Just pricing up some travel for later this year & thought I’d try a train, they want £340.00 return for a journey that would cost me about £110.00 in petrol at current prices… I’d rather not drive as I’ll be traveling by myself, so is there anyway I can get that price down?

(I looked at buses they’re a little cheaper than petrol, but the 13 journey time puts me off somewhat considering I can do the drive in 6hours or so..)

Travel off peak. Book in advance.

Sometimes two singles are cheaper than a return. Also, sometimes you can split the journey (ie, if going from x to z, buy x to y and y to z tickets) but that gets messy fast.

traveling in July, it won’t let me book that far in advance, tried different days of the week – the prices stay the same..

Same advice as above really, but I got a return journey down from £60 to £18 by getting two singles rather than a return. I looked on thetrainline.com for prices, and for some reason it seems to suggest different routes depending on whether you look for a return or two singles.

try ticket splitting

on your route pick an unlikely, non popular station – ticket from A to there and from there to B will often work out cheaper – remember to get off and on train

You need to book as soon as the advance tickets become available it’s about 3 months

EG East Coast

Tickets are now available for travel up to and including
Friday 26 April 2013

I don’t find ticket splitting as helpful as it used to be, unless you’re already making a number of changes across different rail companies.

Pretend you’re child.

“In advance” doesn’t mean 6 months, the *earliest * is about 12 weeks before the journey, but there is no precise point at which they are released. You need to check regularly from a few weeks before and after that point.

I don’t find ticket splitting as helpful as it used to be

Where there are competing companies (next to nowhere, but London Midland – x country – virgin) then it can be possible to find cheap fares – London to somewhere nth of Birmingham will be cheap splitting between London midland and another provider.

Definitely worth waiting until 12 weeks before the trip – that’s when the advance tickets come on sale. Depending on destination/times it could be quite easy to get advance tickets. What’s the journey you’re planning to do?

It isn’t the day of travel but the time of travel. What route(s), when?

Can you apply for any of the rail cards to claw back some of the money?