Split Save tickets on Trainline for England Scotland

Have you checked what the fare is if you book directly with the train company? Trainline is a third party reseller which charges a commission.

On any big trip I always run my journey thru Train Split or Trainpal depending on my mood.Never had a problem with either.
I once asked a guard on my local service why a return to Nottingham (50miles away) was £1 cheaper than single, he just shrugged of and then said there are many many quirks in.the system

Yes, there are potential downsides. When there is service disruption Avanti often split the service at Preston. So if the Euston to Preston section is late or cancelled, but Preston to Glasgow runs on time you are buying a new ticket from Preston to Glasgow. That happened as recently as last week.
It is not Avanti's fault you weren't at Preston on time.
If you have a through ticket, for a few pounds more, you automatically travel on the next train.
If the split is between LNWR and Avanti at Crewe, which is the normal split, then you need to allow for late running of LNWR. I always allow a 1 hour window at Crewe if doing that

These companies tell you how they have done the split, then take a proportion of the split. If you insist on doing it you can book the split for yourself without that charge

These companies are just parasites, exploiting fare anomalies, charging you for the privilege and removing money from the railway system for their own private profits.

These split fare websites are not parasites. They are providing a useful service to the public who are being ripped off by the train companies. (Presumably they need the money to pay the wages of the millionaire train drivers - whose wages are in the top 10% in the UK). Indeed, Which - the Consumers Association recently did a report on the rip off train fares as supplied by the train companies.

Isn31c was a guard on the railways and his last company was Northen Trains. Let us test the system for a journey from Cardiff to Edinburgh on Wed 15 May departing at 9.30. I went on to https://www.northernrailway.co.uk and the site told me that I could depart Cardiff at 9.53am for a 6 hour 25 minute journey to Edinburgh for a whopping £229.80 with 1 change at Crewe. Northern also told me that I could depart Cardiff at 10.45am for a 7 hour 22 minute journey to Edinburgh (longer route) for £86.

Avanti West Coast only came up with trains priced at £227.80. (You would actually travel on their trains between Crewe & Edinburgh combined with TfW from Cardiff to Crewe).

Then I tested the same trip on Trainline and the price for the 9.53 departure is £75.30 plus a booking fee of £2.49 (Total £77.79) - which is a small price to pay compared to the £229,80 wanted by booking with any of the train companies. Of course, you could book direct with the train companies once the splits are known and save the fee charged by the split sites.

Regarding missed connections: if an earlier train fails to make a connection, you have the right to continue on next stage of journey - even with a different company. In the event of a dispute, you can go back to the ticket seller who will take up your case. You can also get compensation from the train company that made you late. This is called delay repay.

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/transport-user-advice/ is the organisation that protects the rights of the travelling public.

If you want to test out journeys for cheaper fares via split sites try:>
https://www.thetrainline.com
https://www.traintickets.com/?
/https://trainsplit.com

Some of the European official train websites can be fiddly to use. I tried using SNCF (French Railways) for a journey from Paris to Lyon and it did not clearly mark the prices for each service on initial look. Trainline.com did have each train clearly priced. What’s more, it showed me that the Italian High Speed Train (Frecarossa) was half the price of the SNCF trains whilst it was not even marked on the SNCF site - although it did show the cheaper Ouigo branded trains (old TGV’s) run by SNCF. (The Frecarossa was on the Paris to Milan run but I could have used for the French leg had I so desired).

The Guardian did a piece a while back and the UK had both the highest fares of similar countries and also the lowest fares if you had both the knowledge and patience to put it into practice.
I am a man of no patience ,and at the time each operators sites were of differing quality and different to navigate and set up payments on.

Thank you everyone for the interesting comments and opinions! It I booked direct with Northern Line it was triple the price. I went a head and booked the Split save with Trainline. It told me that I would not have to change trains and could stay in the same seat. I'll come back to this thread when I return and let you know how it went. Cross fingers. thanks again and it is an amazing service to get all these intelligent and knowledgeable replies.

The train companies are privately owned companies, not charities. If their own fare structures allow passengers to save money by booking certain tickets then that can in no way be conceived of as stealing.

Fabricating facts out of thin air about people's occupations about is not acceptable.

On any of these split ticket websites they will tell you how the split is done.

But without looking at that, just using common sense, knowing that the split could only be on Crewe or Manchester, the exact same fare can be found on Northern as on the split ticketing website. No surprise at all there. Likewise on any other train companies website.

None of these split ticket websites are charities either. They have no special fares, only public ones. They are highly profitable. And they get that by charging people for services they can get for free by making a little bit of effort.

They are abstracting revenue from the industry by taking the ticket sellers commission on tickets sold. That should go to a train company.

Avanti share advance tickets with some other companies, but not Transport for Wales.

Of course a website like Trainline is a private company. If they are offering a service that the train operators do not then it is fair enough that they are able to charge for this.

The train operators could offer the same service if they thought it would be profitable for them to do so.

Presumably if a split ticket has been bought for a Glasgow to London ticket it must be for the train that goes via Birmingham as the faster trains don’t stop at Crewe. So the journey will either be 1 hour + slower or will involve a change of trains at Crewe to save some time.

I am seeing Glasgow to London (Euston) come up on Trainsplit with a split at Preston to get the price down. The customer stays on the same Avanti train throughout & it takes the direct route. Where you have a service going via Birmingham, it is clearly marked.

The non split fares also come up on www.nationalrail.co.uk which then sends the customer through to the train company that set the fare for that route. The bonkers thing about my example of the Cardiff to Edinburgh fare is that Cross Country Trains are the fare setter even though, on the shortest/quickest route, you would not use their trains but travel on Transport for Wales to Crewe and then Avanti to Edinburgh. This all harks back to the old days when Cross Country were given the rights to set the fare - & that is the fare(s) that show up on all the train company websites - unless you use the split sites.

Goodness knows why the TfW & Avanti fares can’t be combined as the high fares put people off travelling by train. (I know of someone who drove from Carlisle to Cardiff & back because the fare was so high and they did not know about splitting the ticket at Crewe). TfW is run by the Welsh Government (Labour Party) so clearly they have failed to sort this matter out.

What foreigner is going to know about all this split stuff? So I say, well done to the split ticket websites and long may they continue being as the train company websites do not come up with the cheapest way of getting from a to b on may routes.

Funny enough, you can get even cheaper tickets on Trainline if you 'split save' yourself. For example buy a ticket from London to Doncaster and Doncaster to Edinburgh. Try out combinations and see what you come up with.
Two things about trainline though:
- They try to cheat you out of refunds. You have to call them sometimes to get one
- They charge you an extra few quid per booking

Don't forget to retain tickets with whoever you book with in the event of delays - so that you have proof of travel to claim delay repay.
Note that putting used tickets in slots at exit gates means you don’t see the ticket again. In such cases - see gateline staff and say you need to retain the ticket and they will open the gate to let you through.