Wigan-Reading

[Stonesourscotty]

Hi i am Planning to Attend the Reading Festival 2008 at Richmond Park and i was just wondering the cheapest ticketing option from Wigan to Reading i can also travel from Manchester if its easier because of cheap GMPTE fares. i will be travelling on Bank holiday weekend in August. i may also consider using megabus.com to London and was wondering the prices of trains from London to Reading? and if you can split them at any boundaries to make the fares cheaper.

Cheers for any help.

 

[me123]

Hi! The festival is in August, so tickets won't be available until May.

The fares are £112 for a return, which is a bit much. You'd be best to split tickets at Stafford, where Advance Standard C tickets cost £23.50 with crosscountry each way. Note however that these are in short supply, so book very early especially since it may be busy with festival go-ers.

Book each portion as soon as it becomes available (3 months in advance on thetrainline is your best bet, or at your ticket office) and buy tickets to Wigan separetely, which can be as little as £4.50 for an advance single, or £25.70 for a saver return.

Basically:
-Buy APC tickets for XC services Stafford-Reading
-Buy your tickets for VWC direct services from Wigan-Stafford.

If no AP tickets are available for the Stafford-Reading portion, your best price is the £112. Even if you don't get the best fares available, however, splitting tickets is still likely to save you quite a bit of money.

 

[yorkie]

£112? How do you work that out?

Stonesourscotty - do you have a Railcard?

 

[1D53]

SOR Route Banbury I think.

Quite why'd you'd go down the SOR route I dunn.

 

[me123]

£112? How do you work that out?

£112 SOR. SVR return comes in at a slightly better £71.80, but that did not come up earlier for me. I was assuming, based on the opening times of the festival, that he would be travelling early in the morning to arrive in Reading and I don't think you can get the Saver for those journey times.

£56 using advances is the best possible fare I can find.

All prices from thetrainline.com

 

[yorkie]

An SOR on a bank holiday weekend seems a bit OTT. There's usually ways round overpriced SORs anyway by splitting tickets and many savers are actually unrestricted too

Unless the OP is going out on the Friday morning peak and coming back on the Tuesday peak time a SOR won't be needed. (and even if they were I am sure a way round could be found)

 

[me123]

Still, though, the AP tickets are the cheapest!

I was unaware it was a bank holiday (as you may know, Scotland has different ones for some unknown reason :?) but the SVR is I think restricted on all/part of this route on a normal Friday morning. A bank holiday would IIRC allow the saver to be valid assuming no further restrictions are in place.

 

[1D53]

Most festival attendees tend to go on Thursday afternoon I think so might be OK.

 

[Stonesourscotty]

We have a Family rail card but think im going to invest in a young persons one .It's me and a friend and were only going to see Metallica Slipknot Pendulum and Tenacious D so were only going for the Sunday so might even consider last or first trains i only need to be at the festival site for around 1ish on the Sunday.I'm also Seriously considering using Megabus from Manchester or Preston and Catching a train from London upto Reading as i think that would save us a fair bit of money

 

[Gizmogle]

It's usually cheaper to avoid London.

From what I can see (I'm no ticket expert) you're looking at £50-80 one way if you don't get advanced purchase tickets.

I'm sure someone else can give you a much better answer.