Question on buying tickets via CrossCountryTrains website

If 4 of you want to sit together round a table only two of you can have window seats.

Would it be best to not select a seat preference at all?

We are buying 3 months in advance, so I will choose no seating preference. Thank you

If your entire journey is on Cross Country Trains, then it should be OK to book ahead for the best deal. However, buyer beware as if journey involves another train company, you may not get the best deal. For example Bristol to York would be entirely on Cross Country but from nearby Bath is not.

If you say what journey you are taking and the date and expected price, then someone should come back and tell you if it is a good deal or not and if not, how to get the price down.

Good to know about other train companies being more expensive. Are you aware of any expensive train companies with the following journeys?:
1) Oxford -> York
2) York -> Shrewsbury
3) Shrewsbury -> Oxford
4) Oxford -> Bath
5) Bath -> London

actually crosscountry is one of the more expensive. The real problem is that all the operators offer discounted advance booking tickts on their own routes but often fail to link up with others where a change of train is needed, so if you ask for a through ticket you will only be quote dthe more expensive flexible price.

That is a statement which is somewhat devoid of subtlety of facts. Cross Country often have very cheap Advance Fares. In fact looking at the Fares Manual the cheapest through Advance (train specific) fares from Shrewsbury to Oxford as an example are set by Cross Country as 'XC and Connections fares.
However another and more scenic route from Shrewsbury to Oxford is via/changing at Hereford. Although there isn't a through Advance Fare on that route it is actually sometimes cheaper than via Birmingham as a split fare- £9.20 Shrewsbury to Hereford hourly and as low as £13 Hereford to Oxford every 2 hours, depending how far ahead you book- on that £13 fare you also change at Worcester Foregate Street (in theory, but not always, same platform- the station only has 2 platforms).
Likewise the cheapest fare (but longer journey) from Bath to London is often to travel to London Waterloo (not Paddington) changing at Salisbury.
York to Shrewsbury- the cheapest route (but longer journey time) is often York to Leeds, Leeds to Chester (hourly through Northern train), Chester to Shrewsbury. If changing at Manchester you often have to transfer on the free bus from Manchester Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly, although there is an hourly train which calls at both Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly. At Piccadilly on that train you change from the remote Platform 13 into the main train shed.
Sometimes on the Manchester Piccadilly to Shrewsbury train the cheapest fare (surprisingly) is 1st class, not standard class- on the every 2 hours trains which have 1st class.

Depending on the makeup of the family you should look into buying either 2x Two Together Railcards, or a Family and Friends Railcard (£35) each to save 33% off all fares for travel after 0930 weekdays/anytime weekends

My advice for you as a visitor would be to just buy the family and friends or 2 together railcard and use any site to buy the tickets. Yes, there are ways to save money but it’s actually quite complicated to navigate unless you know the routes well.

I always buy my train tickets using the Uber app. It will show splits that save money and it’s fine to buy these. It’s a strange feature of the ticketing pricing structure that sometimes it’s cheaper to complete one journey with 2 tickets instead of 1.

I am not sure why you are going through Oxford twice? I am guessing that you are landing at a London airport and heading to Oxford first? It might be easier to do your trip as:>
Oxford > Bath; *Bath > Shrewsbury; Shrewsbury > York; York > London (Kings Cross).

• Whether sticking to your original plan or not, if going between Bath and Shrewsbury, suggest you go via Newport to change trains. That being so, as Newport is only 15 minutes from Cardiff, you might like to consider adding the Welsh capital to your itinerary? Cardiff has direct trains to/from Shrewsbury plus direct services to/from Bath hourly. (No need to change at Newport).

You have been told that splitting the ticket can lower the price of getting from a to b in some instances.https://www.traintickets.com/?/ is a good website for finding ‘splits’ - though they do charge a commission on the amount saved. (National Rail do not tell you about such ‘splits’. Suggest you test out the site for journeys about 8 weeks ahead from now for the advance fares and the times of each journey.

XC may have really low Advance fares in the manual, most companies do, it doesn't mean they always get released to the public or in any quantity. Especially with their restrictive pricing through the midlands

I've used the low advance fares before on quite a few occasions, they are widely available- usually on the trains that start northbound at Bristol, rather than on the ones which come from Penzance or Plymouth. Lots of oddities about them, like often cheaper to split fares at Wolverhampton or Stafford rather than Birmingham- which suits me fine as I'm not a huge fan of changing at Birmingham New Street, now it's split into the zones. They seem to have come in to more widespread use maybe 18 months ago. I've suddenly become re-acquainted with Stafford after many years, because it's often the same on Avanti now- much cheaper to London to split and change at Stafford rather than Crewe.

And I'm sat looking at a journey from Cumbria to East Anglia where the cheapest fare by a long way is on East Midlands/XC via Manchester rather than on LNER via Leeds or even Avanti/Greater Anglia via London as I had expected. Such a large difference there is no real choice- and I've checked it for numerous dates. Not sure when that came to be as LNER via Leeds (and Avanti a close second) was the best when I last looked at the journey a year ago. I'm more than surprised, and a little bit disappointed.

TfW might, theoretically, at odd moments have 1st class Advance cheaper than Standard Class, so do others.

Not at odd moments, and not theoretically. It's a fairly frequent occurrence, including one time last year when I got a crazy cheap 1st class Advance from Crewe to Cardiff at 18 hours notice. I wasn't expecting to find Advance in either class, but had to change long booked plans at the last moment. If first class isn't there you are supposed to be able to get the difference refunded- not sure how you do that when it is less to start with. And yes I am far too familiar with the train substitutions, or no chef being available if the right trains are there- that happened twice last week for me with the correct train, but no chef so a different menu.

Lads lads lads. I am sure there are specialist train forums where you can enjoy getting into this level of detail together. It doesn’t help the average traveller. In fact it confuses them unnecessarily.

Thank you all for taking the time to write this detailed information.