nyse

To travel from Liverpool to London on a spring Sunday:
(Lime Street to Euston)

I believe I use Virgin Trains and buy 13 weeks in advance for the best fare.

I'm in US - better to self-print my e-ticket
-or-
use FastTicket at station?

Seems quite straight forward, or am I missing something important??

Any advice will be much appreciated ~ thank you.

flanneruk

1. You buy when the Advance tickets are put up, which is usually around 12 weeks prior. You'll know by the extraordinary difference in price.

2. To collect from a machine, you need to use the CC you used to buy the tickets. As I understand it - and those more expert may contradict me - you can't be sure the machine will accept non-European cards if they don't have the chip & pin system, and may well be directed to a manned office. These can have formidable queues, even on (sometimes especially on, particularly at student-intensive stations) Sundays So if Virgin offers a print at home service, it's wiser to use that.

Man_in_seat_61

Always use print-at-home if it's offered - not all train companies do, but Virgin are one of them.

I always print a couple of copies.

As Flanneruk says, collect at station' works fine, but you MAY need to go to the ticket office if your non-chip 'n PIN card doesn't work the machine.

Don't book until you see Advance fares from £12.50 appear in the listings. No advance tickets, only expensive Off-Peak and Anytime = booking not properly open yet.

Alec

You can have a ticket alert email sent to you when advance fare for your particular journey becomes available:
http://www.thetrainline.com/ticketalert/
Don't buy through thetrainline but on Virgin Trains site.

nyse

Wow ~ wonderful advice and I thank you very much!
You have all earned good travel karma.

RM67

Be careful. On two recently booked journeys I noticed that the price on the day the tickets are released is NOT always the lowest price that's going to be available. Virgin have a discount fares section, which runs about a week to ten days behind the initial release.

You need to compare prices using the normal search facility on their homepage:-

http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/

with the discount fares on their destinations page:-

http://www.farefinder.virgintrains.c...hview=outbound

An easy way to see if this is going to help you or not is to plan an imaginary journey on earlier dates than you actually intend to travel to see if there's a price differential or not. I did this for Glasgow and effectively halved my fare by not booking on the day the tickets first came out, but hanging on for the discounted prices which populated a couple of weeks later.

RM67

PS You don't have to book through Virgin but you will find the same thing happens with the lag between newly released fares and discount tickets on other websites.

nyse

^^^" ..to plan an imaginary journey on earlier dates than you actually intend to travel .."

Yes, good point. I routinely do this - call it my "practice trip."
Also good to know ahead of time if one has to register with password, etc.
I like to have all my ducks in a row.

Alec

I never book on the same day the advance fare tickets are released either. Virgin like most operators use fluid/dynamic pricing and advance fare charged and availability change with demand, like airlines.

BigRuss

<< Virgin like most operators use fluid/dynamic pricing and advance fare charged and availability change with demand, like airlines>>

In other words, it's whack-a-mole on the fares to see if you can bonk the best one. If you can, use the fare alert. Don't fret over small change, though, and then miss out on low fares. If you get a seat for 15 quid instead of 12.50, it won't crush you.

RM67

Not really - the discount fares are displayed in a grid that lets you see at a glance the pricing differential over say, a full month. Plus with just a couple of days monitoring you can quickly get a feel for when they are likely to change and by how much. Over a short distance it may not make a huge difference, admittedly, but for a longer distance the price difference can be close to £100 just for waiting a couple of days.

dotheboyshall

<i>Virgin like most operators use fluid/dynamic pricing and advance fare charged and availability change with demand, like airlines</i>

No they don't, it's batches of tickets at various prices. Regardless of demand they don't change price.

historytraveler

Good advice. I've never had a problem with my credit card. I have also printed my tickets either works and, yes, prices usually fall after initial posting. I have always booked via the national rail site www.nationalrail.co.uk as they will automatically provide you with the various options from which you can purchase your tickets.No need to go to another website. Note that the national rail website does not actually sell tickets. Haven't yet found any differences in prices either through various train operators or, even, using the train line website.

PalenQ

Or forego all that and take dirt cheap buses - no need to buy in advance I think for that but buses are IME less comfy and much slower than trains. even for tomorrow the fare is 10 pounds - some as low as 5-7 pounds, none more than about 13 pounds.

http://coach.nationalexpress.com/nxbooking/funfares

flanneruk

"Or forego all that and take dirt cheap buses"

Have you ever got the bus from Liverpool to London?

Even the nonstops take six hours. IF the traffic allows.

On Sunday afternoons, it doesn't.

dotheboyshall

<i>Haven't yet found any differences in prices either through various train operators or, even, using the train line website.</i>

Trainline charges fees for booking and issuing tickets, train company websites don't.

Booking through the website of the company that runs the actual train MIGHT lead to a small saving over other train company websites or even some tickets that aren't generally available

historytraveler

Have never used train line, although it's frequently promoted on this forum. I have checked their pricing but never got far enough through their website to check for booking fees.I purchase tickets through the national rail site which, as I said, automatically directs you to the appropriate train company and have never been charged a booking fee.

Alec

<I>No they don't, it's batches of tickets at various prices. Regardless of demand they don't change price.</I>

The range of advance fares they release depend on likely demand. If you want to travel at a particularly busy time like last weekday before bank holiday weekend, the cheaper fares like £12.50 and £20 won't be released and the cheapest you can get is £30, for example, and only on one or two trains.

kleeblatt

trainline. is marvelous. I got some excellent fares from Norwich to Leeds including a decent first class ticket, which included a delicious lunch. After that experience, I decided to always book first class when there isn't a huge price difference.

PalenQ

Trainline I understand charges a booking fee - of 5 pounds I think so that makes it 5 pounds more dear than www.nationalrail.co.uk as the fares I understand are exactly the same on each?

Please correct me if wrong and things may have changed - like I believe Virgin Trains once ran trainline.com - not sure if they still do but could I guess give a cheaper price at times on Virgin trains?