The Student Room Group

Travelling home from uni on the cheap!

It's getting to that time of year when you're probably thinking of booking your tickets to travel home. A lot of students probably don't have a huge amount of money.

So, please share your tips on travelling home on the cheap.

I'll start:
I used to travel home on the train. As someone with a disability, I was able to purchase a disabled persons railcard which was cheaper than a young persons railcard and didn't have any such restrictions.

I also found it was cheaper to book some 6 weeks in advance. The further in advance you book, the less you pay generally.

Look at the time you're travelling! It's cheaper to travel after 9am
Try trains with weird changes or split your ticket if it's a long journey (sometimes it's cheaper to say do London to Crewe then Crewe to Preston than getting a ticket that covers the whole journey).
Buy online as sometimes you can get cash back
Reply 2
With Virgin Trains, you can now collect Nectar points too.
Advance tickets usually become available 8-9 or more weeks in advance. There are usually a handful of extremely cheap ones.

For example, I booked two advance tickets for after Christmas (split the journey) and a journey that would have cost me £50 is costing me £24 with a railcard.
Original post by claireestelle
Try trains with weird changes or split your ticket if it's a long journey (sometimes it's cheaper to say do London to Crewe then Crewe to Preston than getting a ticket that covers the whole journey).
Buy online as sometimes you can get cash back


This works a treat, I went from Shrewsbury to Stirling for £50 return by splitting my ticket into Shrewsbury-Manchester, Manc- Glasgow, Glasgow to Stirling. To book the ticket as one would have been £170...and the trains I took on my split ticket were the same ones I would have used on my individual ticket
Bla Bla Car can sometime's work out pretty well...

If you have a car and you're travelling somewhere, you post it online and people will offer you petrol money to hitch a ride. Obviously not as flexible as other methods, but can sometimes save a wedge!
I have to fly home, and booking in advance is important. If you can be flexible, you'll find that midweek days are cheaper versus the weekends, and certain times of day are often cheaper too. Try to avoid travelling during the week leading up to Christmas, as flight prices are sky-high then, and similarly if you can wait to come back after the New Year period you'll save a packet. I booked my Christmas flights home a few weeks ago, and am travelling on a Wednesday evening, and coming back on a Tuesday evening. Round trip, the flights cost £32, through booking early and being flexible with dates.
Definitely using quidco can be quite good, I'm pretty sure thetrainline was on there. Then the classic 1/3 off rail card :h:
Flying can actually work out cheaper than the train sometimes- although obviously you're more restricted in terms of times and what you can carry. I recently had to travel from Plymouth to Newcastle and back- and flying from Exeter was under half the cost of the train fare!

Also worth remembering that national express coaches and mega bus are often cheaper than the train as well.

Quick Reply

Latest