What about the following?:
Saturday 28th July
06:31 Durham - 09:58 Leamington Spa (CrossCountry - no changes)
Tickets:
06:31 Durham - 07:21 York £7.00 CrossCountry Advance
07:24 York - 08:18 Sheffield £5.00 CrossCountry Advance
08:20 Sheffield - 08:51 Derby £5.00 CrossCountry Advance
08:53 Derby - 09:58 Leamington Spa £8.00 CrossCountry Advance
Total: £25.00
Wednesday 1st August
11:43 Leamington Spa - 13:41 Sheffield (CrossCountry)
13:53 Sheffield - 14:32 Doncaster (Northern)
15:09 Doncaster - 16:24 Durham (East Coast)
Tickets:
£11.50 CrossCountry Advance
11:43 Leamington Spa - 13:41 Sheffield
13:53 Sheffield - 14:05 Rotherham Central
£8.45 East Coast + Connections Advance (only available at this price at
www.eastcoast.co.uk)
14:05 Rotherham Central - 14:32 Doncaster
15:09 Doncaster - 16:24 Durham
Total return: £19.45
Total cost: £44.45
This tickets are Advances which means that you can only travel on the trains you book, in this case as detailed above. If you travel on a different train to the one booked an Advance has no validity and you will be required to buy a new ticket. If this happens on board you are liable to pay the Anytime fare to your destination whereas if you buy a new ticket at the ticket office the full range of fares available at that time will be available to you. These prices were correct when I looked a few minutes ago but they can change at any time.
I think it would help if people looking for "ways to make it cheaper" understood the following:
The starting point - the most flexible and (usually) most expensive ticket is an Anytime Return.
Each step in reducing the price of the ticket adds extra conditions which restrict the ticket in some way - it is important to understand all the conditions of the ticket(s) they decide to use for a journey, the ones we all know well:
- Off-peak - time restrictions*
- Advance - booked train only
- Railcard discount - must carry Railcard etc
- Split ticket - must call at the split point*
*in general terms.
I presume that the £55 you quote is for Durham - Leamington Spa and Leamington Spa - Durham Advances. If so, what time were the trains? If you were looking at the 04:59 from Durham and 19:50 from Leamington Spa, you can certainly save around £10 by buying Durham - Doncaster, Doncaster - Leamington Spa, Leamington Spa - Doncaster and Doncaster - Durham Advances.
I think it will be very difficult to reduce this price any further.
As for the Luton Airport Parkway enquiry, I would look for Durham - London Terminals Advances (remember to factor in the cost of another ticket from London to Luton Airport Parkway) as well as Durham - Luton Airport Parkway Advances, as Durham - London starts at £12 whereas Durham - Luton Airport Parkway starts at £25.50. The lowest tiers of East Coast Advances to and from London are not available as East Coast and Connections tickets. I would also consider Durham - York / Newark / Grantham / Peterborough and York / Newark / Grantham / Peterborough - London / Luton Airport Parkway Advances. There may also occasionally be better value Advances available for travel via Leeds then for avoiding Leeds - enter Leeds into the via box. You could also consider East Coast + Connections or (possibly several) CrossCountry Advance(s) to/from Sheffield and East Midlands Trains Advances to / from East Midlands Parkway. If you post here with further details about a specific trip, we can do some research for you. Alternative you can just check all these possibilities yourself.
headfart 