St Paul 2for1 by National Rail ticket cancellation?

It looks like one of the conditions is you must show your train tickets as well as the offer voucher/code etc.
So you may lose the offer.
See FAQs and T&Cs here :
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/days-out-guide/frequently-asked-questions/

I emailed St Paul’s but haven’t heard back yet. I expect they probably won’t be able to offer a refund. So I’m thinking another option might be to buy train tickets for our family (2 adults and 2 tweens) just to qualify for the 2for1 offer. Could anyone please advise on the cheapest train tickets I could purchase in order to validate the 2for1 promotion? This would be for our visit in August and we wouldn’t actually be using the train tickets for travel, only for the offer. TIA!

Where are you travelling from?

LHR. We are thinking now maybe to get round trip tickets LHR - Paddington.

I used a train ticket to get the 2 for 1 offer for a castle and the voucher was not required. Indeed, the booklet with the vouchers can be hard to acquire as many stations run out - so I would not worry about that.

Thank you, James. I have purchased St. Paul's tickets last night.

Use the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow, buying paper tickets. Those are National Rail tickets.
The cheapest honest train ticket, which does not breach the Community Guidelines of this forum is a paper ticket from Blackfriars to City Thameslink - the closest National Rail station. Per mile it is also the most expensive train ticket in the UK.
Granted, if checked, it is an unusual journey but also an honest one.

I would just buy a return train ticket to London to allow me to use the voucher. You don’t have to use the train ticket.

If having a paper train ticket - I would retain it to have as proof. Do not put it into a ticket exit gate - see staff at gate and tell them you wish to keep the ticket(s).

Blackfriars to City Thameslink

that's a bit cheeky.

The walk from City Thameslink to St Pauls is the same distance (0.2 miles) as the purported train trip taking our guests into town from Blackfriars to City Thameslink (also 0.2 miles). If I were on the ticket desk and given them to show eligibility I just might raise an eyebrow....

For what it's worth, we did one of these 2-for-1 offers once and no one even asked to check our train tickets. I would just buy a ticket for the shortest journey you can if you are worried about it. Anywhere along the Thameslink would be fine (e.g. City Thameslink to Blackfriars as suggested above).

If you need the ticket just for that day, and not the rest of the time you are in London, you can buy your two tickets (online, at home) for Queenstown Rd. to Vauxhall. These are the least expensive tickets that follow the rules of the offer. Two, because both of you will need one for the offer. Each ticket will be £3.50 (called anytime day single, but you won't actually be using it).

I just did the same last month for the Tower of London, no issues. I pre-purchased them at home, as mentioned, and through the Greater Anglia website - simply because I have used that site in the past and they give you the option to immediately choose e-tickets, which we did. However, since I'm always one to worry "what if?" I also printed our tickets to have as hard copies. As another poster mentioned, though, they never asked to see ours at the Tower.

If you wanted to use these tickets for 241 offers the whole time you are in London, just buy your two Queenstown Rd. to Vauxhall tickets (inbound), set to start the day you arrive in London, and another two for Vauxhall to Queenstown Rd. (outbound) to coincide with the day you leave.

We have done that in the past and again, it worked well. We didn't need to last month, because all the other sites we visited, we arrived by train anyway (Bletchley Park, Hampton Court Palace) and used those train tickets, or the site wasn't part of the 241 offers (Windsor Castle, WB Harry Potter.)

Hope this helps.

Edited to add: I didn't read closely enough that there were four of you going. Of course, then each person will need their own train ticket. As to how much those tickets will run for your tweens, it depends on how old they are. Under 16 should get a 50% discount (I think, though I've never done so myself), so you might need to factor that in. At the very least, the two adults can use the 241 offer, even if it's not cost effective to use it for all four of you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the 241 offers will not be valid during the summer school break - end of June to the beginning of September. On the Days Out page, each specific attraction usually lists when the offers are not allowed.

joncatmantim1, thank you very much! That's very helpful information. We have two children and with 2for1, we also get a free child ticket which helps a lot.

isn31c thank you! We probably will use the Elizabeth Line.