How to be Ticket Savvy

Advance Tickets:

Let’s start with the easiest way to save money, buy your tickets in advance. You can save a ton of money by simply booking your tickets in advance. Have an example. Newcastle to Leeds anytime ticket costs £58.10. but if you book it in advance you can get your ticket for 51% cheaper! 

Think 51% is a great saving, how about an even bigger saving? Yep that’s right, if you’re travelling between Plymouth to London you can save 80%. In fact, you could travel First class and still save 70%. How’s that, First Class for cheaper than standard class (See image).

Now, the downside to an advance ticket is there is no flexibility with your ticket, you must travel on the booked train. If you travel on any other service, you are likely to be charged for a new ticket. If you are after flexibility you could purchase an off-peak ticket or a super off-peak ticket. These are cheaper flexi tickets that are only valid at certain times of the day. My advice before purchasing these is checking the times are when you want to travel. But still, it is always cheaper to get an advance ticket. In my opinion the lack of flexibility is always outweighed by the savings in buying an advance ticket. 

Advance tickets can normally be purchased from between 2 to 3 months before the date of travel. The price you pay can vary day by day. The best thing is to plan as soon as possible and purchase as soon as the tickets are released. 

Split Ticketing:

Split ticketing has been around for ages. During the last year or two it’s really took off. Websites like trainsplit.com, splitticketing.com, omio.co.uk and mytrainpal.com have now made buying split ticketing extremely easy. 

If you were travelling from Dover Priory in Kent to Liverpool in the North-West. A quick look on thetrainline.com or any TOC website you’d find the ticket would cost you an eye watering £227.50!!! Now get yourself over to mytrainpal.com and put the same date and time in and see what you’ll get… Yep that’s right, there is a split ticket option for only £62.40. An incredible saving of nearly 72.57%. Impressive stuff isn’t it! 

Now websites like mytrainpal.com have become an incredibly easy way of saving money. With in a matter of minutes you can save yourself over £150. Now the problem with these websites are they ultimately use the national rail ticketing database to work out split ticketing.

Let me give you an example, the national rail ticketing system lists a connection between London Euston and London St. Pancras as an underground connection, now any tickets that you purchase have to include this connection into it, after all the tube isn’t free. 

Now let’s split the journey up ourselves not using a split ticketing website and see how we do. 

• Dover Priory (1049) – London St. Pancras (1154) is £13.60

• Walk from London St. Pancras to London Euston (15 minute walk)

• London Euston (1249) – Liverpool Lime Street (1643) is £12.00

Suddenly a journey that on first search on a TOC website or something like the Train Line spat out a ticket of £227.50, you can now get from the same departure station to the same destination station for as little as £25.60… Yep that’s right, OVER £200 CHEAPER!

Simply my advice is take your time with booking train tickets. The more time you spend searching the cheaper your journeys will become.

Rangers & Rovers:

Rangers and Rovers are great ways to travel around areas at a discounted rate. There are some great savings to be had. I personally use the North West Rover for work I travel within the northwest 2-3 times per week. Here is an example of the savings I make on a weekly basis: 

• Tuesday: Ulverston – Penrith (£28.30 - Short Distance Return)

• Wednesday: Ulverston – Carlisle (£53.30 - Off-Peak Return)

• Thursday: Ulverston – Dumfries (£69.30 - Off-Peak Return) 

• Total Cost of buying daily return tickets - £150.90

• Total I pay for my North West Rover £81.80 (MEANING A SAVING OF £69.10 per week)

The same can be done with many Rovers. For a full list of Rangers and Rovers can be found here. 

Myself and @JackAllStations put our heads together to come up with the below list of rovers/rangers we recommend.  

• Merseyrail Saveaway - £5.55 for one day’s travel in Merseyside.

• Spirit of Scotland Travelpass – 4in8 (£149) or 8in15 (£189) valid in the whole of Scotland and extends as far south as Carlisle.

• Kent Rover – £45 for 3 consecutive days around Kent. 

• South West – 4in8 (£109) or 8in15 (£152.50) valid from Worcester in the North to Portsmouth in the south. Then across to Penzance in Cornwall.