Train prices

[Disneyleo]

Is there a trick to getting cheaper train fares?
Right now it’s cheaper to fly down to London than train tickets look. Obviously that’s only a guess what prices will be, August school hols could be more.
Do people really pay £250 for 3 train tickets, I’m a bit shocked! Two of those tickets are kids too!

[sweetchunks]

I always get a family and friends rail card, it really takes the price down. I get the card with my Tesco Clubcard vouchers so doesn’t actually cost me anything either.

[Beana10]

Definitely get a rail cards- that will save you money. Also buy whe they are released, usually 12 weeks ahead. Keep checking .
Sometimes its cheaper to buy separate tickets for each "leg" of the journey- unless it's a direct train then this will not apply.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Disneyleo

Is there a trick to getting cheaper train fares?
Right now it’s cheaper to fly down to London than train tickets look. Obviously that’s only a guess what prices will be, August school hols could be more.
Do people really pay £250 for 3 train tickets, I’m a bit shocked! Two of those tickets are kids too!

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I buy mine on Trainline. I am told that 90 days out is a good time, as does the web site. A friend of mine who works in the ticket office at my local station says that it is irrelevant.

The trouble with using the Train is that whilst you can travel down the night before and therefore ensure that you are there to catch your flight, when it comes to returning home, it is wise to purchase an 'open jawed' 31 day ticket in order to insure against aircraft delays. A delay and then a purchase of a new 'on the day' railway ticket will really hurt.

As an example, we traveled from W Cornwall to LGW and back this July for our 21 day vacation.
After buying a family railcard (£30), a straightforward up and back at defined times would have cost £145.
to make it open jawed on the return leg bumped it up to £265... for 3 adults and a 13 year old in total.

It is expensive, but it meant that I did not have to shell out on fuel (£120), wear and tear on a 550 mile journey (?) or car parking (£130). My additional outlay was thus £45.

The good news was that the train was marginally quicker than a decent car drive, I didnt have to navigate the M25 at rush hour X 2 and I didnt have the very dangerous 6.5 hour redeye journey home after an overnight flight and a 5 hour time zone move. In addition, I did not have to stop for meal or toilet breaks in overpriced motorway service stations.

I think that it was a bargain.

[Disneyleo]

Will look into a rail card. Not sure if I’m just living in the past or if that’s just how much trains are these days! I was expecting maybe £70-£100.
I’ve checked trains as far as I go and they are the same price as trains any other time. Honestly considering waiting for easy jet to release flights and going up to Edinburgh and flying down will be cheaper at this rate.

[Shell52]

A Family and Friends Railcard will definitely save you money. The card itself costs £30 but you can use Tesco vouchers as someone else mentioned. If you don't have any of those there are often codes kicking around on the internet to save 10 or 20% off the cost of the card. You will then save 1/3 off the adult fare and 60% off the children's fares.

Timing of buying the tickets is important as well. if you know the exact date and time you want to travel then look for tickets round about 12 weeks beforehand. Buying them any earlier than that will not save you any money. You can generally tell if the advance single fares have been uploaded. Just play around with the dates - it will be very obvious whether they've been uploaded or not. The sooner you book them, the cheaper they will be. If you want to be flexible for your return ticket then you'll need an open return which will be more expensive.

To save even more money, check splitticketing.com You can put in your journey and times and it will tell you if splitting the journey will save you money (note, this is only splitting the ticket, not the actual journey itself).

[Elodie]

Yes, as above get a friends and family card, and waiting until the 90 day mark really can make a difference. As above, we pay for our railcard with Tesco vouchers, so it doesn’t cost any real money.

I was taking dd to London this summer (we’re in the North) and prices were almost £200 return (even with our railcard). I waited until 90 days, as I could see that the days before ours were much cheaper, and sure enough, at 89 days, the price dropped to £50.45! The same happened taking my girls to Bristol - a 7 hour journey ended up costing us £40 for all three of us, after showing over £100 at 90+ days out. (Actually, it only cost £20, as there was a 31 minute delay, which meant we got half the cost back!)

[taylaboo]

We always use Trainline and book at 12 weeks from travel date. Just had return fares from Great Yarmouth to London for £28

[Rozzyb2011]

Google train line alerts and you can input your travel dates and get an email when the super cheap tickets go on sale. I pay around £10-15 to get to london from liverpool by doing this.

[Andybear]

How long is your train journey to Gatwick? Mine is an hour and a half and my ticket has cost me £44.80, that's the total for both journeys.