[IPlayThePiccolo]

Hi chaps.

Well I need to travel to London Waterloo for the Imperial Open Day and I was wondering what the cheapest way of buying my train ticket would be. I could just buy it straight off national rail enquiries, but I don't often travel by train so I'm not sure if there's a cheaper way of going about it. I'm guessing it'll be less expensive if I book it in advance? Any help much appreciated.

THANKS GUYS.

[Renacata]

Do you have a railcard? Buy the ticket as soon as you can. The more flexibility you'll need on the day, the more it'll cost - the cheapest way of doing it is to buy an advance ticket for a specific train - but then you can only travel on this train. Two singles are sometimes cheaper than a return - it's worth checking this. It also may be worth splitting your journey if you need to change anyway, i.e. if you would need to change at station A, buy a ticket from your home station to station A and then another from A to Waterloo. (I don't think you're allowed to do this if you're not changing, though.)

I recommend redspottedhanky.com because they don't charge booking fees and you get free delivery and loyalty points.

[Jenx301]

I live in Manchester and have been looking to go to London in August. I'm using thetrainline.com, I've managed to get my tickets for £24- although like Renacata said, these are tickets for specific trains so if I miss them Im screwed! If you want to book flexible tickets though (say, any off peak train on that day) then it will cost you a lot. One of those would cost me about £80!

[Spottedleopard]

(Original post by Jenx301)
I live in Manchester and have been looking to go to London in August. I'm using thetrainline.com, I've managed to get my tickets for £24- although like Renacata said, these are tickets for specific trains so if I miss them Im screwed! If you want to book flexible tickets though (say, any off peak train on that day) then it will cost you a lot. One of those would cost me about £80!

Why pay a booking fee? And if you dare use a credit card- they will charge you 4.50 for the priviledge. £8 in booking fees??

Use red spotted hanky

[Spottedleopard]

(Original post by Jenx301)
I live in Manchester and have been looking to go to London in August. I'm using thetrainline.com, I've managed to get my tickets for £24- although like Renacata said, these are tickets for specific trains so if I miss them Im screwed! If you want to book flexible tickets though (say, any off peak train on that day) then it will cost you a lot. One of those would cost me about £80!

And the off peak tickets cost £10 more. Max (with a railcard)

[Jenx301]

(Original post by Spottedleopard)
And the off peak tickets cost £10 more. Max (with a railcard)

thanks I didnt realise that- I'll have a look cos I haven't booked anything yet. Although I do book on debit card so less charges but still!

[SnoochToTheBooch]

get it as early as possible and have a look at the different train times, as they can have different prices. Or get the coach, takes much longer but is much cheaper.

[Spottedleopard]

(Original post by SnoochToTheBooch)
get it as early as possible and have a look at the different train times, as they can have different prices. Or get the coach, takes much longer but is much cheaper.

Thats rubbish. The early trains are the most expensive because of commuters etc. If you want it cheap, get a random train in the middle of the day that is out of peak times.

[Mazzini]

You can try splitting your tickets - so you get more than one ticket for the journey e.g. say the journey starts at X and goes to Z and along the route is Y. It might be cheaper to get two tickets for the same journey - one from X to Y and another from Y to Z.

You can search for your journey on National Rail and then if you click the 'details' button like this (I've just done one from London to Birmingham as an example):



Then click 'show calling points' like this:



And then it gives you a list of stations:



Then you can split the tickets at, for example, Northampton, to see if it's cheaper to get one ticket from London to Northampton and then another from Northampton to Birmingham.

There's more about it here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tra...-train-tickets

[SnoochToTheBooch]

(Original post by Spottedleopard)
Thats rubbish. The early trains are the most expensive because of commuters etc. If you want it cheap, get a random train in the middle of the day that is out of peak times.

i meant book the ticket as early as possible.

[Graceyyyyyyy]

My gran booked me train tickets from Leeds to London and they were only £13 and although I live in Manchester, it was actually cheaper to get the tram and then a train to leeds.