| Comment | Firstly, Book in advance as much as you can. Tickets are released I think 12 weeks ahead. If you know your travel plans a few months in advance, book as soon as you know.
Secondly - In terms of discounts for specific times of the day, if part of your journey is at peak time and part isn’t, you can attempt split ticketing. Essentially rather than charging you peak price for the whole journey, it splits up the journey into multiple splits. A lot of the time you can keep your seat, you just have to show the conductor multiple tickets.
It’s generally cheaper to book directly with the train providers (they don’t charge a booking fee) but they don’t do split ticketing, so check on Trainline if that’s a ticket option. Trainline charge a booking fee so calculate whether split ticketing fee discount is great enough that it’s worth it with the booking fee.
Thirdly - with a railcard you can get a third off travel. There are different categories. I’m too old for a young persons railcard, but my husband and I travel using a two together card. A railcard costs about £30 a year. For us it knocks ~£100 off long journeys so worth it with just one trip. It requires us to be travelling together as the name suggests. Again, calculate if you’ll use it enough to make it worth it. It’s valid on small intercity journeys too. |
|---|