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Rail Pass

Will be in London for 5 days, 3 of which will be spent wondering around London so know that I have to get an Oyster card and understand that purchasing an Oyster card in London is better that purchasing a Visitor Oyster card because I can get a refund of any unused money. That said, now comes my dilemma. We are 2 couples travelling together and the other couple is 60+. 1 day we need to take the train from Paddington Station to Moreton-in-Marsh to pick up a tour of the Cotswold and the other day we plan to travel by train, again from Paddington Station (very close to our hotel) to Windsor Castle and Bath. Not sure what train line we should use. Is a travel card worth getting for these train trips or is there another option for us? This forum has been very helpful in the past so thank you all in advance for your advice.

Posted by
2482 posts

You don’t have to get an Oyster card. If your bank card offers contactless payment you can use that, or you can use Apple Pay or Google Pay on a phone. But if you don’t have those services, Oyster is the way to go.

For rail travel outside London, the cost of a railcard is probably not worth it for the few journeys you have planned. What you should do is all have four people buy tickets together. Then the group will qualify for a Groupsave Discount

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/pr354fdc0a0400020101fea1769fbf60.aspx

The next issue is to understand ticket types. The cheapest are called Advance and go on sale about 12 weeks before your date of travel. This type of ticket would be worth booking for the London to Bath and London to Moreton in Marsh trips. For London to Windsor you can get more flexible Off-Peak or Anytime tickets, either online or at the station on the day.

Use the national rail site to plan, and the site will direct you the appropriate train company to buy tickets.

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/default.aspx

Posted by
5309 posts

Note that you do not see Groupsave fares unless you put in the total number of adults into the booking engine for a single transaction. This might sound obvious but I have known people who buy 3 or 4 tickets in separate transactions and then wonder what happened to the discount.

Also note that if you are going to Bath via Windsor in one trip you have to change at Slough to get to the latter first, and onwards at Slough again and Reading. as Windsor is not on the main line. Might eat up more time than you think.