train from Oxford to Edinburgh

Don't use the trainline, they are a 3rd party reseller and charge booking fees. Buy from the train operating company or if in doubt who that is use www.nationalrail.co.uk which will direct you to the correct site.

I don't think you would save any money by waiting - I checked some random dates 2-3 weeks earlier than your planned trip, and the prices were the same.

However, you can save a lot of money by split ticketing. For example, many of the routes from Oxford to Edinburgh have you changing trains at York, and it looks like a ticket from Oxford to York plus one from York to Edinburgh is often less than what they're charging from Oxford to Edinburgh. You can check the different split ticketing options manually at nationalrail.co.uk, or you can go to https://raileasy.trainsplit.com, which will check for you automatically. I am seeing some total fares as low as 49.95, although it depends exactly what time you want to travel.

The cheaper Advance tickets for 13 Sept are now in sale.

Oxford to Edinburgh from £35 http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

If you want an earlier train you may save by buying two separate Advance tickets - one from Oxford to Birmingham, the second from Birmingham to Edinburgh. But be aware that if you do this and the first train is late and you miss the second train, you will be left with a very expensive walk-up fare for the second train.

If you are travelling A - B - C and your A - B portion is late, you can travel B - C on the next train (on the same train company if your ticket has that restriction) provided the time allowed for the change is greater than the minimum connection time at that station, even if you hold separate tickets for each leg.

Don't dither on buying on this route as quotas on cross country trains are used up quickly.

The 35 pound fare is only available on one service, arriving in Edinburgh at 16:06, whereas NewZealand Rose specified that she wanted to be there earlier than that. There are a couple of 47 pound fares available on departures at 4:00 and 5:01 in the morning, if that's something you can stomach. But they both involve taking the slow train to London Paddington, then the tube over to Kings Cross, so the total travel time is quite long.

Marco can you explain that a bit more?

I would have thought with two separate Advance tickets, if you missed the second train (like two non connected flights) one would need to buy a new ticket.

Thank you all for your advice- I have gone ahead, paid the almost 300 pound and booked via National Rail -we will be there early afternoon.Looking forward to our visit. All comments above were much appreciated.

That’s a heck of a lot of money to pay when you could have left Oxford at 9.39 to arrive Edinburgh about 4pm for £35 each. I would also have booked direct with the train company = Cross Country Trains.http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/OXF/EDB/130916/0900/dep

(If you try and book beyond around 12 weeks ahead - you only get high prices as the cheaper `Advance purchase' tickets have not yet appeared on the system).

Thanks James but we needed to be in Edinburgh as early as possible and funnily enough the site redirected me to the Cross Country link you gave.

"I would have thought with two separate Advance tickets, if you missed the second train (like two non connected flights) one would need to buy a new ticket."

I suppose the answer is that rail and air have different rules. What I said is in "The Manual" produced by ATOC Fares and Retail Support.

It is different in connecting with Eurostar etc.

Marco is right.