Simon Calder’s tips to save hundreds of pounds on train tickets

Simon Calder: How to find the cheapest train ticketsSimon Calder, THE INDEPENDENT

Transcript

00:00You won't find cheaper tickets anywhere else, that's the current promise from Trainline,

00:06so let's test it out. I'm here at London Paddington Station, hub for the Great Western

00:14Railway, with the premier route being from here to Bristol Temple Meads. The train for

00:21the 9 o'clock is right here. How much is a ticket going to cost you? Well, if you were

00:28foolish enough to buy a ticket from Paddington to Bristol, then it would cost you £132.60.

00:35Of course that is complete nonsense, way too much. You don't need to pay that too much.

00:41By using a split ticket and by buying one ticket from here to Digcot Parkway and another

00:48one from there to Bristol, you can save, well, I've just checked it out, 43% on the price.

00:55Saving you £57, well worth doing. Now, I found that on my favourite split ticketing

01:04app, which is ScotRail. The reason I like it is that it's exactly the same as Trainline

01:11but without the fees. So, if I book on ScotRail, I just pay the fare. If I book on Trainline,

01:18I pay the fare plus a £2.79 fee. That's basically increasing the cost by 3 or 4%.

01:28Trainline says we have to charge fees in order to develop the fantastically good tech that

01:34we have. I absolutely agree that they have got magnificent systems and it's a tribute

01:40to their software designers. But I certainly don't want to pay more than I need to for

01:45my train ticket and I don't want to encourage you to do so either. In normal circumstances

01:51where you don't have the madness of split ticketing, then just go to the ticket office.

01:57They are not allowed to charge any fees on top of the normal price. You can, of course,

02:05go through various apps, various websites that are not going to charge you money. No

02:10train operator's online presence is allowed to charge a fee. But there's a couple of

02:17points that I will always make. For instance, on LNER, the state-run railway company which

02:24links London Kings Cross with Yorkshire, with North East England and with Southern Scotland,

02:30I always book my tickets with them direct for a couple of reasons. First of all, if

02:36anything goes wrong, then you immediately can get your delay repay compensation from

02:43them. Secondly, you've got LNER Perks, which is basically a 2% straight cash discount.

02:53You get it back on your next journey. So well worth doing there. There's even a £5 sign-on

02:59bonus. A couple of other sites that I use from time to time. Trip.com, who do particularly

03:05good deals on rail cars from time to time. And also Uber, who at times have had a 10%

03:14credit on your train bookings. So, while Trainline says you won't find cheaper tickets anywhere

03:22else, I would humbly disagree with that. They say further along, if you do, you'll get your

03:28money back. Well, what's the point of putting in a claim when you could just get a cheap

03:33ticket in the first place? And one final thing, watch out for very specific deals that

03:40you can only get from the operator and generally only online. The classic example is the Avanti

03:46Superfair. Marvellous tickets, £15 Liverpool to London, £9 from London to Birmingham,

03:54but you can only get that by going online to Superfair and booking your trip.