From East Midlands: out via Luton, back via Stansted

[TheManOnThe172]

Trying to work out tickets from home in the Peak District, for a trip where we fly out from Luton but back to Stansted.

Advance tickets seem too much of a risk (unless there is an equivalent of the forgiveness that TPE shows for late arrivals at Manchester, but I think not).

The coach service between the airports is surprisingly sparse (2.25h to 3h gaps), so a single-route rail return and a coach transfer is not attactive.

So, what (flexible) return would we need to cover travel to Luton and back from Stansted?

Would a (Superoffpeak) Chesterfield-London return do the job? It shows as valid via MM (for the outbound via Luton) and "AM+KP" for the return via Stansted. AM shows a route via Stansted, but the map line doesn't go all the way to London, so I presume that we would have to rely on KP which seems to cover travel via Cambridge (then Royston), leaving us to buy an add-on ticket Stansted-Cambridge.

Is that right? Any better ideas?

 

[Watershed]

Your understanding is correct - Chesterfield to London isn't mapped via Stansted, only via Cambridge. So you'd need an extra Stansted to Cambridge ticket (£12.80) to use a London ticket, for a total of £104.90.

It's slightly cheaper for you to buy an Off-Peak Return, route "not via London" or "via Ely" (same price for both), from Chesterfield to somewhere like Harlow Town, and then to excess the outward portion to "+Any Permitted". This would cost a total of £98.45 including the excess.

If you're happy to tie yourself to a specific train down to Luton, you might be able to pay less overall by buying an Advance (possibly with splits) to Luton and then an Off-Peak Single, route "via Ely" from Stansted to Conisbrough. The latter is priced by LNER and falls under their single leg pricing initiative so costs "only" £44.40.

That ticket is valid along the same routes (via Ely, Peterborough and then via Leicester or Nottingham) to Chesterfield as ticket to Chesterfield.

 

[kieron]

It's slightly cheaper for you to buy an Off-Peak Return, route "not via London" or "via Ely" (same price for both), from Chesterfield to somewhere like Harlow Town, and then to excess the outward portion to "+Any Permitted". This would cost a total of £98.45 including the excess.

If you buy something like a Chesterfield-Theobalds Grove "not via London" off peak return, you don't need the excess.

Web sites calculate the shortest route for this journey as being via St Pancras, but you can save a chunk of that distance by changing trains in West Hampstead and Hackney. You can see some itineraries on nre.co.uk*.

It's also valid via Stansted as Cheshunt is a valid routeing point, AM is a valid Cheshunt-Chesterfield map and AM includes routes via Stansted and either Grantham or Leicester.

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