Rail fares

[grottyrotty]

OMG - I wanted to take the kids to London for a night or two during the October half term. I think I need to remortgage the house :omg:

It is nearly £100 each (with a railcard too). No wonder people choose not to be "green" but to stick to their own transport.

What a rip off rail travel is these days :angry: Its cheaper to fly abroad!

Deb :tinkani:

[freckles]

I've noticed they have crept up recently too. As I live in Herts, with family in Lancs, we have all done a fair bit of to-ing & fro-ing by train in the past, and with railcards Virgin were quite good. All of a sudden, the fare I usually pay has virtually trebled!

:( :( :(

[Enright78]

Depends how you book. Try online and split your journey. For example, I live in Swindon and can knock a third off the fare to London if I buy a return from Swindon to Didcot and a return from Didcot to London. Only requirement is to travel on a train that actually stops at Didcon although you don't have to get off!

[welshwiz]

We found the same thing this weekend :omg:

We had a great time sightseeing though...didn't realise that the tube was so cheap. ;)

Also, we stayed in a 5* hotel in the city centre (by Tower Bridge) with pool and spa facilities plus brekkie for £80.

The NCP car park was only £2 per day ....yep £2 PER DAY one the weekend :D

I think it's great that you are thinking of taking your kids ...part of me thinks we should all visit our capitol city if possible. :wavey:

[Pebblesuk]

try to book in advance with virgin trains, you can get super saver tickets by booking up to 3 months in advance. we went in august 2 adult/2 children with family rail card for only £56 return for all four of us. we travelled from stoke on trent to euston

[Davidson Family]

Not sure where you are travelling from, but have you tried booking online?Have been taking my girls to dance school in London for the last 10 years.Have noticed the price difference when I have gone into the station to book, or over the phone, in the last couple of months.Still getting the same price online though, £25.60 return for adult, £7.40 return for child.With family rail card, and that includes underground/bus all day travel card, travelling from Newark to Kings Cross return.I also pay the same price when we go down for 2 or 3 days.Try a different time also-shifting to a train, say 10 mins later, during off peak, makes a big difference too.Have just looked at next months trip, 4th Nov, and its exactly the same.Worth a try maybe?

[Dawn]

Also ask at your local ticket office. We just went to London for £36 for the 3 of us. Steven isn't actually old enough to need a ticket but the lady at the station said that if we did the Family Saver deal and bought him a ticket for £1 we'd get 1/3 off our adult tickets. There are so many permutations for rail travel it pays to ask around.

[AuntiePiglit]

Also ask at your local ticket office. .

I agree. On our last visit to London the nice person at the ticket office in the station got us a much cheaper deal than via the internet and gave us 1st class seats on the outward journey. :thumbs-up

[BUD62]

I sort of work on the railways and I always ask at a booking office for the best value ticket, the staff are very good at getting you the best deal possible. A lot of fares are not advertised as such and only the booking staff know about them. Up here in Scotland a group of four people can travel from Glasgow to Inverness for £44 return.