train fares....AAAAARRGGGHH!!!

het

Just been looking up train fares from Edinburgh to York (and back) at the beginning of March for a weekend. From what I can see on the National Train Enquiries website, if I get this wrong I can end up paying a couple of hundred quid more for my ticket. So much choice.....and so much difference in the fares. Any tips....

lauranurse

Sometimes it works out cheaper if you buy a ticket to somewhere that is farther away than the station you want to go to, but on the same route. Try looking at the train companies special offers and see if any of them are suitable

Good luck!

rosy

het, if you look on the scotrail website http://www.firstgroup.com/scotrail/index.php you can check lots of times and prices at once, it's possibly cheaper to buy 2 singles instead of a return ( when I checked just now you could leave early Sat am on the 3rd March and return Sunday in the afternoon for £22 - that's 2 x £11 singles - the return ticket price was £63 I think). There may be some conditions ( like you have to get that particular train ). I think that the rail pricing structure is completely ridiculous!

Cumbrian_Male

Also see the split ticketing thread

jenny_f

Cheapest way is probably buy tickets from York to Manchester then from there use megatrain.com to get to Edinburgh.

If you are a student get your York>Manchester ticket with student getaway fares with Transpenine Express, if not then booking may save you a bit of money not sure.

Not sure if this is actually the cheapest way, it's just one I know of off the top of my head, having done the route myself. GNER and Virgin may have chepaer fares - certainly worth a look.

HTH

rosy

jenny_f wrote:

Cheapest way is probably buy tickets from York to Manchester then from there use megatrain.com to get to Edinburgh.

I've used the megatrain Edinburgh to Manchester and it's great, especially if you can book early enough and get the £1 tickets - unfortunately this route doesn't run at the weekend . het mentioned it was for a weekend trip so would need to be leaving/returning on Friday/ Monday to take advantage of megatrain price.

Altarf

lauranurse wrote:

Sometimes it works out cheaper if you buy a ticket to somewhere that is farther away than the station you want to go to, but on the same route. Try looking at the train companies special offers and see if any of them are suitable

But unless your ticket permits a 'break of journey', which the cheaper APEX tickets generally don't, then when you try to leave the earlier station they could stop you and make you pay the difference between what you paid and what you should have paid (for the shorter journey).

het

Wow! Thank you all for your ideas. I can't believe how complicated it all gets.