MoneySavingExpert.com Cheap Train Tickets Article Discussion

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• i have been travelling on weekly basis from bognor regis to canterbury for some years now. and until someone at the station (nice kind man) told me i was paying too much, i was paying what was then a five day return of quite a large amount. now i have a network card (cost Ј20 and lasts for a year), travel off peak or on a sunday and get a monthly saver return for just Ј12.60. absolute bargain!!! a few years ago when i lived in canterbury, my son was often paying Ј35 for a return to bognor which i thought was extortionate!! why dont people tell about the cheapest option as a matter of course?? mmm stupid question really. just wish the train times/length of time travelling on a sunday was as good as the fares. weekdays travel time normally 3.5 hours. sunday travel times could be anything up to 6.5 hours and never less than 4.5 hours. outrageous!!!
• it may also be worth remembering that if you can take your journey NOT via london it can knock a huge amount off the fare. for me, going to canterbury via London would add approx Ј10 to the fare!!
• I would endorse the suggestion of the National Express website, for the reasons given by WashingMan, and because it has the best search engine for journeys, giving all the price options for each possibility. I did a First Class return from Tiverton to Sheffield for Ј62, for example, on Cross Country. Hardly more than the cheapest second class, sorry Standard Class.
  First Great Western are also a better bet then the ones mentioned, as they also don't charge a fee for booking.
• The national Express East Coast site is by far the best and cheapest. I used to use trainline but have now switched for the reasons above. It also seems to be easier to find cheap deals for some reason.
  The site should definitely be added to the article!
• I also endorse this website for journey planning and ticket finding. It's the most user friendly one I've found, once you've got used to the radically different layout, and their customer services were also friendly and helpful when I had to ring with a specific query about bike reservations.
• The article mentions 'travelling short' is not valid on Saver tickets, but doesn't point out that it is allowed on unrestricted tickets. Savings can be made on season tickets in particular using this method depending on the routes involved.
  Also, as well as 2 singles being cheaper than a return, sometimes a return is slightly cheaper than 1 single so it may be worth checking return fares even if you only require a single.
• I really can't believe that thetrainline and raileasy are mentioned at all (other than to steer people away from them). They are the only ones to charge booking fees and I can't see ANY point in using them.
  There's also some slipshod terminology - eg the use of 'saver' fares in trick one to mean advance purchase singles rather than actual 'saver' fares. 'Saver' singles are quite commonly available - usually for a pound or so less than a saver return. Eg London Liverpool £61.60 saver single, £62.60 saver return. Advance singles which are the ones that give the real saving start at £13.
  And it perpetuates the 'exactly 12 weeks' myth which causes many posters here to panic if tickets aren't instantly available then.
  Oh the savers from North Wales via Chester trick can't be done any more - the validity times of the tickets from North Wales have been changed to match those from Chester.
  But in general - good advice.
• I am surprised no one has mentioned this but if you use www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk you dont pay a booking fee nor a credit card surcharge and the insurance isn't automatically offered. The site is identical as the trainline site so its as easy to use as that one and has all the same features.
• Hello
  I regularly take my 8 year old daughter down to see her grandparents in Swansea and usually use the train from Chorley. The fare is getting more and more expensive all the time. Does anyone know any split tickets or money saving tips for the journey? It's costing at least 100 quid each which I think is extortionate....
  I've looked on the websites but it won't give me any other fares apart from the standard ticket.
  Thanks
• Having read on this forum how to travel from a stop further on from the start point on the ticket and getting off earlier than the destination shown, on the return journey, I purchased 2 single advance E tickets for Ј7 each from Bath to a station in West Sussex, got on at Bradford on Avon (the next stop along), having asked the ticket seller if this was in order, and been told perfectly ok. On the train the guard clipped my ticket without comment and the same on the return journey although that one didnt know obviously my intention to get off before Bath.
  So it seems that is is indeed ok to travel short after all and I for one will be doing so again ! I saved exactly half of what I had previously paid for the same journey.
  I'm not exactly trying to encourage others to do this but it did work for me......
• I think this article is misleading. The biggest savings are made by reducing your flexibility.
  Turn up at the BA desk at Heathrow and ask for a return on the next flight to Paris and you'll pay a lot more than if you bought a ticket months in advance. But also that advance ticket might be non-refundable and valid for that flight only. A flexible ticket is available at a much increased cost.
  Take the London-Plymouth-Penzance example. A fully flexible any-train-any-operator-no-prebooking ticket (a Standard Open Return) is Ј257. If you split at Plymouth and buy four Standard Open Singles with the same conditions it's a total of Ј117.50+Ј117.50+Ј13+Ј13=Ј261. No saving.
  Where you do save is by compromising on flexibility. The headline example of Ј48 can only be with Advance Purchase tickets. That means you have to decide in advance the day and train you'll travel on. If you change your mind you have to pay a change fee and the difference in fare. If you miss the train you have to buy a whole new flexible ticket.
  If you're prepared to do this, you can save. But we're not comparing like with like. It's not specified precisely how far in advance and on which trains the Ј48 was booked, but it's unlikely you'd be able to get that price on peak-time trains when booking a few days before travel. Looking at trains for Monday, AP tickets aren't available until the 0906 out of Paddington, so if you need to be in Penzance before 2pm you're out of luck.
  If you don't need to use peak trains the flexible ticket is a Saver Return, a rather different proposition at Ј75. This is valid on the 0906 from Paddington, so that's what you have to compare for the AP tickets.
  Other than that the article is generally good advice. I disagree though that the railway can know all the things like:
  I've got an important meeting so I must be up early and get there with plenty of time to spare. It might end late so I might need to get a later train. So I could book the later train and hang around if necessary. Or I could just stay with Auntie Doris and come back the next day. Or it might be postponed until next week. I could either stay the weekend or go on Monday
  Only you know your situation, what flexibility you have and how to work this best to your advantage. Ticket websites and booking clerks can't do this.
  One other thing to understand is that trains, like flights, have seat quotas. If I ask Expedia to give me a flight between London and Athens, it might want to send me via Zurich, Rome or Budapest as cheaper than a direct flight. This is because fewer people want to go to Zurich or Budapest, or the mayor of Budapest subsidises flights, or any number of reasons. It's the same with trains, only trains stop more than once so it happens on the same train.
• Hi do this journey frquently with and without family railcard has anyone any ideas the best split?
• Is it just me or has the change in the ticket structure (having just three types of tickets) made prices go up? In the past when I wanted to do a journey - usually from the south coast up north - I bought in advance and travelled really early or in the evening. I was given lots of options for prices with some really low ones. For example I went from Crawley to Sandwell for Ј14 just before the changes. If I look on websites now booking well in advance, those cheap ones have all gone and the cheapest one for the same train is Ј72.50!
• Why does the re-written article still promote Raileasy and The Trainline?!
  "There are two main train booking websites: The Trainline and RailEasy, which tend to be quite powerful."
  But you can book using any of the Train Operating Companies websites! Most of them use The Trainline anyway but don't charge you for the privelege of booking tickets and receiving them by post!
  "Unlike The Trainline, Raileasy lists single fares on the first results screen, so to compare fares, click The Trainline's "two singles may be cheaper" button"
  As you can do with any of the websites, it's really not that difficult. But I save the worst part for last:
  "Overall this means of the two, the Trainline is cheapest for debit card bookings or credit card payments over £60, whereas Raileasy wins for credit card bookings under £60."
  BUT WHY BOTHER USING EITHER WHEN THEY BOTH CHARGE YOU!?
  I realise you make a passing mention that the TOC websites don't charge but then you go on to discuss the use of Trainline/RailEasy anyway :confused:
  Neither site should be promoted in an article that purports to save money on railfares, other than to completely avoid them. This point has been raised several times in several threads on this site, and I would like an honest explanation as to why you continue to promote them at all. They are no more user-friendly/better designed than the TOC's websites, and through their use, waste your money