Navigating the Scotrail ticket purchases

I don't think the Advance tickets are on sale yet for your dates https://www.scotrail.co.uk/tickets/advance

If you look at 29 August it's £38.40 for two adults from Edinburgh to Inverness. If you're only doing those two journeys a railcard may not be worth it.

Wow! So, if the advance ticket pricing is that good, we probably won't have to hassle with getting a railcard (only to be used this one time). Will check the website again next week. I read that they post the advance ticket sales on Thursdays.

Scotrail are posting advance tickets 8 weeks before travel, supposedly on a daily basis, so that should be in about 3 weeks time.

I know other sources say different things but that is the official release schedule.

Yes the advance fares are outstanding value, even if they have substantially increased in price since Covid. You will find that certain trains in the day get the best fares. BC there used to be £5 return advance fares each way.

If that is the only train journey you are doing, absolutely a railcard is not going to pay it's way- it will cost £30 and only save you just under £26.

If you are open to travelling earlier outwards and on your return there are a number of through trains a day to and from Edinburgh.

In September you might even get advance fares cheaper than that.

By the way, and for the record, if you want a physical railcard issued at the station that should take no more than 10-15 minutes if you have passport style (but not passport standard) photos with you and the Pdf of the form filled in ready.

You can no longer have a physical railcard mailed to overseas addresses, but can opt to have a digital railcard on your phone which is issued instantly.

The value of the card will all depend on the price of the tickets that you don't know yet, and whether you will do other trips. Based on what you have written it looks like the cards wouldn't be worth it for you.

If tickets don't go on sale until 8 weeks before travel dates, why am I able to see advance tickets for Arline's itinerary? What am I missing?

I'm looking to buy tickets mid-Sept from Edinburgh to York & back, so I'm interested in knowing whether the prices I see for our dates are valid, or whether I need to wait until 8 weeks before our travel dates.

Also, the RS guidebook says to buy well in advance for the best fares, so any help reconciling these seeming inconsistencies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Marie

If tickets don't go on sale until 8 weeks before travel dates, why am I able to see advance tickets for Arline's itinerary? What am I missing? I'm looking to buy tickets mid-Sept from Edinburgh to York & back, so I'm interested in knowing whether the prices I see for our dates are valid, or whether I need to wait until 8 weeks before our travel dates. Also, the RS guidebook says to buy well in advance for the best fares, so any help reconciling these seeming inconsistencies would be greatly appreciated.

There are several things to unpack here.
1. Any guidebook goes out of date. Rick's advice to purchase 'well ahead' [at 10 to 12 weeks] was sound, and sometimes still is. But during Covid the UK rail industry moved on. Some operators still do (inconsistently) publish 12 weeks ahead (and a recent case was found at nearly 16 weeks) but most are now on 8 weeks, due to network rail not publishing engineering plans in time. But conversely some operators allow advance fares up to 5 minutes ahead. Today, for instance, it was impossible to pay full fare from Newcastle to Carlisle because advance fares were available on every train until minutes before departure.
How Rick conveys that succinctly in new editions I don't know.
Quite frankly Man in Seat 61 is understandably also finding it hard to explain the current situation clearly. His words are probably the best short sentence available.
2. Throughout September from Monday to Friday the prices and times EDI-York will be valid, as LNER is one of the better operators.
For the weekends they are NOT. Neither the fares or the times are valid as there is engineering work on- on the second weekend (16-17 September) it is between Berwick and Newcastle. Those times and fares are officially due for release on 24 July. What is in the system now can best be described as a "dogs dinner". Broadly the times at least are valid for Cross Country (the fares maybe right, maybe not), the times for Trans Pennine, LUMO and LNER are not. Many trains are in there which will categorically not run as shown. Some LNER will be diverted on a much longer route via Carlisle and Hexham, and some replaced by bus- probably between Edinburgh and Newcastle, but maybe between Berwick and Newcastle. What TPE does is anyone's guess.
3. As for Arline's itinerary the times are valid as far as is known this far out.. But the only advance fare on sale is for the daily LNER train from London to Inverness.
£52.40 single and £61.40 return are full price Scotrail fares. Eight weeks out the advance fares as stated will (or should) magically appear. If Arline wants to book Advance fares now then she has to travel out on the 1633 LNER from Edinburgh and return on the 0755 LNER from Inverness. That would be very ill advised, but if Arline wishes to do that it is her choice.

I too am doing train travel through Scotland in September. I had thought about starting a thread with questions, then I came across this thread.
My husband and I plan on buying on the 2 together card. It should reduce fares by 1/3, including any fares that are advance purchase and/or off-peak times.I should add, I think the 2 together card will be advantageous for us because we are planning on visiting 2 additional cities by train, one city as a day trip from Edinburgh, and needing to return to Edinburgh for our flight home.

When I looked at the Scotrail website, they were anticipated engineering shut-downs. We plan on traveling Sept 16 to Fort William from Edinburgh. It was difficult to understand if this particular line would be impacted.

Also, it appeared as if we could buy advance tickets, today, but not reserve the exact the train time. Meaning, there were several train times that had the same price, but we weren't reserved for any specific one. The website said that they are currently listing advance fares with reservations as far as out as September 1. Again, I might be wrong.

My question involves downloading the tickets to my phone. Since I will not have data while traveling, the website said I could download anywhere there is wifi. I figured I would be doing all my advanced ticketing at home, so no biggie. Will the downloads come in as a picture? So at the the station all I have to do is bring up a bar code? I'm trying to imagine how this works.

Another question: I never use public, not password protected, wifi. I'm assuming the hotels/guest houses have password protected wifi. Is this a valid assumption? Just in case I want to buy additional tickets for side trips.

Thank you.

Seems as if my original query has been somewhat hijacked by others. Thank you to those of you that responded to my post.

If we are interested in seeing more advance purchase releases for our date in September, it looks like we have to wait until around July 26th, which would be the 8 week mark to see if more advanced ticket sales are posted. I currently only see one for a time that does not work for us.

We are pretty set on the train times I listed in my original post and would prefer to travel 1st class since it's a 3+ hr trip and at our age, being comfy and less stressed about getting a seat makes it more enjoyable. Honestly, I have travelled extensively and am really having a hard time deciphering Scotrails website. Not very user friendly IMO.

@ take the time- I have moved your query to a new thread as otherwise it all gets very confusing both for the OP and for any future readers- you now have a new thread here- https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/scotland/scotrail-ticket-purchases-in-september

Also if you originate a thread the answers are automatically e-mailed to you, if you have set that account setting.

My apologies arlinevg. I didn't mean to hijack your post. My enthusiasm got the best of me when I saw a fellow traveler trying to decipher the rail websites. I hope you have a wonderful trip!

Thanks isn31c, I found the new thread and your reply.

Success! Waited until today and the advance purchase tickets had become available. Great advice on having us wait a bit before purchasing!

Originally, the tickets for first class were, one way, 78.60 pounds pp. They were on sale today for 48.90 pounds pp. Limited # of seats available at that pricing. So.......I snagged our tickets to Inverness and return to Edinburgh immediately. Yay! Thanks for the good intel.

-Arline

Good, pleased you're booked now, at a price that suits you.