BritRail Pass vs. last minute ticket purchases for a family

Looking for this Wednesday-
London to Hereford £59 for the family on the direct 0952 train from Paddington
Hereford to Conwy £101.40;
Conwy to Penrith for Keswick £207.60 (with a bit of thought I could get that down a lot, it looks way higher than you need to pay even so close to travel);
Penrith to York £79.50. Likewise that feels high. That should come down with a bit more thought, to around £50.
York to London £123.60

Total £570 say $680.

So that is $300 to spread between the other 3 days.

That is debatable if you would do that.

Your choice.

Something to remember is that you don’t need to book trains in advance at all. Trains in this country never sell out so you can be totally flexible and just decide on the day what time you want to travel.

I think that the previous post addressed cost differences very well. Your post did cause me to wonder. You know your itinerary, and you have probably made hotel reservations. It is one thing to say you want to be flexible, but how flexible can you be realistically? Any major changes in your plans will require finding new lodging for a family of 4 during peak season.

My suggestion would be to do advance purchase on the major trips between cities when moving from one base to another and then do last minute ticket purchases when day trips are decided on.

Another thing to consider is the Family and Friends Railcard.
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-offers/promotions/family-friends-railcard/

The Family & Friends railcard costs £30 and gives you 1/3rd of all rail fares for adults and 60% for children. So the figures Stuart gave in the first post would be greatly reduced for tickets bought at short notice or even more for any you can plan in advance. The only restriction is that you can't start a journey with the railcard before 9.30am on weekdays in London & the South East or for first class travel.

Thanks to everyone for their helpful responses!

isn31c-- I've been trying to do this, too- to add up individual tickets and see what possible totals would be. Thanks for chipping in your knowledge about which prices seem reasonable and which seem on the high-side for what I could get.

Helen-- Thank you for the encouragement!

Carol now retired-- Good point! We do have reservations, so we're locked in date-wise, but we don't want to feel pressured as to what time we'd leave one place for another. If we feel like we've done all we want to do, we don't want to have to hang around, and on the other hand, if we've found something really fun, we don't want to rush through it.

Johnew52-- Thanks for the additional information on the Family and Friends railcard. That's definitely worth looking into!

I did a quick and dirty exercise this morning, just looking at the through on the day fares.
What I meant by getting the fares down is that we have now have new ultra short notice advance fares bookable in some cases until 5 minutes before travel.
So Keswick to York I would look at short notice advance fares Penrith to Carlisle, Carlisle to Leeds or Newcastle, Newcastle or Leeds to York.
Sometimes Newcastle is the cheapest route, sometimes Leeds. With my railcard I can do West Cumbria to York via Newcastle for under £15 with a railcard, booking a few days ahead, and have.
Also rather than bus to Penrith and train Penrith to Carlisle you can bus Keswick to Carlisle direct for the same fare of £2 each. That 554 service is newly improved in frequency.
Conwy to Penrith if you book about 2 weeks ahead you can normally get that for about £20 to £25 each, as low as £15 each with a railcard, if you book it correctly.
Not withstanding that I am positive that the £200 short notice family fare Conwy to Penrith can be reduced on the day using the same basic tricks as Penrith to York-before any railcard reductions.
With a £30 family railcard that £200+ fare becomes £117.50 for instance.

Thanks, isn31c! That additional information is very helpful. Whenever I look at train travel, all the different moving parts can get a bit overwhelming, so thanks for breaking things down a bit more for me.

On a side note, traveling around by train is one of things my family is most looking forward to. When I asked my teenager what she wanted to do on our trip, she said, "Trains and castles." :)

BTW your other post about wool has just prompted me to look back at the Conwy to Penrith fare. It is now Midnight Saturday UK time. Looking for Monday morning I can see Conwy to Warrington Advance Fares for all 4 of you for £48.60 (1024 train) then Warrington to Penrith for £67.50. = £112.10 so a £100 saving against the through unrestricted fare.

Surely worth booking ahead for that level of saving.

I can't promise those exact fares on the day for you, but you get the drift.

Apply the £30 family railcard savings and that becomes£ £27.40 + £38.20= £65.60 so on that journey alone the railcard has paid for itself.

Thanks again, isn31c! I certainly would appreciate the savings. More money to apply to a different part of the trip! :) And thank you in general for all your helpful posts elsewhere as well about the Lake District. We won't get to be there for as long as we would like, but it's probably the place my husband and I are most looking forward to, and your posts about transportation, hiking, and places to see have made the dreaming and the planning even more fun and specific. :)

When you are staying in Hereford, consider taking a day trip by train to Ludlow and Shrewsbury. It is the same line that you would travel on when going to Conwy. Whether you would wish to take a look at these places on the way to Conwy is up to you - bearing in mind that you will have baggage with you*. (Shrewsbury is 1 hour N of Hereford & Ludlow about 25 minutes).
* An advance specific train ticket from Hereford to Conwy will not let you hop on/off.

Paying on the day at Hereford station for return tickets to Shrewsbury is £23.40 (£15.40 Railcard price) each. At least 1 train an hour in each direction - so hop off at Ludlow either northbound or southbound from Shrewsbury - or just go as far as Ludlow for less if desired.

Chester is another place worth seeing. (You pass through Chester when going from Hereford to Conwy or Conwy to Keswick).
https://www.visitengland.com/things-to-do/chester

If you took up James' suggestion of Chester on your way to Keswick it wouldn't cost an awful lot more in train fares.

Looking now (Sunday 11am) for tomorrow Monday- on Flexible Singles Conwy to Chester and Chester to Warrington Bank Quay the total is £55.70 (£38.60 + £17.10), but advance fares are still available at a total of £30.90 (£22.50 + £8.40) .

There is a Stasher at the Queen's Hotel, Chester (right outside the station entrance) and for a family day ticket of £30 (or £33 for 2 days) there is an open top HoHo bus which goes round Chester every half an hour- from right outside the station. The children especially would probably enjoy that. This is Chester, not London, as regards the efficiency of a HoHo.

While in Keswick, rather than paying the £2 single bus fares each time for each of you it may pay to buy a North West Gold 7 Day Group MegaRider (on the Stagecoach app or on the first bus) for £70, depending on how long you are here and how many buses you plan to use. To show how good value that is the North West Group Explorer for 1 day costs £33. So the weekly pays itself off on the first bus of Day 3.

That covers all Stagecoach buses in Cumbria (Cumberland and Westmorland), and to Dumfries, Newcastle and Chester (not a journey you would want to do, it takes a long old time).

Thank you, James and isn31c, for the suggestions of places to visit and the additional transportation info. :) So many interesting places to visit!

To get from Hereford to Hay, you need Bus T14 - see >https://traws.cymru/en/services

If you don’t mind being longer on buses and wish to see more countryside, you could stay on this bus all the way to Brecon. Wander around Brecon for an hour or so and then take Bus X43 to Abergavenny. Have a look at Abergavenny and then take Stagecoach bus 23 back to Hereford. Note that the 23* is usually every other hour and it takes an hour to get back to Hereford. Alternatively, walk for about 14 minutes from Abergavenny bus station to the rail station on the SE side of town and catch a train back to Hereford - which takes around 24 minutes and the frequency is greater than the bus. * Be sure it is going to Hereford and not south.

Check the schedules to see if the above triangular shaped route works out for you. (You may well have had enough of the bus by the time you get to Hay).

1 way walk up adult rail fare from Abergavenny to Hereford is £9 with a Railcard. Also note, that as long as one of the adults is paying the full non railcard fare, that children up to 16th birthday travel free on Transport for Wales Trains. Also note that you should retain your tickets to get 2 for 1 at some historic buildings - such as Conwy Castle. See >https://tfw.wales/ways-to-travel/rail/savings-and-offers/kids-go-free

James, thank you for all the great tips! That sounds like an easy and enjoyable way to get to see more of the area.