Purchasing Train Tickets in Advance

Others are much more experienced than I at this, but I did purchase tickets for trains from London to Bath and returning by another route along with a ticket to Manchester for last Fall. It worked really well. The Bath tickets were to be collected from a kiosk which I was pretty sure would not work without a chip and pin credit card. It did not work, but collecting at the ticket window with my reservation printout was quite easy. The trip to Manchester on Virgin had me print the actual ticket at home which was fine, just showed it at the barrier when I headed out to board.

Purchasing ahead of time was much cheaper for my journeys.

Tammie,

I do 90% of my ticket purchases ahead of time if possible. And i try to do it as far out as the site will let me.

What ive found booking my train travels so far is that its less expensive to do it that way. On my trip from Brussels to Libramont, the ticket taker told me they had a special going on that week for about half of what i paid ahead of time, but it was too late.

On my trip from Koln to Remagen i didnt buy a return ticket since they were not available via the web. I figured with the smaller town and less traffic there it wouldnt be a problem.

happy trails.

Thank you both! I'll definitely book ahead once we nail down our plans. Oh, and so your print out from the website doesn't serve as a ticket? I'll keep that in mind.

I hope to avoid it, but if you get to the station late and don't have time to get the ticket, can you board the train and show the conductor/ticket inpector the receipt and be okay - I know this works for Italian trains, but haven't used the UK rail system before.

I also buy tickets in advance to get the best prices - that's especially important for the longer trips and I would consider the ones you mentioned longer trips. This website is very helpful for advice on how to buy - http://www.seat61.com/

I will also say that I had no trouble collecting tickets from the machines even though I hadn't used a chip and pin card (and this was everywhere from London King's Cross to the tiny station in Haltwhistle in Northumberland). I wouldn't count on being able to show a receipt instead of a ticket though, so I think you should plan on getting to the train station early enough to speak with an agent if necessary.

The print out from Virgin Trains was the actual ticket. The print outs from SW Trains and First Great Western were not tickets and had to be collected at the station.

"Posted by Tammie
Portland, OR
Posts: 16
03/04/14 05:56 PM

Thank you both! I'll definitely book ahead once we nail down our plans. Oh, and so your print out from the website doesn't serve as a ticket? I'll keep that in mind.
I hope to avoid it, but if you get to the station late and don't have time to get the ticket, can you board the train and show the conductor/ticket inpector the receipt and be okay - I know this works for Italian trains, but haven't used the UK rail system before."

I will try obtaining my tickets using the various methods the ticket merchants offer. I do this to broaden my knowledge for future travel, to see whats easy to do and for fun. you can do as you like.

in my limited experience traveling overthere i found that if the PDF or whatever file you get will have some type of info stating its a ticket or not. If there is a barcode of sometype on the document, then it is probably a ticket. I always read the documents sent to verify if its a ticket or not and to verify the travel info.

happy trails.

If you have a collection receipt and not a print at home ticket then you must collect the ticket, otherwise you will be treated as someone travelling without a ticket. The only exception is if the collection system is down st you departure station when they would endorse your printout for travel. This has happened to me once in the 15 years or so that it has been possible to book online.

Tammie, I have never had any issues purchasing train tickets ahead of time. On our last trip to the UK we went London - Inverness, Inverness - Edinburgh, Edinburgh - Royston and Royston - London. We saved quite a bit purchasing tickets ahead of time and we were able to pick up all of our tickets at Kings Cross station in London at the begining of our journey.

Thanks everyone, you've been very helpful!

We just did it today. London to York in May round trip. The total for two was 58 pounds, if we had waited until May would have been 189. pounds a person. So if you can do it and know your plans by all means book ahead. The National Train website takes a little time, you need to set up an account but after that it goes pretty fast.

May I jump in and add a UK train question --- we are going to buy an advance ticket from Gatwick to York. It appears to me from the website that the ticket will be good on a number of trains, so that if our flight from the US is late and we miss the train we have bought the ticket for, we can just get on a later train. Has anyone had any experience with this situation?

Mary

Advance tickets are valid only for the specific day and time of departure.
If you miss the start of the journey your ticket is void.

Advance tickets from Manchester Airport are valid for a period after the booked service on TransPennine Express. This is a concession not made by operators at Gatwick.

You can buy other types of tickets online which would be valid over a range of times, but these have no cash advantage over being bought on the day, although you can get a seat reservation included.