London to Loughborough

[fusionblue]

Hello all, i'm trying to find some split ticketing options to travel from London (Kings Cross?) to Loughborough from a Friday evening to Sunday or Saturday evening to Sunday. The best i've been able to remove (compared to the super off peak return of £69) is around £5. IS there any split ticket options available i can use?

I don't have any valid railcards unfortunately.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[SargeNpton]

Start from St Pancras instead of Kings Cross and you might have better luck in your search.

 

[Skymonster]

EMR has London St Pancras-Loughborough pretty well stitched up against splits.

Cheaper but somewhat more time consuming options Euston-Nuneaton, Nuneaton-Leicester, Leicester-Loughborough using West Midlands and Cross Country (split Euston-Rugby / Rugby-Loughborough looks cheaper with SVRs)

 

[Watershed]

If you want to use flexible tickets and return on another day, split ticket savings are often minimal.

Usually the only way to have any significant saving is where, as @Skymonster suggests, there is a cheap TOC specific fare you can use for part of the journey.

London to Rugby is just £26.50 for a WMT-only Super Off-Peak Return. It then costs another £21.90 for an Off-Peak Return from Rugby to Loughborough, so overall £47.40.

Unfortunately the journey is at least twice as long, and involves 2 changes, when travelling by this route.

 

[paul1609]

If you are going to be doing this or other long distance journeys in London and the south is it worth investing in a network railcard? If you had one you could split at Bedford and Off peak returns including network railcard discount on london - bedford would total £62.90 not as restrictive as a super off peak but your train has to call at Bedford.

 

[JonathanH]

your train has to call at Bedford

...which these days means a change at Kettering if travelling from London to Loughborough.

 

[Watershed]

If you are going to be doing this or other long distance journeys in London and the south is it worth investing in a network railcard? If you had one you could split at Bedford and Off peak returns including network railcard discount on london - bedford would total £62.90 not as restrictive as a super off peak but your train has to call at Bedford.

That means changing at Kettering, with a journey time nearly as long as going via Rugby. But it's certainly an option.

 

[30907]

That means changing at Kettering, with a journey time nearly as long as going via Rugby. But it's certainly an option.

It's an hour longer via Nuneaton.

 

[paul1609]

That means changing at Kettering, with a journey time nearly as long as going via Rugby. But it's certainly an option.

Unless Im missing something the xx.45 connect service from St Pancras which calls at Bedford connects at Kettering with the xx +1.05 service so its a time deficit of 20 mins on tickets a lot less restricted on a friday evening.

 

[RJ]

EMR has London St Pancras-Loughborough pretty well stitched up against splits.

Maybe, but I spent 3 years doing that journey at least twice a week and it was always possible to find some way to make tickets covering the whole journey cheaper. Even the Advance fare system could be gamed to make savings as certain routes on that line were always cheaper than others.

For anyone who’s not on looking for that kind of thing I’d advise sticking with an Advance fare which tend to be good value!

 

[Nottingham59]

Loughborough has a high student population. If price is important to you, I bet there are some really good prices available by coach.

EDIT: Flixbus are offering that return journey for under a fiver this weekend.

Tediously slow though .......

 

[kieron]

Start from St Pancras instead of Kings Cross and you might have better luck in your search.

Unless you're looking at one of the "via Peterborough" fare from somewhere like Finsbury Park. (And yes, it's slow and not especially cheap.)