Britrail pass help needed
 

Wow, I consider myself an astute traveler, but this is confusing!

My family will be in London this April (2 adults, 2 children) and would like to take a day trip to Liverpool. From my research, it seems as though this will cost us over $300 round trip (if anyone thinks I'm wrong, please do correct me - I checked the Virgin website).

I was researching Britrail England passes and found the consecutive day family pass (kids are free) for around $318. My question is this, can this pass be used on the Virgin Express train from London to Liverpool? If I'm understanding correctly, I should not have to pay anything if I'm holding that pass, only make an advance reservation, correct? I can't find confirmation tha tI can use the pass on that particular train, however.

If I'm right, it would make sense to get this pass because I can then use it for the Heathrow express and one other train journey, if need be, within the last three days of my trip. Also, I should get a discount on the Eurostar tickets (we're coming to london from Paris).

Does this all sound right? Please feel free to offer any and all suggestions.

Thanks so much!

Yes the pass can be used on any train in England anytime - just hop on - and such fully flexible tickets yes are often really really expensive - especially with the pound gaining on the dollar. I have ridden that exact train with a pass and just hop on - you can make optional seat reservations often for free until the night before the train IME but they are optional but in 2nd class suggested IME if you all want to sit together. And yes it can be used on the Heathrow Express.

But you should scour www.nationalrail.co.uk for online discounted fares - often with restrictions on changing and refunds and for a specific train - all the fares are there and all the conditions. But for fully flexible travel yup the pass can be cheaper than full fare tickets even for limited travel. And with the free Family Pass your kids get (if under 16) then that is another aspect of the pass.

And yes you do get a passholder rate on Eurostar trains to Belgium or France but in your case with a consecutive-day pass you would have to take the Eurostar before the pass expired. For more flexibility consider the BritEngland Flexipass - good for a minimum of 3 (i think) days of travel spread over a two-month period - then to do the passholder thing on the Eurostar it only has to fall into the 2-month period - you do not use a day of travel on the pass - passholder fares start at about $80 for adults - much less i think for kids and you may even find cheaper fares at www.eurostar.com or you may not - the Eurostar passholder fare can be exchanged once in London in case you want to change your date of travel so has better conditions than the cheaper non-changeable fares, etc.
The cheapest way to Liverpiddle and back would be i think at www.nationalrail.co.uk and the deep discounted fares but then you must book far in advance and lose flexibilitythe pass offers - so see how much you could save by pegging yourself in, etc. Anyway for lots on British rail travel and passes (and answers to questions like yours) i always highlight www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com - the latter lets you call and talk to IME experts on British rail travel - also www.seat61.com.

<<< (if anyone thinks I'm wrong, please do correct me - I checked the Virgin website). >>>

Cheaper tickets don't become available until about 12 weeks before the date of travel - and may appear several weeks after that - so the only tickets for April currently available are the full costs ones which you could buy on the day of travel.

Tickets for this route start at £8 per adult each way and with a family and friends railcard you could pay as little as £27.20 IN TOTAL

Check out http://www.eastcoast.co.uk as they allow overseas booking.

You can get a family and friends railcard before you travel at any manned UK train station and you can book tickets before getting it as long as you buy it before you travel

http://www.familyandfriends-railcard.co.uk/

For your plan, a BritRail Pass makes next to no sense. Note what alanRow says - you are simply looking too soon to get th best fares. Wait until after the first of the year and then start looking at fares.

Also - even free, the Heathrow Express might not make sense for you. Unless you are staying right at Paddington Station (not generally recommended) you would have an expensive cab ride to the station.

So wait a bit - find the better fares and then decide. You'll probably do better w/o the pass.

You need to investigate the fare available to you on a Family & Friends card (£20-odd quid, but giving the adults 35% off the cheapest possible fare, and kids practically free)

You also need to look on the National Rail site for a dummy journey in, say, Feb. Advance booking of two singles is typically £40 return for an adult BEFORE the F&F discounts

300 funnymoneys (whatever that's worth in real cash) sounds like an absurd amount to pay out to keep the bunch of American ripoff artists who hawk that hokey pass around in the champagne and caviar they've learned to expect as their reward for defrauding easily gulled tourists

For fully flexible travel the pass is a boon - for those not requiring/desiring it for limited travel it is not. And those American ripoff artists are only acting as agents for all the various British rail franchises, who actually get most of the money and thus allow subsidizing of rail lines with American and other foreign tourists money- to put it more correctly.

Great, fast advice from all - thanks! So I'll wait on the Virgin train tix and look into the friends and family pass.
Any suggestions on when to buy the Eurostar from Paris though? Do I wait on that as well or is it cheaper to book this far out?

There are disadvantages to booking advance fares. If you're planning to do anything out of doors in Liverpool, you might want to check the weather forecast before committing yourself to a specific day, or you might find an event or a show in London which you don't want to miss.
An off-peak return, available at the station, is currently £66.40. With a family & Friends railcard, two adults and two children would pay about £142, plus the £26 initial cost of the card, or about $270 in total.
Whether a rail pass might be worthwhile depends on what other train journeys you're making.

Even if you were to get railpasses, buying Eurostar tickets in advance can be cheaper than the passholders fare.

Book as far in advance as possible (up to 120 days allowed) at www.eurostar.com. Regardless of where you live, register on the site as a resident of the UK to get the very lowest fares. The cheap tickets are non-exchangeable and non-refundable so be sure you can commit to a specific departure date and time.

Tim, thanks. Taking your advice - Eurostar.com, right now, is A LOT cheaper than any other ticketing site I found and I can get a better price than any guidebook or web site says I should expect to pay. I'm going to grab the Eurostar tickets now and, thanks to the advice received here, wait on purchasing the London/Liverpool tickets.

Thanks again to all who responded, I'm sure I'll have more questions as my trip approaches - Paris apartment is booked, but I need to find one in London.

John

john - what price are you showing for those Eurostar ducats? Just curious?

I bought the tickets for around $245 US (that's for 2 children and 2 adults). I believe it was 148 pounds sterling.

Just wanted to update this thread with a thanks to all who helped. Just returned from Liverpool to London and was able to get cheap tickets thanks to the advice here (loved the Virgin Pendolino train, by the way) and our Eurostar experience was great as well.

Thanks again,
John

(loved the Virgin Pendolino train, by the way>

Having ridden many trains from various independent rail franchises i think Virgin ranks amongst the best or at least it tries the hardest - yet it is often lampooned by Brits

anyway thanks for the update.