Greater Anglia Deals

Book online for travel up to 11 June

Want to catch the train from Cambridge to London and back for £12? Or from Colchester to Southend for £18 return? Then you're in luck, because Greater Anglia is having a sale on tickets across its network (see the Greater Anglia map), offering off-peak same-day return fares from as little as £6.

There's no limit on the number of tickets available, but they have to be for travel on Greater Anglia trains by Tuesday 11 June, and you have to book by 11.59pm on Friday 12 April.

Travelling with children? You can book up to four aged 5-15 years old for just £2 return each per adult.

How much can you save?

Obviously this all comes down to where you're travelling to and from, but here's what we found when we checked on Tuesday 9 April:

• Great Yarmouth to Norwich: £6 return

• Cambridge to London: £12 return (normally £25.20, according to Greater Anglia)

• Colchester to Southend: £18 (normally £30.70, according to Greater Anglia)

• Chelmsford to Norwich: £24 return (normally £48.70, according to Greater Anglia)

• Norwich to London: £24 return

And if you're booking either a single journey or a non-same day return journey due to take place by Tuesday 11 June, it's worth checking if you can save by buying a sale ticket for all or part of your journey instead of an advance ticket, particularly if you're booking at relatively short notice.

How to bag a sale train ticket

The sale's online only and exclusive to Greater Anglia, so you'll need to search for discounted tickets using the Greater Anglia website or mobile app.

They're easy to spot on the website as they're highlighted in pink and are labelled as 'GA Promo - Hare Fare'. On the app, they appear with a 'Cheapest' banner and you'll see 'GA Promo - Hare Fare' when you've chosen your journey. Annoyingly, on the mobile website, you don't get the 'Cheapest' banner, but again you'll see 'GA Promo - Hare Fare' once you've chosen your journey (provided you've chosen a discounted fare, which the cheapest are likely to be).

Greater Anglia doesn't charge any booking fees, so the price you see is the price you pay.

Where and when can you travel?

The sale includes the entire Greater Anglia network, which covers London, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk – for more info see the Greater Anglia network map.

But it DOESN'T include Greater Anglia journeys that take place wholly within the Oyster pay-as-you-go area in London or Stansted Express services between London, Stratford, Tottenham Hale and Stansted Airport.

Sale tickets are off-peak day returns, which are fairly flexible – you can take any train on a Saturday and Sunday, and most trains on weekdays – but obviously you have to come back the same day.

If you're travelling on a weekday, here's how off-peak tickets on Greater Anglia work:

• The earliest you can arrive in London is 10am

• The earliest you can depart London is 9.30am

• The earliest you can depart from a station outside London is 8.45am

• Evening peak restrictions only apply between London and Ipswich from 4.31pm to 6.34pm, but not in the school holidays (Tuesday 2 April-Friday 12 April and Tuesday 28 May-Friday 31 May)

For more info on when off-peak tickets are valid, see the Greater Anglia website.

Plus trick to get an extra 5% off via TrainPal or 10% credit back via Uber

The 'Great British Rail Sale' gives 'up to 50% off' over one million selected advance and off-peak rail tickets. In the sale, English and Welsh Government-contracted train operators are offering discounted tickets until 11.59pm on Monday 29 January, though they're likely to go quickly, so don't hang about. 

The 'up to 50% off' fares are for selected routes throughout England and Wales, as well as those that cross the Scottish border, for travel between Tuesday 30 January and Friday 15 March and you need to book at least seven days in advance of travelling. 

The sale is part of a Department For Transport (DfT) initiative. The DfT told us most rail operators in Britain are included in the sale, but that ScotRail, Caledonian Sleeper, Lumo, Hull Trains, TfL rail and London Overground are excluded. There are a few ways to book...

• Book via third-party booking site TrainPal to get an extra 5% discount. Select your discounted tickets, then log in or sign up to TrainPal*, and enter the code BRS5 at the checkout to get an extra 5% off – the code is for both new and existing users. There are no fees when booking via TrainPal and you'll receive digital tickets (same as booking direct).

  
  

  
  

  You can only use the discount code once per account, and it's valid for 14 days from the date you add it to your account, so even if you decide not to use this code for Great British Rail Sale tickets, you can still use it on a different journey booked via TrainPal.

  
  

  
  

• Or, book via Uber to get 10% back in credit. The Uber credit will appear within 10 days, and will be valid for a further six months. This could be a good option if you regularly use the Uber app for travelling as you're essentially getting cashback to use towards your next journey.

  
  

  
  

• Or, book via the Great British Rail Sale website without the extra discount. As the Great British Rail Sale routes cover various destinations and dates, it will be trial and error finding the cheaper seats for when you want to travel. There'll be more availability the further in advance you book and it helps if you can be flexible on dates and destination.

Sale fares cannot be used alongside railcards. The sale isn't for travel within Scotland, or in Northern Ireland, but it will apply to routes that cross the English and Scottish border, such as London to Edinburgh.

Here are some examples of popular train journeys and how much you could save:

• Portsmouth to Penzance – £21 (was £43)

• Birmingham to Bristol –  £15.30 (was £30.60)

• Manchester to Leeds – £4.30 (was £8.60)

• Leicester to Sheffield – £3.60 (was £7.30)

What does 'up to 50% off' mean?

The DfT told us the majority of discounts are around 50% against an off-peak ticket or an advance purchase price. Though, in the case of advance purchase, the (non sale) prices of these tickets may vary, so you may see more or less of a discount compared to what you usually pay.

See our cheap train tickets guide for more ways to save.