Oxford to Manchester

[orpine]

Does anyone have any suggestions for an Oxford to Manchester trip in late January, with an outward journey at about 18:30, and the return starting at ~09:30.

The offpeak return is £74.

I've priced up a few options and got it down to about £50 with a set of advances.
* Oxf-Leamington
* Leamington-Stafford
* Stafford-Manchester

Any variants I should take a peek at?
Thanks.

(also, why are split-ticketing sites so useless? I inevitably end up having to create a matrix spreadsheet of my own when I do this, but it's a bunch of effort).

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Does anyone have any suggestions for an Oxford to Manchester trip in late January, with an outward journey at about 18:30, and the return starting at ~09:30.

Any variants I should take a peek at?

Cross Country run a through service I think.

For the right days and trains, you might get a cheap Advance all the way through.

You could also consider Birmingham splits.

With a really cheap Euston to Manchester or vice versa advance, a via London route might be feasible.

 

[NorthOxford]

I used to do this journey a lot. Missus living in Oxford, me in Manchester (before I moved).

Between Leamington Spa and Stoke or Crewe you could try a West Midlands Day Ranger for £24.80 http://railrover.org/pages/west-midlands-day-ranger.html and them advances for the rest.

Alternatively you could try the megabus which is just over an hour more than Cross Country..

 

[orpine]

Thanks for the thoughts.
Yep, XC have a direct service; that's the one that will be used. I hadn't considered via-london, but that's too much hassle slow and there are no cheapies.
Birmingham splits I looked into and they're quite expensive (it always seems cheaper to split at Leamington).

The Day Ranger is an idea, but alas it's not a day-return so it won't work out here.

Megabuses I hadn't considered (I didn't know they'd expanded to do non-London based places) and they are damn cheap (only £8 each way), but unfortunately completely the wrong times. Buses in this country only seem to have one a day for most routes. :-/

 

[Paul Kelly]

If you want to use the through CrossCountry train then my feeling is you'll not do much better than splitting at Leamington Spa and Stafford - they are good split points for this journey.

If you're happy with a longer journey, try this:
Oxford - Banbury CrossCountry advance £3.70
Banbury - Birmingham CrossCountry advance £6.50
Birmingham - Crewe London Midland advance £7
Crewe - Manchester Northern advance £3

I think you should be able to do it for about £40 on split advances like this.