London -> York via train. £148 round trip???
 

I need to travel from London to York on March 17th, and back again on the 24th. The last few days, every time I search on nationalrail.co.uk, I get a message that says, "Sorry, the site can't find any trains meeting your request." I get that message no matter what I try. I don't know what's going on.

On www.GNER.co.uk, I can find tickets, but there is NOTHING for less than £74.10 per person each way!!! I'm about to cry.

Any ideas? Or are my husband and I doomed to spend nearly £300 ($600!) just to get to York and back?

I've considered taking the bus, but 6 hours on the bus after a 9-hour flight doesn't appeal to me. I may end up having to go that route, though, if I can't find cheaper train tickets.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

you can also try www.thetrainline.com

I'm sure someone will find something much cheaper than that but if not the 4-day consecutive All-England railpass costs $184 so would be much cheaper than 74 quid each way and can use any train any time. For details on any BritRail product i always recommend BETS (800-441-2387; www.budgeteuropetravel.com)
Passes not sold in UK except at London BTA, for a slightly higher price i believe so if the pass is the best buy before hitting UK
Can also use from either airport into town on any train...Heathrow Express, Gatwick Express, Thameslink, Southern, etc.
Valid on any train in UK.
Oops you'll be in York for 7 days - then go to the site i mentioned above and check the price on an All england flexipass - 4 days of travel spread over 2 months at a bit higher price than consecutive days. could cover r.t. to York and airports.
But i can't believe there is not something cheaper online - look at www.nationalrail.co.uk too.

You've probably tried this (I couldn't be certain from your message), but if you can be flexible about your times of travel, you can often find lower fares. I traveled that route for less than half that fare about a year and a half ago, but I had to travel at off-peak times. It was also my impression that as the travel date nears, the availability of lower-fare tickets dwindles.

Best of luck -- York is a wonderful place, and well worth the journey -- don't cry!

Off peak times are cheaper. Avoid morning and evening rush hours and travel at weekends for cheaper fares.

I just had a look at the dates you gave on the GNER website. The £75.10 is a return fare, and there were singles available on both dates from £16 (I looked at late afternoon trains). Maybe have another look and make sure to click on the red button that says "two single may be cheaper"?

Well this is weird - I clicked to see if there were any cheap tickets on earlier trains and everything below £74.10 disappeared. I couldn't get back to the screen with the £16 tickets.

Maybe it is a language thing -- Just checking that you know "return" means round trip?? So two £74.10 return tickets would only total £148.20 (or approx $286) -- not "nearly £300 ($600!)"

Still not that cheap - but a lot less than your message indicates.

74.1 GBP is one-half of a roundtrip fare. The lowest roundtrip is indeed 74.1 x 2 = 148.2 GBP.

If you want a one-way, you'll need to pay even more than 74.1.

I think PalenQ's railpass idea is probably the best. Though one still needs to pay for seat reservations, I believe.

£74.10 is for a single ticket but the return ("roundtrip") ticket is £75.10.

Most of the day it's only an hourly service which suggests to me that there's engineering works somewhere on the East Coast Mainline between Doncaster & Edinburgh

HOWEVER, you can get tickets for £15.60 each way to LEEDS from where you can get a ticket to York for £9 one way

Also check out Hull Trains to Doncaster & Midland Mainline to Leeds

I jusr went into the
GNER site and they showed a single on the morning of the 17th for 9.50 pounds. I didn't go any futher, but thought that you might try it.

OK - I just went into GNER's website and played w/ times. It just looks like the "normal timed" morning trains are sold out of cheap seats. But I got singles from KingsX at 06:15 on Mar 17 for £44.50. and singles back from York at 19:40 (and other times) on Mar 24 for £19 = total of £63.50. return

For the advance tickets, combining two singles is often MUCH cheaper than round trip ('return') tickets.

Thank you all so much for your help and advice.

My travel times are somewhat restricted, as we don't arrive in London until 10am on the 17th, and we have to be back in London by 3pm on the 24th.

After trying out the various suggestions, the best options I found all involve stopping in Leeds. (Thank you alanRow for telling me this.) Within my travel time window, I found that splitting the trip at Leeds would cost a total of £53 per person return - yes, I do know that means round trip! :) However, if I can get our travel companions, who are meeting us in York, to pick us up in Leeds instead, then I can get tickets just to Leeds for £35pp return. Either way, it's a lot less expensive than I'd feared.

Thanks again for all your help!

Note you don't have to buy the Leeds-York tickets in advance and it takes about 10 minutes from arriving at Leeds to buy them from a ticket machine

It's easier to buy the leeds - york ticket at kings cross just before you leave. Leeds is a huge station and if your york train is ready to depart you won't get through the barriers, to the ticket office and back in time.

On a normal day there are 6 trains per hour between Leeds & York so missing one isn't a major problem.

Going to get tickets at Leeds station ticket machines means you can also pop into the local Tourist Information place which is probably the best in the area.

Coming back from York

Trains can be a real pig for fare (and fair)prices. You are almost into car hire territory.

You could consider national express coaches as an alternative (even if not appealing. http://www.nationalexpress.com/

Your dates (uncertain of your timings) can be had for £63 return (total. Not particularly quick, but could be your asnwer.

I've taken Leeds to Yorks train recently several times and these trains i found very crowded and uncomfortable - basically ones i took were overloaded commuter trains - i'd pay more to take the more plush direct GNER trains to York direct.
One train was so crowded that people could not even find standing room at the end.

Yes, I would like to pay £50 more just so that I avoid standing for 20 minutes