Britrail Pass-is it worth it?
 

I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure out transportation in the UK. The prices of train fare vary tremendously and the cheap prices don't seem to be available. We are traveling in late March.

We are a party of 3 (1 senior) and will be in UK for 10 days. We will stay in London for 6 days with a side trip to Bath, and visiting Windsor Castle and Hampton Court. Then on to York for 1 night, continuing to Edinburgh for 3 days and flying home from there.

We can use an 8 day Britrail pass, using it for the Heathrow Express thru our arrival in Edinburgh, but is this the most economical thing to do? Are point to point tickets better? Does the Britrail pass also double for a tube pass? Please help!

I used BritRail passes a couple of times in the mid 90's and they never paid their way. Since then, I have travelled using individual tickets.

It is probably too soon to be expecting to find bargain fares for late March. Come January or early February, you should start seeing restricted, advance purchase fares for those dates for London to York in the £19 to £23 range. York to Edinburgh should be similarly priced.

If you do choose to use individual tickets, you should check whether buying a senior rail card would makes sense for the senior member of your party. It costs £18 for a year and gives 1/3rd off most fares.

BritRail passes are not valid on the London Underground.

An eight-day rail pass will be good value if you are spending eight days travelling by train. I doubt it would be worth it for the trips you describe, a return to Bath, a couple of very short day trips and a one-way trip to Edinburgh. You didn't say what the pass costs - that would enable people to make comparisons.

If you want freedom of flexibility, just to show up at the station and hop a train then BritRail is good as there are a mind-boggling number of discounted fares available in Britain but many of these require advance purchase, are not refundable, etc. whereas walkup fares can be sky high. I just returned from a BritRail trip and picked up the fares leaflet from one railway running many trains on the London-York-Scotland line and there were literally dozens and dozens of different fares. So if you want to book ahead and be locked in point-point is usually the way to go. But for freedom of mind, you are traveling enough that you won't look too much on BritRail and may travel more than you think. Ask about BritRail's Party Pass, where if two people buy a first class BritRail Pass the third traveler gets to go at 50% their pass price. Senior 60 or over also get reduced 1st class pass prices.
The 8-day BritRail Pass is $269 each in second class for 4 days of travel in a 2-month period; $405 in first class (3rd person of party would pay 50% of forst class price). You probably have to travel a bit more to make it pay off. Expect to pay about $20 each way on Heathrow Express (2nd class), $10-15 round-trip to Windsor or Hampton Court; $30 round trip to Bath; $50 to York and $50 York-Edinburgh, so pass is not going to save you money unless in those 8 days you do some other rail trips - day trips from edinburgh to St Andrews or Sterling, for example, or another day trip from London, such as Oxford or Cambridge would make it worth it as fares, if approximate point-point, make a pass better for its each of use. BritRail also can be used in central London though not on the Tube or buses but on the many train lines, such as the useful Thameslink trains running underground through central London. If you were traveling before the end of February you'd get 25% off all BritRail passes - their Off Peak Special. If you have any questions of BritRail passes, which are not sold in Britain, call Budget Europe Travel Service (800-441-9413), they're experts on answering all your British train and pass questions. I've used them for years, they take time to answer questions like you've posed here.

Thanks to all. I think I will wait til February and prebook the journies as we know when we want to travel. Thanks again