So… 1st weekend of march, a return to Oban is £61, two singles to/from Oban is £25, and two singles to/from Arrochar is £32??

I’m not complaining (unless they try to charge me more for disembarking at Arrochar) but what’s going on? Is this a cunning way to get £61 quid out of people who (understandably) assume a return is cheapest?

it’s the same as the entire railway system. I once sat on a train from Kings Cross to Stirling and the guy opposite me was showing me that he had a big bunch of tickets from KX to Peterborough, PeterBoro to York, York to NewCastle, Newcastle to Edi and Edi to stirling and it all worked out 25% cheaper. He said there were folk on the web who are really into it and calculate routes automatically to find the cheap prices.

i always check the final distination price when looking for train tickets(oban, fortwilliam, and inverness, kyle of lochalsh), it’s odd but it’s the way it is, never had any problems getting on or off at whatever station.

I never seem to find cheap tickets from Oban. Travelling to Preston this weekend and from Oban they want £60 for a return (16-25 card). I looked weeks ago and there were no advanced fairs.

When you get off in Arrochar you should punt your ticket to someone. You’ll be quids in.

Seems there’s a knack to it, might check the final fair to Inverness when I go to Dalwhinnie in a few weeks, good tip!

JCromton, excellent idea, although its unlikely the Arrochar platform will be very busy on a thursday morning! 😀

13thfloormonk – even if you just book it to Aviemore you can save a bit, this tends to be the same/a bit cheaper than Inverness if I recall right, but a good bit cheaper than Dalwhinnie/Newtonmore or Kingussie

Ha, I just experimented with Edinburgh – Inverness and Edinburgh – Dalwhinnie.

£10 cheaper for the Inverness ticket, will check the Aviemore one later, cheers guys, train travel is starting to look cheap again!

Last year I needed tickets from London to Edinburgh, discovered that my ticket was £120 or so but a ticket from London to Glasgow, on the same train, passing through Edinburgh on the way was £40 or so 🙄 Apparently that can be a wee bit sketchy as you’re not actually allowed to get off your train early but I had no bother.

Penkridge to Birmingham is cheaper than Stafford to Birmingham, but half the times the official route is via Stafford.

Thanks for posting this! I’ve just got my £60 return to Preston from Oban down to £37 leaving on Saturday. All I had to do it get a return to Glasgow (£11.80) and then a return to Preston from Glasgow (£26).

Why does this system work like this?

And now in the time it took me to write that and reset my password for the virgin train website the price for the return to Glasgow has more than doubled to £27! To say it’s a frustrating procedure is a bit of an understatement.

tickets are a pain.

example – Woking to Penzance STD class end of April – £105..
using split tickets (split at Exeter) got same journey for £59 inc Exeter to Penzance 1st Class…

got a sleeper from Inverness to London £25

wish the old split ticket website worked as it showed you all the split ticket options

If you didn’t already know, check here to make sure you can get advance tickets. Advance tickets are generally released around 12 weeks before the date of travel, but it varies by a few days. There is generally a limited number of the cheapest ones, and then they start increasing in price as they get sold.

I got it down to a fine art when buying 10 advance singles a week to get to and from work.

Edit:- obviously this won’t help you with March 13thfm

I misread the title as “scrotal”