of a return ticket) before the destination shown on the ticket. However, these rights may not apply to some types of tickets for which a break of journey is prohibited, in which case the relevant Train Companies will make this clear in their notices and other publications.

alanrowell

But how many of the cheap tickets allow a break of journey - generally the cheapest tickets that allow it are return tickets and then only on the return leg, so you could do a London to Bath return via Salisbury and break your trip on the return leg at Salisbury.

Also on some routes (eg GNER, Virgin) the cheapest tickets are singles - which don't allow a break.

So before "Travelling Short" check that the ticket will allow it and that there isn't a cheaper combination by using singles

alanrowell

wjsdunne, for those who prefer not to be logged on (and not pay a CC fee for bookign tickets) https://www.nationalrail.co.uk has a more obvious option for picking the slowest route.

At step 2 when you get the timetable results, there is an option at the bottom of the page that says "fastest". You can change this to "cheapest"

snedger

tryhard wrote:

there is another railcard in the south - NETWORK railcard - 1/3 off all off-peak travel; costs £20 but a if you make trips to london well worth it. If travelling to london during peak hours, works out cheaper to take a single in the morning and a cheap single for the return using the network card. also get discount on zone 1-6 travel card in london

Ironically this card is somewhat better for families than a Family Railcard - kids travel for £1.
You used to be able to upgrade to first class for only £1 pp, but that's long dead.

Reminded me that I must get a Family railcard for my split fare trip to Leicester, or I'll be in trouble - the Shoreham-by-Sea to London leg is discounted with a Network card and the St. Pancras to Leicester with a Family card.

vmmorgan

We nearly got caught out by this with our Christmas train travel, peterborough to Helensburgh via Edinburgh. I booked as soon as the website allowed, 12 weeks before travel & got a so-so deal with family railcard, a return which was quite flexible but specified the train times for the journey (there was a way to change these for free). BUT there was nothing to suggest that we had not reserved seats, unless we had previous detailed knowledge of the system, which of course we didnt. It wasnt until the tickets arrived a few days before the travel date (busy Sat 2 days before Christmas) that we realised we had no seat reservations & no hope of getting any. Nightmare journey in prospect with 2 kids, luggage etc.

Full credit to GNER Customer SErvices - after a lot of fuss on the phone they upgraded us to 1st class, with seat resrvations, to Edinburgh (the most crowded leg of the journey).

Advance ticket bookers beware - if the tranline website doesnt tell you explicitly that you have seats reserved, & tell you which they are, then you probably haven't. On GNER at least they arent made available until c 10 weeks before travel, so you may have to phone then to reserve seats. It is an idiotic system.

Penny46

I'd just like to post a warning about The Trainline. I booked tickets from Newport to London last month, opting to collect them from the Fast Ticket machine at Newport station. When I went to collect them, the machine refused to give them to me and referred me to the Travel centre at the station. They were also unable to collect them for me, and suggested I rang The Trainline, telling me that Trainline were refusing to pay them for replacement tickets issued via the Travel Centre. When I did this, I spoke to someone obviously somewhere in an Indian call centre who was patently unable to understand what I was saying. Eventually after a LOT of hassle and referring to other people, she agreed to speak to her supervisor. She came back, saying she'd spoken to Newport station and I could collect the tickets after one hour. When I went the following day, Newport knew nothing about this. As our travel was imminent, my only option was to buy new tickets and claim a refund on the Trainline tickets. This I did, claiming a refund via the Trainline site. However, as I had purchased two singles, rather than one return (this was the cheapest option) I had to make two refund claims. After about a week of roughly a twentyfour emails back and fore to two different negotiators (to be fair, they answered emails quickly), I eventually ended up with an agreement to refund the tickets. However, the two negotiators gave me two completely different ways of getting this refund. One said she had given me a refund straight back to my credit card, whereas the other guy said I had to send my tickets to somewhere in Essex (he had given me the address for the wrong station operator!!!) I queried why he too couldn't refund direct to my card too and was swiftly passed to a supervisor who said they'd both got it wrong and I had to send the tickets to Edinburgh. This I did and got a refund for one of them! I am still arguing over the other refund. I will never use Ticket Line again. First Great Western which feeds into the Trainline site, has similar problems with the Fast ticket machines but are honouring the tickets and allowing the Travel Centre staff to issue replacement tickets.

Mike_J

Im going to London in July and have got my return tickets through Superbreak for £32 each. There are restictions but funny enough they do not affect the trains we were planning on using anyway. The Virgin website (we're on westcoast main line) doesnt have the tickets for our dates until April. Ive been looking at more recent dates and apart from a couple of rare bargain tickets for £25 each this is as good as are coming up now.

The price therefore seems Ok and we know we have the tickets for the trains we want. Who should we speak to about resreving seats and if tickets are pre-bought like this, is there a charge. Although our trip will be off-peak wouldnt like to stand for 2 1/2 hours each way.

jaymmu

I travel from Manchester to Liverpool everyday and currently i have to pay £12.30 return everyday. I have looked into the possibility of a railcard (£2200 annually) but I would have to buy it from Central trains but sometimes I leave work late and get a Merseytravel train instead. Does anyone have any suggestions to get this price down?

hk_chick

This one may be useful for some commuters in the south east..

I use the C2C line to travel in to and accross London from Southend on Sea for work each day. Until reading Martins article, I used a return monthly season ticket/oyster combination.

However, I work shifts which means for half of the month I leave the station for work after 10am. After doing some caculations, I've worked out that by getting a railcard & buying a travelcard to cover the underground zones on a daily basis, it actually works out, on average £79 a month cheaper :eek:

I can't believe I've been throwing my hard earned cash at the rail company for the past 5 months. Figures.

Obviously the savings will depend on what time you travel, but you can still reduce a travelcard down to £10 a day with a railcard.

I'm happy to post my figures up, should people wish to see where the savings come from, but I'm about to finish up & make my way back home!!

chocdonuty

Has anyone tried Megatrain.com they do fares from £1. The times and stations are limited usually early morning or evening times but you can get a real bargain. If it doesn't go to your local station, choose the nearest and then pay for a single for the little extra section of journey. I recently paid £5 for a return journey from birmingham to southampton a journey I have taken before which has cost from £45 up to £60! worth a try.:cool: , michelle