Biggleswade to Manchester - Splits?

[stut]

I'm going to be doing a few trips up to Manchester - all of them will be weekday, off-peak, and out and back different days, and I will definitely need a flexible ticket.

I have a 16-25 Railcard, and don't mind whether I go via London or Doncaster (via Worksop is possible at a push, but the connections tend not to be ideal...)

The OPR fares of £44.20 (not London) and £52 (any) are pretty reasonable, to be honest, but if anybody can think of any cunning splits that I might be missing, I would be very grateful!

 

[yorkie]

There isn't an OPR for this flow, as the +Any Permitted is set by Virgin, who do not use OPRs. The Not London fare is an SVR (Off Peak Return). East Coast do have SSRs, which are essentially the same as an OPR but as they don't price the Not London ticket there isn't one. OPRs and SSRs are different codes for basically the same thing, Super Off Peak Return, while Off Peak Returns are SVRs. It may be cheaper to split so you can get the cheaper SSR or OPR fares to/from intermediate stations, but you would lose routeing flexibility if you did that, and I can't check that now.

If you can book in advance and don't require flexibility, you could try splitting at Doncaster? Book MAN-DON via the TPE website to get a further reduction to 50% off, with your railcard, and book Donny-Biggleswade on the EC website to get a further reduction to around 40% off, with your railcard.

 

[stut]

Thanks for the explanation, yorkie, that makes a little more sense now.

I can't really book in advance, and don't really want to commit to a particular return train, as I don't know where I have to be just before I leave (I also have clients elsewhere) and don't know when the meetings are going to end (and don't fancy having to hand around Piccadilly for several hours if they, as I suspect, end 3 hours before schedule!)

I'll have a little play with the EC intermediates plus Sheffield etc, see if there's anything.