perbooking train tickets

Hermione_Granger

Over the next few weeks I am going to be making a few fairly long train journeys but I won't know the exact dates and times until shortly before I need to travel. (approx 12 hours before).

I've been looking at prices on some of the advance ticket sites on the web and I was wondering how much (if any) of a discount they actually offer over buying the tickets as a walk in customer at the station of departure.
These sites ll state things such as "buy in advance and save", but none of them actually say how much you will be saving by buying this way.

If it's only a £ or two (the tickets are all in the £18-£25 price range when booked online), I will stick to buying in the station of departure just in cse my plans change at short notice as I know that many of these prepaid tickets are non refundable.

Any advice as to the rough discount than can be expected by booking any paying in advance will be gratefully received.

yorkie2

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

I've been looking at prices on some of the advance ticket sites on the web and I was wondering how much (if any) of a discount they actually offer over buying the tickets as a walk in customer at the station of departure.

Anything from £0 to possibly £100+

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

These sites ll state things such as "buy in advance and save", but none of them actually say how much you will be saving by buying this way

I have seen examples given, but they're just that, and nothing more.

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

If it's only a £ or two (the tickets are all in the £18-£25 price range when booked online), I will stick to buying in the station of departure just in cse my plans change at short notice as I know that many of these prepaid tickets are non refundable.

Good idea - that's what I do too.

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Any advice as to the rough discount than can be expected by booking any paying in advance will be gratefully received.

The rough discount for an unknown journey is, well, unknown, sorry!

If you can say what your journey(s) are, then I can list the full range of fares.

In theory you can get the full range of fares from the National Rail website, however this is difficult to make sense of.

wealdroam

Unless you can book the previous day, then Advance Singles are not for you.

Back to your question...

Advance Singles are released up to 12 weeks before travel.
The cheaper tickets sell out earlier, so as you get near to the date of travel the price of available Advance Singles effectively rises. It may actually rise to such a level that an Off Peak Return can be cheaper.

Different train companies have different ideas about how to market these things.

Some train operating companies offer no Advance Singles at all.

You can see from the above that it is nigh on impossible to predict the saving that you may make... and perhaps you can even understand why the tickets sellers cannot make that prediction either.

dzug1

The online sites will all tell you the walk on prices as well as the advance ones.

If a ticket is described as anytime, off peak or superoffpeak then it will in 99.99% of cases be the same price on the day

Hermione_Granger

Many thanks for the info.

For most of the journeys I will doing I will probably only have about 8 hours notice so I think that from reading the above, I will stick to buying tickets on the day.

discplayer

In that case try to travel off-peak - exactly which trains are off peak will depend on the route. When looking online the availability of an 'off-peak' ticket price should be a guide as to when you can travel on these tickets.

Even turning up at the station 5 mins before the train could, depending on your route, save you loads if it's an off-peak rather than a peak time train.

moonrakerz

wealdroam wrote: »

Some train operating companies offer no Advance Singles at all.

Not true - all offer Advance Tickets - but not on ALL routes.

Advance tickets are available up to 6pm or midnight on the day before travel (depends on the TOC). Always worth checking..........

DO NOT use the trainline........................

TimothyEBaldwin

Usually there is not a large discount for booking online, if available it is typically 10%; the exceptions are Megatrain by the Stagecoach group, and Scotrail's bargain berths. The large discounts are for buying an advance.