Hello,

DH and I will be visiting London in May and will make a couple of short train trips to Bedford and Tring. Is it best to purchase the tickets on the days we want to travel or is there any advantage to purchasing now? If I buy them online (I am in the US) is it best to purchase on nationalrail.co.uk? I have also looked at thetrainline.co.uk.

We also plan to purchase one way tickets from Bath to London and thought we should purchase those now since we want to travel on a Saturday and would like to have our preferred travel time. Does this make sense for our destinations?

Thanks in advance.

If you buy in advance, it may be possible to get discount tickets. The caveat to getting tickets for specific trains is that delays and cancellations are increasingly common.

London to Bedford or Tring (where my brother lives, as it happens) are short hops, NO advance tickets, just turn up, buy a ticket at the station and hop on the next train. You save money by avoiding the Monday-Friday peak hours.

London-Bath is a longer trip, where you can save a lot of money with an Advance fare, so pre-book: Start with www.nationalrail.co.uk which will probably hand you over to www.gwr.com for the sale.

Don't use trainline.com as they add a fee. Train operators' own sites charge the same fares but without any fee. #nobrainer

Thank you both for responding.

Good to know about trainline.com Man_in_Seat_61. I used your website a few years ago when researching trains in Italy. Lovely to "meet" you here on Fodors. We are hoping to go to Tring to visit the crash site of the B-17 my dad was a crew member on in WWII. Thank you for your help again.

One question, I understand peak times to be when people are commuting but could not find specific times on the National Rail site. If we travel after 9am and before 4pm are we off-peak?

S.

" If we travel after 9am and before 4pm are we off-peak?"

Not necessarily. The definition of peak varies by operator, direction and route. There's no "peak" at weekends

Go to the National Rail site. Plug in your journey and date and approx time of travel. It'll show you which trains around that time are subject to peak, and which to off-peak, fares.