Tips & tricks for cheap train tickets

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
Joined
24 Oct 2012
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Godalming
We're moving on the 30th of December to Milford, so for the first time in my life, I'm going to need to pay £lol for the privilege of suffering delays, cancellations, leaves on tracks, etc.

Looking for anything to help soften the blow, anyone aware of any tips to get the cost down, work schemes, discount codes, cashback etc?

Cheers!
 
Sudden said:
Why did you choose Milford out of curiosity? I think I'm in a similar position to you at the moment (living in Putney and looking to move a bit further afield sadly given more space in the next year or so), so will start looking for place inspiration :D
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We just liked the area and we get a LOT of house for our money. We looked at loads of areas and ruled a few out as they were a bit pants, and then let the house be the deciding factor.

I had a lot of great input from the folks here in this thread I started for this exact purpose:

Commuter towns to London

Looking for a new place outside of London, so I can get a bit more bang for my buck. So far I've shortlisted: Redhill - not the best area but not awful either Crawley - prefer this to Redhill but a bit more asspensiff Anyone else got any suggestions pls? Cheers
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
HangTime said:
My main advice:
  • If you are travelling infrequently, season tickets are not good value. I travel 1-2 days per week and do not buy one any more. Even the "flexitickets" that offer 8 journeys per 28 days are not good value.
  • Day returns to London are more expensive than two singles for me, because the return journey is off peak
  • Get a cheap network railcard (trip.com often have offers) and you can use this for cheaper travel in the evening. Pays for itself in a couple of journeys.
  • If you know in advance when you need to travel, consider advance tickets. Even peak time tickets can be cheap if you buy them a few weeks in advance, less than half the price.
  • Sign up for delay repay and find a website where you can look up how many mins late your trains were to make claiming easier
  • Learn how to optimise what carriage you sit in to exit the train near to the platform exit you want. Where to stand on the platform when waiting for the train so you are likely to be near a door and more chance of getting a seat etc.
  • Learn how to look up trains and figure out what platform they are likely to come in on. E.g. often the train you want leaving the station won't have a platform, but sometimes you can see what platform a train coming the other direction will arrive at, and often that's the same train.
  • Learn what trains run 4-seat wide carriages vs 5-seat wide. 4 is much more comfortable. The Portsmouth line you will be on tends to have a lot of fivers :( NB some trains are made up of multiple configurations eg front half might have a different number of seats per row than the back
  • Get a sense of when a train is likely to be more busy than usual e.g. previous train cancelled. In these cases you may wish to sprint up the platform as soon as it is announced to get ahead of people and more chance of getting a seat or at least a standing spot on the train.
  • Midweek is typically busier than Mon/Fri
  • Airline seats typically give more legroom than if you are facing somebody
  • Season tickets prices typically go up on 2nd Jan. So if you are buying an annual ticket buy it on NYE. You'll save loads of money not only on this ticket but also on the renewals in future years.
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Apologies, I forgot to thank you for this post, very helpful, thanks!
 
slinxy said:
Not sure if you still need this.. but I’ve only discovered this today.

You can get a friends and family railway discount card that will save you a third off tickets from using £15 pounds worth of tescos club card points.

While train is the most convenient way for me to travel when I’m not cycling or driving… I’m still trying to work out if it’s worth me getting for the few times I catch the train to city centre or to my brothers so I can drink.
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Ooooooh, do you have a link? That sounds perfect!


Ahh damn, just googled it and you need to have a kid with you. I don't have kids :p


Here's the link for anyone interested:

 
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