Best way to get to from Manchester to London stansted airport

Cpu2007

Hello everyone
I have done some search and couldn't find anything reasonable to allow me to get to stansted airport effectively and cheaply.

The best way I found was using megabus from manchester to london and then from there to stansted

This would have costed me around £20 the cheapest but maybe more and it would have taken more than 5 hours as overall journey( 4.30 hours man to lon + 0.45-1 hour lon to stansted)

Is it there a better way to travel to london stansted (for example going through cambridge, so i don't go south and then north back again)

thank you

wealdroam

As you don't particularly like trains, have you considered National Express Coaches?

flea72

Train via peterborough or doncaster will get you to stansted, without need to go into london and back out. but unless you have a railcard of some sort, its more like £40 single and timewise, still around 4-5hrs (including stopovers)

onlyluci

what about trainline, they do discounts quite often for very cheap.

dzug1

onlyluci wrote: »

what about trainline, they do discounts quite often for very cheap.

The trainline don't do discounts - they charge the same fares as elsewhere and slap a fee on top


From Manchester to Stansted you can do the journey with one change - travel to Peterborough or Ely on an East Midlands train that's going to Norwich and change there to Cross Country to Stansted

But via London is normally quicker and more frequent - and can be cheaper

But if you want it cheap then coach via London is probably it

Better still use a different airport

Cpu2007

Thank you guys.

@wealdroam yes I have considered coaches and I think in comparison megabus probably is cheaper and having used it,it seems also faster.

@flea72 the method you're suggesting would be good if it was saving me some time

I think timewise the best method would be to use
Manchester to London By train
and then
London to stansted by airport

Where if I want something cheaper but very long journey
Man to Lon by bus
and then
Lon to stansted by bus again

I think these are the best options, what do you think?

flea72

How about megabus from manchester to leicester. Then train from leicester to stansted via peterborough

Depending on when you want to travel, there are direct trains from leicester to stansted (if you dont search via peterborough it defaults to going thru london).

I dont know your dates, but you can get man-leic £6 and the train from lei-stan for £24

dzug1

Cpu2007 wrote: »

Thank you guys.

@wealdroam yes I have considered coaches and I think in comparison megabus probably is cheaper and having used it,it seems also faster.

@flea72 the method you're suggesting would be good if it was saving me some time

I think timewise the best method would be to use
Manchester to London By train
and then
London to stansted by airport

Where if I want something cheaper but very long journey
Man to Lon by bus
and then
Lon to stansted by bus again

I think these are the best options, what do you think?

Agreed

The problem with megabus from Manchester to Leicester is that it is only once a day and arrives at an industrial estate on the outskirts of town in the middle of the night. Leaves from the same estate on the return.

Whilst there is supposed to be a frequent bus service into town I somehow doubt if it runs at 3am so that adds a taxi

OK if the times suit but really via London is a lot better.

flea72

Even if going into london, the OP will still need to get to kings cross or liverpool street for the stansted pickup and i think most coaches drop at victoria, so a bit of a walk or cost of tube

How about megabus to birmingham, thn train to stansted?

Or if OP can easily get to leeds, there is a direct train link to stansted

Cpu2007

@flea72 which train link goes from leeds to stansted airport?
because I could get to leeds and from there go to stansted,it sounds a lot less time consuming.

dzug1

Leeds to Stansted by train takes about 3 to 3.5 hours whether 'direct' (which actually means 1 or 2 changes - Peterborough always, sometimes Doncaster as well) or via London (change to Victoria Line to Tottenham Hale for the Stansted train). Prices vary wildly depending on date and time but on a Thursday in a month's time start at £36 one way - via London! - and go up to well over £100 for a flexible ticket