BritRail Pass Seat Reservation Cost
 

I am still trying to decide whether or not to buy a BritRail Pass for our (4 of us) upcoming trip to Scotland. We will have 2 main legs by train – London to Edinburgh (best price I found is 66.5GBP pp); and Liverpool to London (best price I have found is 81.4 GBP pp). We will have other train rides (London-Cambridge return; Edinburg-Leuchars (St. Andrews) return; and there may be other day trips (most of our travel in Scotland will be by car).
Based on the prices that I have found, the 2 legs will cost around 148 GBP or about $310 CDN pp. A 3 Day Flexi Pass will cost about $310 CDN pp … meaning that our 2 trips will be paid for with the 3 day pass.
Questions are: do we need to reserve seats from London-Edinburgh (traveling on a Saturday morning)? If so, what does it cost to reserve a seat?
Thanks for your input.

Oops ... actually cost $387 CDN pp -- not $310.

"do we need to reserve seats from London-Edinburgh (traveling on a Saturday morning"

Ordinarily no. Sometimes, over New Year, these trains are made reservation only, but at most only a handful a year. On many Lon-Edi trains, booking a seat is advisable, though, since the alternative might be standing till the next station.

BUT: Your numbers seem weird. The best price I can find (after 0.1 seconds trying, and for a date only a couple of weeks away) from Liverpool to London is £31.

Spend serious time on the National Rail website looking for dates 12 weeks out and you'll find even lower prices. I've no idea what 310 of your wotsitses are in real money - but it sounds an AWFUL lot for a couple of journeys.

I'm always sceptical about passes sold specifically to visitors (anywhere). I tend to believe that you get better value for money by buying direct, unless you really need a lot of last-minute flexibility. As flanner says, play around on www.nationalrail.co.uk for your intended journeys, and check out the advice on www.seat61.com. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Look for Advance tickets

London to Edinburgh from £25, Liverpool to London from £16 (that £81 ticket is the standard off-peak price)

When are you travelling?

I was looking at the RailEurope site (link from seat61 site) and their sale on the BritPass expires tomorrow …. so I then looked at the Virgin Trains site and went to the latest dates that they sold tickets for the days we are traveling (traveling Saturday, May 14th from London-Edinburgh – looked at prices for Saturday, May 7th -- £66.5; and traveling Wednesday, May 25th from Liverpool-London – looked at prices for Wednesday, May 4thand 11th --£81.4). The National Rail site prices for those trips/dates are £125.7 and £81.4.
I have since looked at the BritRail site and their sale of the BritPass expires on February 26th. So I'm no longer in panic mode and can wait to see what the costs will be on our actual traveling dates.
If I’m looking at the sites scheduling correctly, I can book the London-Edinburgh trip on the Virgin Train site in 6 days and on the National Rail site in 7 days.
I sent an email to Virgin trains to find out what it would cost a BritRail Pass holder to reserve a seat on their London-Edinburgh route … their response was “We understand you would like to reserve seats for your journey. We do not deal with British Rail pass, to reserve seats please or to get discount with British rail pass please visit station.” So, still unsure what it actually costs to reserve a seat!

the cost of seat reservations I believe is free at stations but it seems that you would be better off without a pass as others have shown- not traveling enough on trains - so unless you want complete flexibility to hop any train anytime (fully flexible tickets can cost a ton - making a pass a good deal in that case perhaps) but if willing to forego flexibility then the deals on nationalrail.co.uk will be cheaper - for lots of info on British trains check not only www.seat61.com but also these informative sources for general info: www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

discounted tickets also come in first class and on long-distance trains IME there is a world of difference so if the cheapest first-class ticket is not all that much more than the cheapest 2nd class ticket go first class.

again I have not been on a British train in the last few years but for years and years reservations were free with passes in my case - but you may have to make them at the station at least the day before maybe - not sure and doubt if anyone here knows about passes and reservations either. 2nd class can be chock full at times - first class IME rarely so and no reservation advised IME.

Seat reservations are free, but you will likely find yourself waiting in a very long queue.

historytraveler - do you still have to go to the exact station your train will be leaving from to make a seat reservation with pass or full fare ticket - always has been the case - only way to make is to go in person to that station.

Or go thru RailEurope and pay about $10/seat or more. (Try the source of BritRail Passes in the U.S. ACP Rail of Canada - RE is an agent I believe of ACP the authorized BritRail outlet I believe(not sure anymore).

the latest Saturday you can currently book tickets for is April 30 - Kings Cross to Edinburgh from £25 though more at £30 - set up a cheap ticket alert for when your date becomes available

https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/

just use the same site to book your Liverpool to London tickets
27 April is currently the latest Wednesday on sale - tickets £16/£17 - once again just book when they are released

"Advance" tickets are what you're after

You can book the same seats at www.nationalrail.co.uk but what difference if any does it make to go thru the actual rail franchise - just curious if there is an advantage to go on the franchise's site or not- for future recommendations on this point? Are fares cheaper than at nationalrail.co.uk?

thanks sofarsogood or others for any insight on that - neither site charges, right for the booking?

Thanks sofarsogood, I'll set up a cheap ticket alert and hopefully will find some deals!

PQ - you don't book ticket on nationalrail it simply displays prices and takes you to the train operator to complete the purchase - in this case for one of the journeys its virgintrainseastcoast


non of the train companies charge for booking

<b>"If I’m looking at the sites scheduling correctly, I can book the London-Edinburgh trip on the Virgin Train site in 6 days and on the National Rail site in 7 days." </b>

You appear to have misunderstood.

For the dates you're quoting, sites show ONLY rack prices. Roughly 12 weeks before travel, the sites will show Advance prices, which will typically be, at first, 60-80% lower than those rack prices. Advance booking discounts then get progressively less.

Now, for journeys in May (when Britain has two Bank Holiday weekends, and our European neighbours have even more, so leisure demand peaks) those Advance discounts may be less and the window during which the very lowest rates are on offer a great deal shorter.

What's more: Advance prices are released only when engineering work timetables are finalised. We're currently going through an unprecedented amount of track upgrading, this winter's revealed more flood-defence weaknesses in our railway system than ever, carrying out engineering over holiday weekends causes less pain to our train-using taxpayers than work at any other time and weekend work frequently overlaps into the days immediately before or after.

So it can't be predicted with accuracy when Advance prices for May will be released. Wait till they are to know what they're going to be.

<b>if there is an advantage to go on the franchise's site or not- for future recommendations on this point?</b>
Sometimes, train operating companies do offer web specials that don't seem to get onto the National Rail site. The problem, though, is that tracking them can be messy and time-consuming, such cases seem fairly rare and they can impose conditions that not all visitors want to accept.

Most domestic inter-city routes from London now offer some kind of real competition between different operators, though often only at strange times or only a few times a day. Only the National Rail site shows alternative routings and their prices, so obsessively seeking Virgin's best deal from Liverpool to London, for example, risks missing the fact that London Midland practically always undercuts it.

If you're determined to find the very best price, it can be possible, following the advice the Man in Seat 61 gives on his site, to find a better price than National Rail shows. The question is whether doing so to save £1 leaves you any time to eat or sleep.

Thanks flanneruk for your input … I was trying to make some sense of when the ticket sales would be posted. I noticed that they have sales for Friday, May 13th; and nothing as yet for May 7th or 14th (our travel date). UK Bank holidays for May are May 2nd and May 30th. I have the signed up for the cheap ticket alert … so, we’ll wait and see!