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Best way to book train tickets

Crispy said:
Advance tickets are released 12 weeks before the travel date, so you may already have missed the best deals, if it's a popular route.

As for travelling on Friday, it's only more expensive if you travel in rush hours. Stay off the train between 0700 and 0900, and 1600 and 1800 and you'll be ok. If you're buying Advance tickets, you won't be offered Peak services anyway.

Whichever day you travel on, you only get the real savings by booking tickets for specific times. If you need your journey times to be flexible, you may as well just walk up on the day and buy an off-peak return.
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Cheers.

I've been looking on the Trainline and Virgin Trains' web sites and I can get an advance on the way back only. Off-peak on the Monday morning is only a few quid more. A return for 2 adults and 2 kids is £248, which is much better than I thought it would be tbh!

Saturday costs about 3 times more though!

Normally, there is a daily direct train to Euston from Bangor...but on the day I'm going there is a change at Milton Keynes Central, which is the only annoyance.
 
Going to a ticket office is probably the most stress-free way to do this btw.
 
Bungle73 said:
I already did a while ago, but no one was interested as they are all obsessed with thetrainline.

As a matter of fact one used to get 6% with Southern. Now the best deal is with Red Spotted Hanky as one gets between 1.5% and 2.02% (it keeps going up and down), and this combined with RSH's own loyalty points scheme gives the most back.
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Is it just me or has topcashback stopped linking through to RSH? No double points for me any more :(
 
Crispy said:
Going to a ticket office is probably the most stress-free way to do this btw.
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Not for me it isn't. I prefer researching fares in my own time and in the comfort of my own home. And it means I can investigate different permutations at my leisure.
mango5 said:
Is it just me or has topcashback stopped linking through to RSH? No double points for me any more :(
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That appears to be the case, yes. :(

The best deal ever, was a whole 6% from Southern, but that offer ceased some time ago.
 
My wife wants to travel from Darlington to Portsmouth Harbour (ie to the worst place in Britain from the second worst) in October by train. Where the fuck do I start when it comes to booking this? Not particularly bothered about the cost but I don't want loads of mental conditions attached where she gets tasered for looking out of the window because that wasn't included in her fare.
 
DownwardDog said:
My wife wants to travel from Darlington to Portsmouth Harbour (ie to the worst place in Britain from the second worst) in October by train. Where the fuck do I start when it comes to booking this? Not particularly bothered about the cost but I don't want loads of mental conditions attached where she gets tasered for looking out of the window because that wasn't included in her fare.
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It'll take about 5 hours, and involves getting from Kings Cross to Waterloo on the tube. Departures every hour from Darlington.
Alternatively it can take 6 hours with just one change in Basingstoke, with the same cost, but a less pleasant train for the bulk of the journey (a Cross-Country diesel, rather than an electric East Coast train). There's only a couple of trains a day.

Use nationalrail.co.uk to find the times

If she can commit to travelling on an exact train at an exact time, it costs £45 one way, for either route (but buy that ticket now or the cheap tickets will sell out). For a flexible off-peak ticket, it's £137. For travel at any time, it's an eye-watering £151.
 
Crispy said:
If she can commit to travelling on an exact train at an exact time, it costs £45 one way, for either route (but buy that ticket now or the cheap tickets will sell out). For a flexible off-peak ticket, it's £137. For travel at any time, it's an eye-watering £151.
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It'd also be worth checking the prices for splitting the tickets (i.e. Darlington - London and London - Portsmouth). It might be possible to combine a cheap advance to London with a flexible one to Portsmouth.

if a cheap advance is booked don't try to get on at Northallerton or York though, or there will be trouble :eek:
 
Crispy said:
It'll take about 5 hours, and involves getting from Kings Cross to Waterloo on the tube. Departures every hour from Darlington.
Alternatively it can take 6 hours with just one change in Basingstoke, with the same cost, but a less pleasant train for the bulk of the journey (a Cross-Country diesel, rather than an electric East Coast train). There's only a couple of trains a day.

Use nationalrail.co.uk to find the times

If she can commit to travelling on an exact train at an exact time, it costs £45 one way, for either route (but buy that ticket now or the cheap tickets will sell out). For a flexible off-peak ticket, it's £137. For travel at any time, it's an eye-watering £151.
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Very helpful, thank you. Just booked it all - about 190 quid for 1st class.
 
So I want to travel from London Victoria to Brighton tomorrow. I want to buy an open return ticket.

Brief googling (thetrainline.com) suggest that there is no financial benefit in booking in advance. The price for this evening, tomorrow or a month hence all comes in at £26.

So I can just go to the ticket office and buy a ticket tomorrow and not be penalised for choosing not to book in advance… right…?
 
story said:
So I want to travel from London Victoria to Brighton tomorrow. I want to buy an open return ticket.

Brief googling (thetrainline.com) suggest that there is no financial benefit in booking in advance. The price for this evening, tomorrow or a month hence all comes in at £26.

So I can just go to the ticket office and buy a ticket tomorrow and not be penalised for choosing not to book in advance… right…?
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Bungle73 will know :)
 
Yes, Southern do Advances. It looks like it's too late to book them for tomorrow now though: http://www.southernrailway.com/tickets-and-fares/ticket-types/advance/

Edit: Yes, need to book them by 6pm.

Southern Advances are slightly different from the norm, in that you don't get a reservation for a seat, only a train. Also Southern's "Rainy Day Guarantee"...or what ever they're calling it now applies, in that if you decide not to travel you can get a refund, which is highly unusual with Advance tickets: http://www.southernrailway.com/offers/money-back-guarantee/
 
Bungle73 said:
Yes, Southern do Advances. It looks like it's too late to book them for tomorrow now though: http://www.southernrailway.com/tickets-and-fares/ticket-types/advance/

Edit: Yes, need to book them by 6pm.

Southern Advances are slightly different from the norm, in that you don't get a reservation for a seat, only a train. Also Southern's "Rainy Day Guarantee"...or what ever they're calling it now applies, in that if you decide not to travel you can get a refund, which is highly unusual with Advance tickets: http://www.southernrailway.com/offers/money-back-guarantee/
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Thanks.
 
I'm ditching RSH now, as they're introducing a £1 fee.

At redspottedhanky.com we pride ourselves on being totally honest and transparent with our customers. That's why we wanted to let you know about a couple of changes we've had to make to our booking and delivery fees.

Booking fees - Rising costs mean that, reluctantly, we will be introducing a small charge of £1 when you book your tickets.

It's something we've resisted in the past, but in order to continue providing you with an excellent service it's a change that has become unavoidable.

The booking charge will be introduced over the next few days.

Rest assured, we are keeping it simple; just a flat rate of £1 per booking - no matter how many tickets you purchase with each booking or how much you spend.

What's more, unlike thetrainline we don't charge a credit card fee.

Delivery & collection fees - We will always aim to offer a free delivery option for your tickets. Choose an e-ticket or m-ticket and your delivery fee will be free. If neither is available then you can pick your ticket up at the station for free, too. Unfortunately there will now be a small charge of £1 for standard postal delivery (normal rules apply to next day delivery).
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An investigation by the Telegraph published today reveals the fucking expensive shambles buying a train ticket in the UK continues to be:

Rail passengers are routinely being denied the cheapest fares when they buy tickets at stations, The Telegraph can disclose.

Self-service machines — which are used to purchase almost a quarter of all tickets sold annually — offer wildly different fares, an investigation by this newspaper shows.

Customers buying from a machine can pay more than £200 when a ticket for the same destination can be found elsewhere at the station for more than £100 cheaper.

For example, at machines run by train company Northern Rail in Leeds, passengers buying a First-Class Anytime Return to Birmingham were charged £271.

Only feet away, an East Coast trains machine offered the same journey using a First-Class Off-peak Return for £145.70. This type of ticket is not available for customers using Northern Rail’s machines, which means that some passengers might not be aware that they could save £125.30 by travelling off-peak
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ssengers-routinely-denied-cheapest-fares.html

Is there any other country in the world where this bullshit is allowed to happen?
 
Anyone used TrainGenius? Looks like a better % on topcashback than thetrainline which I still haven't got round to using.
 
I need someone to post me train tickets, and not charge a premium on the ticket price. I used to use Eastcoast who sent them out for £1 but now they've been virginised and for some reason won't let me buy anything for travel after 2nd August :confused:
 
bi0boy said:
I need someone to post me train tickets, and not charge a premium on the ticket price. I used to use Eastcoast who sent them out for £1 but now they've been virginised and for some reason won't let me buy anything for travel after 2nd August :confused:
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Because at time of your posting Advance tickets had probably only been made available until then. According to the website they are now available until the 9th. They are usually released weekly, and aprox. (but not always) 12 week in advance.
 
Bungle73 said:
Because at time of your posting Advance tickets had probably only been made available until then. According to the website they are now available until the 9th. They are usually released weekly, and aprox. (but not always) 12 week in advance.
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I don't remember the old Eastcoast website only issuing tickets that far ahead. It's not an advance ticket I require.
 
Actually it probably did and I'm misremebering it. I notice the National Rail system is saying the same.
 
Since the re-privatisation of East Coast it's definitely harder to get hold of the cheapest advance singles, I used to have no problem getting the £13 Leeds-London tickets if I did it quite a few weeks in advance. Even the next price up (£22) are scarce for Sunday nights. The thieving cunts haven't put prices up (so no-one can accuse them of this), they've just made less of the cheap tickets available, which amounts to the same thing. Fuck the tory scum that did this. Fuck them with something big, hot and spiky.
 
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