Split ticketing

The Government has today (Tuesday 19 April) launched a 'rail sale' alongside 20 train operators, which will offer travellers around 50% off more than one million train tickets on journeys across England, Wales and parts of Scotland. Here's what you need to know. 

An online train ticket retailer has launched a tool which shows when cheap advance tickets are likely to rise in price – and when they're expected to sell out altogether.

Commuters in England will see their season ticket costs rise by 3.6% next year, the highest hike in five years.

Ticketing trials to offer train passengers simpler and cheaper fares are scheduled to be rolled out by four train companies in May. However, MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis believes the trials stop short of providing the best possible price – as the proposed changes don't include split-ticketing for passengers who stay on the same train.

A MoneySaving football fan trying to find the cheapest train tickets from Newcastle to Oxford was astonished to be sent a whopping 56 tickets to cover just two return journeys. It's the most extreme example we've yet seen of split-ticket savings – the trick which means booking multiple tickets for different parts of the same journey can bizarrely be cheaper.

Rail firms must confirm timetables 12 weeks ahead, and most roughly launch their cheap advance tickets then too. There are limited numbers for each journey, so to bag 'em, book soonest.

MoneySavingExpert.com's new TicketySplit app, which enables users to see if they can get cheaper rail fares by splitting their journey into different tickets, has hit the top 10 in Apple's App Store chart for free downloads in its first week.