Do Off-Peak train prices change depending when you buy them?

mr_fishbulb

Hi all,

Looking to get a train ticket to Swansea from London Paddington (First Great Western), going out on a Saturday and returning on the Sunday (so an Off-Peak return).

The trip isn't until May. Do the prices get more expensive the closer I get to the trip? Or because these are off-peak, are they fixed?

I don't want to get advance tickets - I'm happy to pay extra for the flexibility.

Cheers

cookie365

They will be the same price now as they'll be on the day.

If you're not getting advance tickets - which DO go up in price nearer the time - the only benefit in buying now is not having to allow time on the day to buy them.

The_Groat_Counter

cookie365 wrote: »

They will be the same price now as they'll be on the day.

If you're not getting advance tickets - which DO go up in price nearer the time - the only benefit in buying now is not having to allow time on the day to buy them.

Agreed.

The only thing to add is that train companies very occasionally offer 'ticket sale' type promotions when buying tickets for journeys on routes they operate from their own booking websites. However unless you've got some inside info, which most mere mortals don't have, there's no way of knowing whether such a promotion might be coming up. Many of these promotions are for Advance tickets (for travel on specific trains), but occasionally a train company might offer one for Off-peak (semi flexible) tickets. I wouldn't hold your breath though!

The other good way of looking for a saving is split-ticketing - the trainsplit website is useful for finding and booking split-tickets for train journeys, however it doesn't offer an option to exclude Advance tickets from a search.

There's also split.traintimes.org.uk which only looks for splits in walk-up fares, but it's not that user friendly and you need to be a bit clued up to really understand the results and be sure any split tickets would be valid for your journey. Besides, there don't appear to be any obvious split-tickets for walk-up fares for a Swansea to London journey.

cookie365

Didcot is a good place to split if you're going to Bristol, might be worth checking that out for a Swansea journey.

dzug1

As it's a weekend you'll actually want a superoffpeak return which is about £20 cheaper than a normal off peak return

If it's the last weekend in May tickets may not be on sale yet

mr_fishbulb

Thanks all. I shall wait, and also look at other splitting/waiting options

jbuchanangb

The Super off-peak returns are available to buy now for last weekend in May, priced at £80.80.
As others have said, that price will be the same now as on the day itself.

Trains from Swansea to London are being diverted via Gloucester on the weekend of 28-30 May, but details of amended services are not yet available. You need to check the GWR web site regularly to find out.

https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/planned-engineering/filton2016