train tickets

dzug

caroline1973lefty wrote: »

also when booking remember raileasy.co.uk i don't know if they are new but i got tickets about 25% cheaper than the cheapest on trainline.com.

There's no reason why this should have been so - both should (barring glitches, always possible) offer you exactly the same tickets at exactly the same price. It's certainly not raileasy's policy to give a 25% discount.

And my firewall warns against connecting to their site, which was painfully slow when I ignored the warning.

caroline1973lefty

i have used trainline a lot in the past and spent ages trying to find the cheapest way for 3 people to travel to nottingham over may bank holiday - with trainline it was £42 saver return each, with raileasy, the same ticket (i think!) was £33 return each. tickets arrived yesterday no problems. (though yes, their website is slow, but i find trainline pretty slow too!). i don't know who they are - i wondered if maybe they bought the cheapest tickets as soon as they are released and then sold them on at a profit, but still cheaper than the remaining tickets on trainline. the ticket might have been a group discount one, all of these were sold out on trainline, not sure. anyway, i was quite pleased - will use them again in the future.

shootme

dzug wrote: »

No - at least one child must actually travel the complete journey.

Look at cheap singles each way - if available almost certainly cheaper than returns.

Thank you dzug. Yes they are actually singles I'm purchasing anyway (sorry for the confusion) and the cheapest I can find.

Do the tickets actually state that they are discounted so that the inspector would pick up on the fact that we don't have children with us?

Voyager2002

shootme wrote: »

Hi. We (2 adults) are travelling from Leeds to Wales to pick up 2 children and bring them back the same day. If we have a family railcard, can we just book return tickets for all 4 of us and get the discount?

If not, any idea what the best way of doing it would be? To get 2 of us there at full price and then the 4 of us back on the discount works out £20 more.

Thanks

See if you can borrow a neighbour's child for the outward journey. (I have done this before now!)

Voyager2002

shootme wrote: »

Thank you dzug. Yes they are actually singles I'm purchasing anyway (sorry for the confusion) and the cheapest I can find.

Do the tickets actually state that they are discounted so that the inspector would pick up on the fact that we don't have children with us?

Yes: discounted tickets are clearly marked.

Voyager2002

caroline1973lefty wrote: »

I found no problem with getting a train an hour later than the one my ticket was valid for when i told the guard that my connecting train was late, which was why i'd missed the earlier train. this was actually true... but i don't think they would bother checking, so long as you were nice to them!:Aafter all its not exactly an unusual occurence for connecting trains to be late....!;)

Train crew generally know about delays to connecting services. If you invent a delay, then unless you know the system really well you are likely to pretend that something really unlikely has happened, in which case the inspector is likely to check.

shootme

lol voyager that's hilarious.

I do actually have my own child I could take - but would rather pay the extra £20 than take her on an all day train trip. She's 7. The earache would be unbearable.

dzug

caroline1973lefty wrote: »

i have used trainline a lot in the past and spent ages trying to find the cheapest way for 3 people to travel to nottingham over may bank holiday - with trainline it was £42 saver return each, with raileasy, the same ticket (i think!) was £33 return each. tickets arrived yesterday no problems. (though yes, their website is slow, but i find trainline pretty slow too!). i don't know who they are - i wondered if maybe they bought the cheapest tickets as soon as they are released and then sold them on at a profit, but still cheaper than the remaining tickets on trainline. the ticket might have been a group discount one, all of these were sold out on trainline, not sure. anyway, i was quite pleased - will use them again in the future.

No they use the same booking database as the trainline (and all the TOC sites) so what happened sounds really odd. Still think a glitch rather than policy.

In any case saver returns NEVER sell out. You can buy them on the day, at the same price, so something is not quite right there. Even if the train is standing at the platform, chockablock full, with a crowd waiting that can't get on, they will still sell you a saver return for it.

By all means use raileasy - you'll avoid the trainline's fees if nothing else - but don't expect them to be routinely cheaper than anywhere else.

headpin

dzug wrote: »

No they use the same booking database as the trainline (and all the TOC sites) so what happened sounds really odd. Still think a glitch rather than policy.

.......................

I agree, but I too have found that when looking for the same journey using both the Trainline and one or more of the TOC websites I very often get variances in prices and/or availability. It is as if one or more of the TOC's actually “reserve” batches of tickets that then become “blacked out” on other sites.