Preston to London Euston 14th December Return.

I'm completely lost with ticketing. Can somebody help me with the best/cheapest option? I've not been to London Town since the 1970's. Where and how do I buy a ticket? Which one do I buy? How much will it cost? Which website do I use?

Lots of questions I know. Apologies. Ticketing is so complicated.

Got to see these guys at St Pancras on the 14th!

There are three main types of tickets: Advance, Off-Peak, and Anytime.

Advance tickets' main benefits are that you can save quite a but of money over the Anytime and Off-Peak tickets. However, you are tied down to a specific train, and if you miss it due to an issue outside of the railway e.g. traffic, or over sleeping, then your ticket becomes worth nothing.

The Off-Peak return from Preston to Euston is currently priced at £95.40, but carries some restrictions itself. You must arrive into Euston before 07:20, or after 11:29. You cannot depart Euston before 09:26 or between 15:01 and 18:44. Those restrictions all apply Monday to Friday, except the last one, which only applies Monday to Thursday.

I won't go over the Anytime Return as it is ridiculously expensive.

In terms of buying the ticket, you can support your local ticket office and buy it at Preston (although I would recommend against this as they use a different type of ticket paper which is the opposite of durable), or you can buy online on any Train Operating Companies' website. Please avoid TheTrainLine as despite their claims, you don't save any more money with them, and they charge booking fees.

Tickets can be shown on your phone as an e-ticket (generally a PDF), or as an m-ticket (which requires activating before use). You can also collect your tickets at the station with your original payment card and booking reference, or have them posted out to you.

Finally, you could try a site called TrainSplit. The site splits your tickets up to save money. Despite what it sounds like though, unless you choose to do so, you don't have to get off at every stop, and you don't have to play musical chairs as it will aim to reserve you the same seat throughout.

Depending on your age/personal circumstances, it might be worth looking at the range of Railcards, which can save you up to 33% on tickets. Especially if you're planning on travelling more, it may be worth the, normally, £30p/a cost.

Hope this helps - feel free to reply if you need anything!

If price is the key thing, your best bet is to get a Preston-Crewe ticket. Then a Crewe-Euston ticket valid on London Northwestern Railway trains only. The latter tickets come in all three Advance, off-peak and Anytime types and save a lot of money over the ‘any operator’ ticket fares. Of course, you can only travel on their trains, but the service from Crewe is only a little slower than Virgin. However there are no refreshments onboard.

Deafdoggie said:

If price is the key thing, your best bet is to get a Preston-Crewe ticket. Then a Crewe-Euston ticket valid on London Northwestern Railway trains only. The latter tickets come in all three Advance, off-peak and Anytime types and save a lot of money over the ‘any operator’ ticket fares. Of course, you can only travel on their trains, but the service from Crewe is only a little slower than Virgin. However there are no refreshments onboard.

Click to expand...

Although note that 14 December is a strike day so London Northwestern won't be running at full strength - and so Avanti (was Virgin) may well be busy.

Karl said:

I'm completely lost with ticketing. Can somebody help me with the best/cheapest option? I've not been to London Town since the 1970's. Where and how do I buy a ticket? Which one do I buy? How much will it cost? Which website do I use?

Lots of questions I know. Apologies. Ticketing is so complicated.

Got to see these guys at St Pancras on the 14th!

Click to expand...

Brendan is a living legend! Love his channel. Who doesn’t like a bit of Boogie Woogie in a station.

The 14th December is a Saturday so the Off-Peak Return would be valid on any train.

Further to my post, if you were eligible for a railcard, the £95.40 Off-Peak fare reduces to £62.95, so if you did pay £30 for a railcard, you'd already get that back on the one trip.

There really aren't any obvious splits for the Saturday due to the West Midlands Trains strike, so the £62.95 fare may be your best bet.

If you are prepared to get the 0557 from Preston (0813 into Euston), there is a fare of £72.20, which includes a London Travelcard for free travel around London for the day (£13.10 if bought separately).
This is a Virgin/Avanti-only ticket, but that should not matter.
You have to book a specific train outward (only the 0557 is available), but you can come back on any train (hourly at xx30).
Should be bookable on any TOC site, but I can see it on the Transport for Wales site.
https://www.buytickets.tfwrail.wales/buytickets/combinedmatrix.aspx?Command=TimeTable
You would still get 34% off this fare with a railcard.

I'd be doing a day return on Megabus at £26.40 despite leaving in the middle of the night. Even with a railcard the rail fares would be outside my budget.