purchasing train tkts in UK

I'm not surprised you're finding it hard work booking rail tickets in the UK, I live here and don't find it any easier!

The reason the tickets are not available yet is because they won't make any reservations until 3 months before the date of travel(you probably know that already).

As to whether you should go for the cheap ticket with 3 changes or the more expensive one with one change...I personally would pay the extra and have one change. There are several reasons why: the more trains you catch, the more chance there is that one of them will be delayed, throwing your whole journey out of whack; you will quite probably have to change platforms every time you change trains and that can mean hauling yourself and your luggage up and down a lot of steps; and thirdly, every time you get on a new train, you'll have to look for seats and sometimes that can be a real hassle.

So I would pay the extra and have (hopefully) a better journey.
Good luck!

I have been watching the NXEC website for tickets for months. As previously noted, they release tickets on Thursdays about 3 months in advance. However, they have only released discount tickets for the first weekend of June due to engineering work which will take place. They seem to be about 3 weeks behind schedule for release of discount tickets on weekends, so this Thursday they should release tickets for the weekend of June 14/15. Based on that, it should be another 3 weeks until they release discount tickets for the July 5/6 weekend. As you probably found, the discount tickets are significantly less expensive than the open tickets or 'day of' tickets.

Anyway, I would agree that fewer changes are better. Enjoy your trip.

I phoned NXEC again this morning and they said yes, tkts will be released again on Thursday. So that's obviously the day to look. It does involved 3 changes, but if the train is late and we miss 1 will we be able to travel on a later one?
Unfortunately we are travelling on a Sunday--can't be helped.
Tried to phone Cross Country to see what's going on, but no luck. My BC Tel operator checked the number, etc and said I couldn't call it from Canada. Their website is still showing tkts not released. That would be the 1 change, but I'm nervous to wait too long.
I'm thinking of phoning NXEC on Thursday and booking with cc over the phone.
Any advice?
Other than..........why didn't we buy a Britrail pass? Oh yeah, it seemed expensive at the time and now I've already booked Edinburgh to York and Eurostar to the Continent so no sense thinking about a Britrail pass now.

Technically, I think if one train is late causing you to miss your connection then they will allow you to travel on the next train if there is one, as long as it is all part of one journey i.e. you've bought a York-Bath ticket not three individual tickets for each leg of the journey. However I have never had to put this into practice. If they don't let you on a later train for free (ask at the ticket office before boarding the later train) then complain in writing sending copies of your tickets, including any new tickets purchased.

In general I've found that people are quite helpful at dealing with situations like late trains, missed connections and cancellations. Try to get on an early train so that if problems occur you have time to deal with them. Also at York, I have found that the people at the information desk can be unhelpful. If you do have any issues at York and they don't help you, queue up at the ticket office instead and ask someone there.

I think you'll have to wait until the tickets are released. If you look at July 6th right now (on the NXEC website), you can purchase tickets. However, they are fully refundable which is why they are so expensive. The discount price tickets haven't been released and won't be for July 6th for another couple of weeks (about 3 weeks from tomorrow by my estimation). I would suggest that you keep your eyes on the website to see when the tickets are released and buy them quickly after release.

The NXEC tkts have been released for the date we want.

York, King's Cross, Paddington, Bath.

How difficult is the KC to Paddington transfer?

This will be a Sunday.
We have 48 min.
Between 12 noon and 1 pm.
We each have 1 smallish (Rick would approve) sized wheeled bag and a day backpack.
Do you walk "under" and catch the City (pink) line? How far is the walk--do we have enough time?
Surely there are other travellers doing this as it's a train station as well as a tube station.

Our alternate plan is to wait for Cross country tkts to be released as they transfer in Bristol, but I don' really want to wait--they may be another 4 weeks, I want to be sure I get a price I can live with.

Thanks.