Britt Rail, Rail Pass and Oyster Card questions

You need to distinguish between a Railcard and a rail pass.

" Britrail" is a train pass, like a Eurail Pass but exclusive to the U.K. Probably not a good value for you, with so few rail trips.

The TwoTogether railcards might be useful, but may not pay for themselves (£30 last time we bought one, but I did not check current prices). It will give you 30% off two tickets on any of the National Rail services. But if you buy your London to Edinburgh tickets far enough ahead to get the Advance fares, that 30% discount savings with the Two Together card would be less than £30. Maybe the return to Macclesfield would make it up. You will have to "do the math".

As for Oyster cards, with 5 days in London and a group of four, you might consider 7-day Travelcards to cover all your transport, and then make use of the 2-4-1 offers on many London attractions. Do you know about this?

I have not considered the travel card, but I will, I am looking to save the most money. I want to be able to travel between zones 1-9 since the flat we are staying at is closest to Elephant and Castle tube station. I want to make sure we can get where we want when we want in London, our days really look like we have 4 1/2 days in London.
It just looked like the oyster card was the easiest to use.

A travel card is just as easy to use as an Oyster card, IMO, and you do not have to figure out how much to load onto it. You do need to buy it at a window and bring a passport-size photo for each person. The 2-4-1 deals can save you a lot.

Why zones 1-9? That would be expensive with a Travelcard, but I don't know about Oyster. Elephant and Castle tube station is in Zone 1 and most London attractions are within Zones 1 and 2.

I highly recommend the site www. seat61.com -- a train enthusiast started this years ago, and now it's a business (he gets a cut on tickets you might purchase through his links to Virgin trains, British Rail, etc). I have found his tips to be so unbelievably helpful, I now book my tickets through him, exclusively.

If he doesn't have an answer to your question, there, he'll find it and get back to you!

Susan
Expat living in Waterville, Ireland

Thank you all very much! Not understanding the zones seems to be my biggest issue. I just need to travel by bus from the elephant and castle tube to our flat we are renting. Then we are wanting to go back into London to see all the major sites of downtown, we are wanting to see the Arsenal stadium and we have theartre tickets for one evening. so if all of that is in zone 1-2 I will get the travel card.

I just looked up train tickets for my Macclesfield to London, London to Edinburgh and Edinburgh to Macclesfield. So they are for sale but not the advanced tickets, just the off peak. And the seat reservations are unavailable. Am I trying to book to early? Want to start travel on June 4.