anyone know of a half-decent (preferably fully decent) website to use for booking train tickets? thetrainline.com is rubbish.

Need to get from Wakefield to Birmingham on 26th of July to go see the Test Match at Edgbaston...

qjump?

what I found is websites are good to check times but phone is better to book, at least this happened last year when i wanted to go to edinburgh

yeah, might try the station. The sites mention @#$%& day singles, but don't seem to have them available. the £35 return ticket is putting a serious dent in any possibility of going. It's a friend's stag do, idea being we do cricket (+beer), then curry (+beer).

Can't afford an overnighter either, or I'm looking at the wrong end of £100.

Hmm. Could drive, but that puts a serious dent in the (+beer) which is kind of integral to the whole stag do ethos.

Ah, well. It's Virgin Cross Country, you see, and they have seriously reduced the number of heavily discounted tickets on account of how their new Voyager services are seriously stuffed up, and have had to be savagely reduced in an attempt to get them to work anything like reliably (which they still don't, btw). There *may* be some Savers on offer nearer the date if there are any unsold seats left, but don't hold your breath.

I'd take the £35 if I were you; that's likely to be as @#$%& as it gets.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

gosh, in the grand scheme of things that's rather @#$%&. From Wakefield to Birmingham is approximately 110 miles. (according to Mapquest) for £35 (round trip?) it seems like a bargain.

if you were to do something similar here, say from Washington DC to Philadelphia, (140 miles) it would cost $149 to do the round trip by the cheapest train fares. Of course, not THAT many people take the train, but...


But to drive, that's barely a 2-3 hour drive depending on traffic. Most Americans would just drive and catch a hotel overnight.

Americans catch hotels ? Don't American hotels stay in one place ? I now have visions of herds of motels racing across the prairies, pursued by cowboys whirling lariats.

Only you, Skiffle, only you! LOL

Didn't you know that they also have a little something called 'running with hotels' - a whole bunch of hotels are released in a stampede and onlookers are free to run with them...rather scary, really...motels especially can be vicious when provoked (by waving 'book 5 days get a weekend free' flyer in front of them)

See, it's not only me !

Skiffle, granted, but look at what she calls herself! <grin>

Dave: I agree with Carla. Not found a good website for booking train tickets.

I won't ask why you want a single but to return the same day. It's getting too complicated for me...
Have you tried asking for a day return ? They are often @#$%& than singles. Don't ask...

the price of a single was down on the site as £7.50 if you book 7+ days in advance. So 2x singles would be £15.

But they reckon there were none left.

boo. Thought about a hotel, but then that's just extra money...

Ah well, might just drive.

Thing is, there's only limited number of @#$%& tickets avaliable to buy beforehand, and quite often they sell out almost months in advance. Although I guess I'm spoilt, railcards give you 1/3rd off, I've probably saved the cost of it about 3 times already and it's only a couple of months old. For booking, try www.virginrail.co.uk, but as far as I know, all the different sites are selling from the same booking system, so they'll all be the same price and have the same tickets.
And I quite like them new trains, they're very shiney, and when I went up to leeds at the weekend they were no more than 10 mins late, all that went wrong was one set of outside doors refused to work, but then it's only 6' to the next set.



.

Oh, yes, they're shiny all right ... but the number of seats is seriously reduced from the old stock, the idea being they would run more but shorter trains .... course our knackered network can't actually cope with more trains, so the plan kind of fell down there.

The virginrail site ticket purchase section is in fact the same site as the trainline ... it just looks different.

Dave; I've tried looking for sneaky moves to avoid Virgin, such as changing at Leicester, but this falls down by not having any decent return times. Sorry.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

using [www.railtrack.co.uk] and going to timetables, I found a day return for £33 - any good?

I usually ring the train company direct, get a price and then ask them for their best price - after hysterical laughter from their end, they usually find a price lower than the one they initially quoted - never take the first price offered, 9 times out of 10 after further discussion they can better it.

I always go off the net, but then being a transport person I know the right questions to ask. I also know there are very few enquiry staff know how to use the fares manual properly.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

If you can get to a station in the Centro area quite cheaply, then they're normally @#$%& within that zone - so you might save by splitting it up a bit. Not sure if this helps though, as websites are too dumb for that.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

thanks everyone. I'm just going to bite the bullet and go for it. Not often you get to see some International cricket, drink copious amounts of beer and stuff.

I'll not invite you on my stag do Dave, approx £280 per person + beer money, having said that there are 21 of us going (didn't think I was so popular!!)

can I just send you a card instead?