I am going to Scotland in July with a group of 9. We are looking at whether we should buy our train tickets in advance or at the station. We are doing a round trip from Edinburgh to Inverness. We would take the train on day 1 and return on day 4. When I look at advanced purchase, it often has less the 9 tickets left. Also, because they are nonrefundable and we don't know the exact times yet, I wasn't sure about doing advance purchase.
Posted by
Isle of Skye, Scotland
1111 posts
Advance purchase tickets are cheaper because they restrict you to a particular train. That's just the way it is. So you either decide on your train time and stick to it, or you buy a more expensive ticket that gives greater flexibility.
Scotrail offers a few different discounts for groups. Check here for details. Scotrail
Posted by
Oxford, United Kingdom
5326 posts
Buying on the day the return fare after 9:15 would be £67.30 each. Is this worth the flexibility for you? With such a large party I'd be looking into the group booking arrangements though.
Posted by
1855 posts
My family and I purchased non-refundable advance tickets from INVERNESS to Edinburgh and never regretted it. It locked us into a time-slot and saved us a lot of money. We did the same to Oban.
Also, check prices on train times. We discovered for some reason unknown to us that a 7:15 am train was a lot cheaper than the earlier train right before and the train right after around 9 am or so.
So, look at the different time slots as well.