Looking at the National Rail site, it appears a round trip Waterloo to Salisbury is £36.60 if return is not same day. (Same day return £29.50.) Does this sound right to wise Fodorites or is there a less expensive option?

I didn't see an "advance purchase" choice, and I'm looking several months ahead.
Thanks very much for any advice!

A limited number of seats on trains from London to Salisbury are available on Megatrain at www.megatrain.com. These are the same trains as available to everyone else, just a special promotional price. It looks like you can only book about six weeks ahead, but trains in early January are about £12 return.

chartly I just looked at that megatrain site and it has some fantastic prices. Do you print out your tickets or do you have to pick them up at the station?

South West Trains - Home
Cheaper fares for millions of South West Trains passengers from January 2010 · View all news articles · 2FOR1 London. Travel by train and get 2FOR1 entry at ...
www.southwesttrains.co.uk/

South West Trains - Home
Cheaper fares for millions of South West Trains passengers from January 2010 · View all news articles · 2FOR1 London. Travel by train and get 2FOR1 entry at ...
www.southwesttrains.co.uk/

SW Trains have no fare reduction plans between London and Salisbury that are relevant to the question asked. As PalQ would have found in an instant if he'd read the story he's cut and pasted.

By and large, there are very few "advance" fare reductions on train fares within 100 miles of London, and the SW Trains service to Salisbury isn't unusual in that. Generally, SW Trains offer far fewer promotional deals for Salisbury and Winchester than the companies serving Oxford and Cambridge: SW use the Megatrain booking engine, which their parent company owns, to attract the discount segment of the market

If the Megatrain deal is inconvenient, there really isn't much of an alternative. There are a couple of National Express coaches a day, and you might save a couple of pounds using them.

I have not used Megatrain, but the last time I used Megabus (same company), I printed out my ticket at home.

Thanks Chartly, I'm going to give them a try. They quoted 4 GBP for a return to Portsmouth as opposed to 28 GBP on the rail site!

I appreciate these replies, especially as I knew nothing about Megatrain/bus. It's apparently much cheaper to travel London>>>Salisbury than to make the return!

"It's apparently much cheaper to travel London>>>Salisbury than to make the return"

It shouldn't be. If you're using Megatrain, you must be limiting yourself to return trains which for some reason have peculiarly limited Megatrain capacity. Might be worth playing with alternative timings, or checking whether you've organised yourself to do something (like going to Salisbury on a Sunday, but returning on a Monday morning) incompatible with Megatrain availability.

The trick is to think contrarian. SW Trains, more than any other operator, have ludicrous overcapacity on commuter routes outside peak hours, with ten-carriage trains running 90% empty at times when First Great Western, for example, often runs only two-carriage trains. Plan your journey round those empty carriages and Megatrain suddenly throws up bargains.

It MIGHT also be worth googling to see if there's a site that specialises in gaming Megatrain.

Thank you, <b>flanner, you nailed it.</b>
The dates I had been playing with included a Sunday, which proved to be the sticking point.

Back from London, and the trains ran well and to the second.
The only problem was when we returned at Waterloo, in confusion and intent on preserving our train tickets for the 2for1 Tower, we used our Oysters to exit the rail station. This mistake cost us over &pound;4 each.

The next day at a tube station I approached the ticket agent.
Me: Don't know if you can...
He: I'll try.
Me: We made a mistake...
He: Hand 'em over -- no drama -- all fixed.

It took longer to type the above than for him to assess and rectify our error. It's a wonderful world.

Avalon...did you determine whether or not you had to print out tickets for mega train? Also how far in advance do tickets have to be purchased? I planned on taking a laptop with me on a two week stay but would not be able to print a ticket.