Top Deals From the Weekly Email
Top Train & Coach Deals
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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.
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Includes... |
| £5 off all £6+ train fares: last chance | |
| London - Manchester £8 one way | |
| CrossCountry trains up to 75% off | |
| National Express £1 fares | |
New Deals
- £5 off all £6+ train fares - Last chance
The train operator First Great Western currently has a promotion on, giving £5 off to the first 200,000 people to buy tickets costing over £6 through its website. Yet this isn’t just for only its trains, as you can buy tickets for trains all over the country through it, so it’s a great way to get a discount.
To do it, simply register your details on this First Great Western promo site and you'll get an email with a PIN number. Insert the PIN in the next window, and then click through to book your ticket online. The £5 discount'll be shown on the summary page at the end of your transaction.
There are only 200,000 of these unique PIN codes available and it’s almost up to the limit. The offer'll run until Tuesday 30 June 09, or until all of the PIN numbers have been allocated.
You can use this discount with normal railcard and Groupsave discounts. The £5 discount will be applied per transaction, not per ticket, and each PIN can only be used once.
- CrossCountry trains up to 75% off
Get up to 75% off train tickets bought through CrossCountry when you book in advance. There’s no booking fee, and the discount’s valid on CrossCountry routes, which serve 118 stations across the UK. To find discounted tickets, go to the CrossCountry website and enter your journey details.
Discounted fares will be displayed as Advanced fares, with the discount automatically included in the price. There's no booking fee. Advance tickets go on sale twelve weeks early, and can be bought using a railcard. The promotion’s currently ongoing, subject to availability.
- London Coach Fares £1. National Express.
From Wednesday 1 April you can get selected one-way National Express coach tickets for £1. The offer’s only valid for routes to and from London. You’ll need to book online through the National Express website.
The £1 fares are only available for e-Tickets and m-Tickets (emailed tickets and mobile phone tickets), and there’s a 50p charge for delivery of m-Tickets. Travel near the Easter weekend isn’t included.
The offer’s open until Tuesday 30 June, subject to availability. No refunds are available, so make sure you’ve checked your dates before you buy.
- £2.50 Megabusplus return fares
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 new combined train and coach service from London to Yorkshire. The Megabusplus service starts on Monday 30 March. 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
- Southern Advance tickets up to 40% off
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.
- National Express East Coast trains 10% off
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 discount’s available until Friday 31 July.
Train Deals
- London – Manchester from £8 one way
Get advance tickets from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly from £8 each way with Virgin Trains. To find the tickets, enter your chosen dates on Virgin’s Farefinder. Tickets are subject to availability, and can be bought using railcard discounts.
This fare isn't as cheap as Virgin's previous 'print@home' promotion, which offered £1-£10 tickets, but it's still good value if you're booking in advance. The £8 fares can also be bought through Virgin’s mobile phone ticketing service, Mobitix, although railcard discounts aren’t available with these.
Routes included: London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.
How to book: Visit the Virgin Farefinder website.
- Brighton/Portsmouth to London, £3 o/w
Railway operator Southern offers an Advance one way ticket to London Victoria on its routes into London from Brighton, Portsmouth, Littlehampton and Bognor Regis. It's available to book up to 6pm the night before travel either online or from ticket offices where reservations can be made.
There's more info on the Southern Railway website. To look for tickets you'll need to use the National Rail website then follow the links to book. If the £3 fares don't appear when searching for tickets from/to London then try narrowing your search to London Victoria.
Routes included: Brighton, Portsmouth, Bognor Regis to London
How to book: Visit Southern Railway website
- Birmingham to London return from £10
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
- £1 Megatrain & Megabus return fares
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.
How to book: Go to Megabus or Megatrain
- Wrexham to London, £69 family return
Wrexham and Shropshire Railway offers a "Saver" ticket to London Marylebone. A family of four (two adults and two kids) can travel from all the rail operator's stations, which include Wrexham, Shrewsbury and Telford for £69 return, with the exception of Tame Bridge Parkway which is £59 return. It's available for booking until Friday 21 August.
See a list of all Wrexham & Shropshire's stations. Book on the Wrexham & Shropshire Railways website or call 0845 260 5900.
Routes included: Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Telford to London
How to book: Visit Wrexham & Shropshire Railways website.
Bus & Coach Deals
- Central London to airports from £4 return
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
- Liverpool Airport to Manchester for £8 return
European low cost city shuttle bus company Terravision offers fares between Liverpool airport and Manchester city centre for £6 one way or £8 return.
Routes included: Liverpool to Manchester
How to book: Visit Terravision website
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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).
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.
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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.
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