Top Deals From the Weekly Email
Train & Coach Deals
Read the email this appeared in
Whether it's by coach, train or bus, there are always a storm of deals to let you travel across the UK. Often if you know where to look you can get journeys of 100s miles for as little as £1.
This is a list of checked out deals, vouchers, and codes updated once a week that will enable you to cut your travel costs to the bone.
Yet these are just one-off promotions, it's also important you check out the Cheap Trains guide, full of cutting edge techniques to cut any journey’s cost. And if the worst comes to the worst there’s the Cheap Petrol guide too.
| Get 15% off any Red Funnel car ferry journey to or from the Isle of Wight when you book online; just enter the code LL999 on the booking page to get it. The discounted prices will be shown automatically on the next page. This is a strong offer as the code has no expiry date and is valid for any vehicle. |
||
 |
As fares normally start at £16 each way, with the discount you’ll be able to get a one way trip from £13.60, though it’s worth noting peak rates are more expensive. |
|
| The code’s valid on both single and return journeys. There’s no booking fee, but the discount can’t be used for foot passengers. The offer’s valid for any number of passengers on any date, and is only valid online. |
||
For its 15th Anniversary Eurotunnel is offering travellers the chance to go to France and back in a day for just £15 per car. To benefit from the offer, call the booking centre on 08705 700 800 and quote the code '15 years'. |
|
| The £15 return offer is only available if you are travelling on a Tues, Weds or Thurs between 17 Nov and 17 Dec. The trip must be leaving after 6am and returning before midnight that same day. You will not be able to book online or on the day of travel at check-in; and the booking must be made at least one day before you leave. Tickets are non-amendable and non-refundable. |
 |
The offer will last until all the cheap tickets run out, so book quickly! See Eurotunnel for more info, or go to the Eurotunnel £15 deal forum discussion. |
| You can get 50% off Southern’s standard class off-peak single and return tickets when you buy your tickets online. Available discounted tickets will be highlighted by a red asterisk, with the discount deducted automatically. All dates are bookable, and the promotion runs until Tues 15 Dec. |
||
 |
Though the discount’s officially available for journeys to and from any destination on the Southern network, with no set quota for the number available, quite a few journeys don’t seem to have the discount, so you may need to be flexible with dates and destinations to get it. |
|
| You can also use railcards to get further discounts. There are no booking fees, and tickets can be delivered for free by first class post. Under 16s can also get single or return tickets for a flat fare of 50p. As the promotion’s for off-peak tickets some time restrictions apply; see terms for details. |
||
All TransPennine Express services are offering holders of the 16-25 Railcard (formerly the Young Persons Railcard) 50% off advanced fares rather than the 34% discount card holders normally get. To get 50% off bookings have to be made through the Transpennine Express website.
Tickets are non-refundable and only valid on the specific train booked. There is no end date set for the deal yet, the First Group plans to run the offer for the foreseeable future. Advanced tickets to and from Manchester Airport are excluded from the offer.
Routes included: All TransPennine Express routes except tickets to and from Manchester Airport.
How to book: Online only, via the special Transpennine Express web page.
Well-known US bus company Greyhound has launched in the UK with routes between London Victoria, Southampton and Portsmouth and tickets from £1. Every coach will have at least 3 fares for £1 and a further 10 under £5. Normal prices for tickets bought online range from £6 to £10. A booking fee of 50p applies on all fares. Greyhound expects the offer to run indefinitely.
Routes included: London Victoria, Southampton and Portsmouth.
How to book: Visit Greyhound UK.
Travel anywhere on the Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) network for £15 return if you’re over 55. Senior Railcard holders will get an extra £2 off per return too. So, travel off-peak on a return from Cardiff Central to Holyhead and it would cost you £72.10, yet use Arriva's Club 55 offer and you'd save £57.10 (almost £60 with a Railcard).
You must travel after 9:30am weekdays but it's available anytime at weekends. The offer is on until Sat 12 Dec, but excludes Cardiff on 7, 13, 21 and 28 Nov.
Routes included: All Arriva Trains Wales network.
How to book: ‘Club 55’ tickets can be purchased from any station or ATW train where there is no station ticket office, just make sure you take along proof of age. Tickets are also available by calling 0870 9000 773.
Students who have an "NUS Extra" card can get an extra 10% off on certain Cross Country Advance tickets (the applicable tickets will show up in green in a search).
You can get the discount in addition to the 16-25 railcard discount if you have one.
Get 10% off lowest Standard Advance fares when you book online with National Express East Coast trains. To search for discounted tickets, just visit the National Express East Coast website and enter your journey details. Available discounted tickets will be displayed by a small red star.
The offer isn ’t valid on trains arriving into London before 11.15am, or leaving London before 9.29pm or between 3.33pm and 7.01pm inclusive, Monday – Friday. The promotion's currently ongoing.
Sister companies Megatrain and Megabus offer train and bus fares across the UK for £1 each way plus a 50p booking charge per transaction. Trips include Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Cardiff and many more. Go to Megabus or Megatrain (you're directed to the same site), pick where you're travelling to and from, and opt for train or bus to find available fares.
Routes included: Aberdeen, Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh Airport, Exeter, Leeds, Leicester, London, Oxford, Sheffield & many more.
Save up to 40% on Southern Advance train tickets when you book online through Southern’s website. Discounts are available on standard class tickets with selected routes.
Routes available under the discount are Brighton – London Victoria, Portsmouth – London Victoria, Littlehampton – London Victoria, Bognor Regis – London Victoria, Arun Valley (Arundel to Christs Hospital) – London Victoria, and London Metro area – Brighton.
Discounts are subject to availability. Book by 6pm before the day of travel and remember to bring your reservation coupon (issued with your ticket). No refunds are available, so check the terms and conditions on the website before you book.
Sister companies Megatrain and Megabus, which offer train and bus fares across the UK starting at £1 each way plus a 50p booking charge per transaction, have set up a combined train and coach service from London to Yorkshire called Megabusplus. Travel between London and new train station East Midlands Parkway is via train, and between East Midland Parkway and Yorkshire by coach.
Routes included: York, Castleford, Harrogate, Hull, Halifax, Doncaster, Scunthorpe, Huddersfield and Bradford.
How to book: Go to Megabusplus
This is a nifty service to slash the cost of travelling between Birmingham and London. Use the Chiltern Railways special ticket to your mobile service which costs from £5 each way and you could pay just £10 to get to London and back.
While the route is slower and takes you from Birmingham Snow Hill or Moor Street to Marylebone rather than Birmingham New Street to Euston, if you're willing to spend a little longer getting there, then the price difference can be huge.
Routes included: London to Birmingham
How to book: Visit Chiltern Railways website
Cheap bus operator Easybus is currently offering journeys from Central and West London to Gatwick, Stansted and Luton airports starting at £2 each way. You don't have to be flying to use the service.
Routes included: Gatwick, Stansted & Luton to London
How to book: Visit the Easybus website or buy at the departure point
European low cost city shuttle bus company Terravision offers fares between Liverpool airport and Manchester city centre for £7 one way or £10 return.
Routes included: Liverpool to Manchester
How to book: Visit Terravision website
Views Today: 649
Total views: 294,478
There's a host of the other tips and techniques to bag yourself dirt cheap train tickets. Here's a few quick tips but for full info read the Cheap Trains guide.
Buy early, specifically 12 weeks early
Everyone knows book early and you can get cheaper fares, yet often these disappear quicker than empty seats on a commuter trip. Therefore to ensure a bargain, the key moment is buying 12 weeks in advance. This is because, contractually Network Rail must have the timetable set 12 weeks in advance; therefore this is commonly - though not definitely - when tickets are released.
If you know when and where you want to go, there's a sneaky way to be first in the cheap tickets queue. The TheTrainline's* ticket alert system emails the moment cheap advance tickets for a specific journey come on sale (commonly the cheapest fares).
Get early booking discounts at the last minute!
Everyone knows booking train tickets in advance is much cheaper, but what needs to be understood is Advance tickets can often be bought the night before, or even on the way to the station. So the golden rule is... Always check or call if advance tickets are still available, even if you're on the way to the station.
Spend over £72/year? Get a 16-25, Family & Friends or Senior Railcard.
Railcards which can be bought from the Railcard website typically cost £24 per year, or £65 for three years, and cut a third off the bill. Therefore spend over £72 a year (even in just one trip) and you save. Until May '08 railcards weren't valid on some super-cheap promotional fares; now they're valid on all tickets bought in advance and all standard class tickets.
Local rail cards, season tickets and Rover & Ranger tickets
Local rail cards, season tickets and Rover and Ranger tickets, such as the Network Railcard in the South East, are also available, offering holders unlimited travel within specific areas for specific periods of time. There's a full list of these on the National Rail website.
Calling National Rail Enquiries? Pay less for the call
If you need to dial National Rail Enquiries, the official number is 0845 748 49 50; yet you can cut the cost of calling by dialling 0121 634 2040 and then pressing '1', you'll get through to the same thing. See the SayNoTo0870 guide for more info.
* Using these links helps the site stay ad-free and free to use, as they're affiliated links which invisibly take you via price comparison services like Moneysupermarket or affiliate sites, this then means if you end up getting a product this site gets revenue
You shouldn't notice any difference, the links don't impact the product at all and the editorial line (the things we write) iss NEVER impacted by the revenue. If it isn't possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, its still listed in the same way. The following link thetrainline is an identical unaffiliated link provided for the sake of transparency. Click on the following link for more details on how this site's financed.
1 of
5 
