Manchester to London by train - split AND change trains - works on other routes aswell - £13 @ National Rail

Viewing latest Search

Search

Start typing in the search box and your results will appear here.

Deal

+700

Manchester to London £13.00 by train - split AND change trains - works on other routes aswell

£13 National Rail3 Aug 16

Source: HotUKDeals | Deals > Travel

Opening post

ysm1234

2 Aug 16

You've all heard of ticketysplit which splits a train ticket and you stay on the same train but a lot of times it's cheaper to change trains. For example Manchester to London in two days (4/8) around 1130 all trains are £80. Ticketysplit does not have any cheaper options for any journey around that time. Now checking manually Manchester to stoke and stoke to London if I were to book in advance the 1146-1239 Manchester to stoke is £3 and the 1328-1550 stoke to London is £10 in total this equals £13 - about £9 with a railcard - a far cry from the £80 Virgin were asking for a direct journey, this works vice versa as well and normally works upto two days before traveling but sometimes the cheapest tickets are available a day before travel (I know 49mins is a big gap between trains but I'm using this as an example plus there are many other options Manchester to stoke for a few pounds more with less waiting time between trains but I'm using these as they're the cheapest), there are many other options across the entire uk and it works well a lot of the time. I don't know of any app that does this so it does take a bit of time to work out the cheapest fare as it has to be done DIY but if anyone knows any app or website that does this please let me know.

I've just checked another route
Next week Wednesday 10/8, London to Newcastle around 1245 cheapest train is £64, checking London to York brings up the 1253-1447 grand central service for £17.50 and checking York to Newcastle brings up 1508-1615 for £7.10 total price London to Newcastle is £24.60 - £16.40 with a railcard.

Top comments

ahenry

3 Aug 16 16 #15

Sometimes the UK route planners will only show you the fastest routes. However, if you search at http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml you can add intermediate stops, and also say how long you want to stay there.

The Martin Lewis site http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/split-cheap-train-tickets/ is free. However, it only does single tickets. http://www.splitticketing.co.uk also looks for return tickets, and will show you the train times, but not the details of where the tickets are split, as they want you to book the tickets through them.

http://www.rome2rio.com is also worth checking as it will also suggest alternatives like a bus, flight or taxi.

The forums at http://www.railforums.co.uk have people who know more than you want to, about the 16 million train tickets that you can get in the UK.

http://www.mytrainjourney.co.uk is a new site which lets you search for the punctuality for specific trains over the last year.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 15 #3

And save £67, equals £33 an hour which I think would convince some people. It's also good for people who don't like the tilting trains as this way you avoid them. But as I said this is only one example and for £6.80 extra you could cut the journey time by 49mins leaving at 1235 - total journey time would be 3hr 15mins. In the second example London to Newcastle normal journey times are around 3hrs so you save £40 with just an extra 22mins. This will vary depending on route and train times.

koksy

3 Aug 16 6 #2

but it takes 4hrs4mins instead of 2hrs8mins?

iibdii

3 Aug 16 3 #4

not that I will ever use trains but heat for your effort as this surely is smart way to save money

All comments (40)

justanothercid

2 Aug 16 #1

thanks

koksy

3 Aug 16 6 #2

but it takes 4hrs4mins instead of 2hrs8mins?

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 15 #3

iibdii

3 Aug 16 3 #4

not that I will ever use trains but heat for your effort as this surely is smart way to save money

the_flamedeer_hunter1985

3 Aug 16 1 #5

I think this is aweome, I'd rather save that kind of money and wait longer even going for a coffee for an hour and the cost of the tickets saves loads compared to a single journey. Heat!!!!!

wishwish

3 Aug 16 #6

Good post,should help many to save cash.thanks.Heat.

3gees

3 Aug 16 #7

Heat and many thanks, OP. Great money saving post.

mrcoxexcel

3 Aug 16 #8

Absolutely brilliant.

andybriggs03

3 Aug 16 #9

so what would be the cheapest option leeds to portsmouth ? you would have to know the cheapest station to goto, obviously not london, so which ?

ysm1234 to andybriggs03

3 Aug 16 #19

I would try London. This is how I work out the cheapest. I look at the route national rail bring up, if it's direct I try a few of the stations it stops at along the way, if indirect I generally try the station it tells you to change at but I still try it separately. So if I check next week Thursday Manchester to Newcastle at 1126 national rail brings up an 1126 with a change at York costing over £60. Do the change manually i.e. by booking the tickets separately would bring the cost down to 21.80. And this is for exactly the same journey - this is something that ticketysplit would bring up but I'm just trying to show that even when national rail say change trains it can still be cheaper to book it separately. OK if you pay the £40 you're insured if you miss the connection as opposed to booking it separately but I think most people would take the risk. Now for your journey Leeds to Portsmouth if I check next week most journeys go via London so I checked Leeds to London it comes up as £32 and London to Portsmouth comes up starting at £9 = £41 instead of £122 that national rail says. I would think that would be the cheapest option.

iwannamotorbike

3 Aug 16 1 #10

Good call op, I wonder if Martin Lewis and MSE would set up a website?

fitzyfitz29 to iwannamotorbike

3 Aug 16 #11

I remember that a company were going to set up a website like this. Stay on one train, cheaper tickets via splitting. Forgot the name

ollie87 to iwannamotorbike

3 Aug 16 1 #14

What this one? http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/split-cheap-train-tickets/

gemmasaurusrex

3 Aug 16 #12

This is great - thank you! :smiley:

04muim

3 Aug 16 #13

Many thanks OP. I've kinda only just started doing this and started saving some money before this post however I think it's gonna be really handy for some people who don't know this.

ahenry

3 Aug 16 16 #15

KewlGuy

3 Aug 16 #16

redspottedhanky is pretty good to find cheap tickets

Pete525

3 Aug 16 1 #17

Other ways to save on these trips:
1.Tick for "slower routes/options" at the bottom of most of these train websites in the search. From Stoke there's regularly a £7-12 ticket to London run by another company. It's not of the quality of virgin and takes about 3 hours but it's price versus time.
2. Megabus Manchester-London route. 4 hours 50 mins min. £5-10 fares usually available pretty close to the day of travel. Again, it's price versus time and comfort. Incredible value.
Privatising the rail industry decades ago did nothing to cut fares. Go to several EU countries and whilst you can pay more for express trains, the general rule is you pay per the km. Not the rip off prices here unless you can get an advance fare.

danboi63

3 Aug 16 #18

i use this allready and save about £50 a trip back and for to university. takes an hour and a half longer but when you look at it its saving £30 ish per hour. also look into a railcard guys, has saved me a blooming fortune. worth every minute.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 #20

Ticketysplit only does staying on the same train whilst we're talking about changing trains.

garethsmith72

3 Aug 16 2 #21

Dangerous with short connections because if one is late you miss the other, and then your stuck

ysm1234 to garethsmith72

3 Aug 16 #28

On busy routes there are plenty of options with different connecting times to suit everyone, also sometimes you save more than the cost of the second ticket bought on the day, e.g. If the cheapest ticket splitting for Manchester to London was to change at Watford (it isn't but I'm using this as an example) and you save £50, if you miss your connection buy a new ticket on the day from Watford to London for £9.80, still saving £40.20

UncleWilly

3 Aug 16 #22

The link below is the best for split ticketing and a bonus is that unlike Martin Lewis's it doesn't have a silly name (What's a "tickety"???)
https://raileasy.trainsplit.com/main.aspx?utm

alifff

3 Aug 16 #23

I can't find a ticket from stoke to London below £13 and thats with a railcard. which website are you using?

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 #24

What date and time are you looking at?

psigeek

3 Aug 16 #25

Good work

jinkssick

3 Aug 16 #26

I guess its rip off Britain. I know its a different form of transport but for example last year my fights were London to Miami £500 per person return. But booking from Stockholm to London, then catching the pricey return flight from London to Miami it was £200 per person. It beggars belief.

danthomas25 to jinkssick

3 Aug 16 #32

Is it just me or does this not make sense?

magnusmagnus

3 Aug 16 #27

Only reason I get the train is to save time, these journey's now take longer than a coach and still cost more, you might as well take a coach then.

moneysavingkitten

3 Aug 16 #29

Does this work better closer to the time? I'm looking at a 3.5 hour journey in September and splitting seems to save nothing. Saves nothing on the MSE site, nothing if I put it in manually.

Just tried this site above http://www.splitticketing.co.uk/ it's knocked £18 off, then added back in nearly £7 in fees one's called 'Share of split saving'. I don't know what that means :S

I'd really like to get my head round this, but I never have any luck with ticket splitting.

uk-mobileshop

3 Aug 16 #30

I go to Birmingham from Manchester a lot and find that Crewe is a good place to split tickets. Manchester to Crewe is £3 and then Crewe to Birmingham is £6.50 so £9.50 altogether, same with the return. Not as amazing savings as the London one but saves a lot compared to the normal £36.50 for the route.

ysm1234 to uk-mobileshop

3 Aug 16 #33

Seeing as the £3 and £6.50 are advance tickets whilst the £36.50 is a ticket bought on the day it would be better to make a comparison between £9.50 and a £10.90 advance direct which probably makes it not worthwhile to split and change. On the day of travel one can book advance Manchester to Birmingham for £16.90 instead of £35.50 as CrossCountry do advance bookings even on the day.

uk-mobileshop

3 Aug 16 1 #31

You will be able to find the same tickets individually on other sites which don't charge fees. Just use the split ticketing site to find where to split the ticket and then go to another site.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 1 #34

Would you know of a site that does splits and changes (where there are direct services available as opposed to a route one has to change anyway), I'm looking for a site or app that'll bring up the £13 journey in the main post above. So far haven't found any.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 2 #35

It makes sense. I think it's known as fuel dumping. Check out a site called skiplagged. I tried Manchester to Frankfurt and it told instead of booking direct with Lufthansa it's cheaper to book Manchester to Vienna via Frankfurt and Milan using Lufthansa direct to Frankfurt i.e. the same journey I was trying to book and just don't carry on the rest of the journey and save £40.
Beware that it might not work with luggage as airlines know of this trick and therefore make you check in luggage for the entire journey without an option to take it out early. But with hand luggage only it works fine.
Also if you look London to JFK and it's £400 and you find Dublin to JFK for £300 via London, you can't just show up for your second flight without flying the first flight, if you miss the first leg they cancel the second leg. Vice versa you should be able to show up for your first flight and not take the second flight if you're traveling hand luggage only. See flyertalk.com for more details.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 #36

Only works better closer to time cause the direct fares are usually more expensive. In the main example above the £13 fare is about the lowest fare it'll be from when they are released (sometimes it's £12), whilst the £80 fare started at £21 when it was released.

Ticketysplit-MSE will only check splitting whilst staying on the same train and not changing trains which is a lot of times cheaper.

The £7 shared saving is their way of saying you could save £18 but we're not telling you how. Book with us and we'll take 40% of the saving (£7) as a commission for finding you a cheap splitting ticket. Does it at least give you departure or arrival times? cause then manually one can work it out in minutes.

If you post here the route you're attempting I'll check what I think is the best place to split. With date and time would make my job easier.
Anyone else is also welcome to post theirs

juggler1

3 Aug 16 1 #37

have some heat, op. I am totally in awe of you

jinkssick

3 Aug 16 #38

What he said. If the stop over is say 8 to 10 hours. You can request your baggage to be offloaded (i.e a visit to nearby attraction). Its worked wonders for me for our last trip to California. £213 per person coming back to London missing London to Bergen leg.

ysm1234

3 Aug 16 #39

I've heard of cases where airlines refused the request even when there is a long stopover clearly suspecting that the passenger was doing the trick. I guess it depends on the airline.

mk-donald

3 Aug 16 1 #40

By all means use some of these sites to find IDEAS for splitting, but usually you'll be far better off buying tickets direct from the relevant ToC(s) website with no fees for ticketing or booking or paying by card, and chances for loyalty points too!

Thanks BTW for this site link... particularly interesting!

Latest firstClose