East Midlands Trains Are Taking The Proverbial

[Caerlyr Osprey]

Anyone tried booking train tickets for Saturday May 29th yet? Getting into London is fine, but trying to get back to Leicester is a joke.

They've got tickets for the 20:30 train out of St Pancras starting at £17.00 but for any of the later trains (20:55 onwards) they're starting at £46.80 - one way!!. They don't go down in price again until the first train the following morning at just before nine.

By my reckoning, with the GP final kicking-off at 17:30, the earliest the game is likely to finish is 19:15. The chances of getting from HQ to St Pancras in just over an hour, without leaving the match early, are slim to say the least.

I'm not against East Midlands Trains making a profit, but this is the same sort of money they charge for a peak time weekday ticket into London - but I guess they're dealing with captive audiences looking to travel.

[tb1]

I doubt it is a specific policy of EMT.

For each train there are a certain amount of 'advance' tickets available, once these are sold out prices revert to the standard walk-up fare.

I guess other Tigers fans have got there before you and bought up all the available cheap tickets for the practical trains.

FWIW an off-peak return to London is something like £45, which then drops to around £30 if you have a railcard, which I dont feel is too bad.

[me2]

It's basically because all of the (far cheaper) advance tickets have already been sold for the trains after 20:55.

Advance (£18) single tickets are for a specific train so if you miss the train you had booked you need to buy a new ticket.

The Off-peak (£46.80) single tickets are flexible and allow you to catch any off-peak train from St.P to Leicester.



As you say though, it's more expensive because of the demand.



You can get a return (using any of the trains back, including those after 20:55) for £47.80 so it only costs you £1 more to use the train both ways.

[Tigerbeat]

I have looked at getting a train from Rugby to London on 29th May.

Depart Rugby - 10-03am
Depart London - 9-43pm

£23.90 return

Car parking at Rugby for day: £4

[tommo]

Or round up some mates & hire a minibus.....16 seater, £300 for a return journey. £18.75 each, door to door. COYS!

[westy154]

Are there any options for the East Coast line? Living in Nottingham it is often cheaper and faster to go from Kings Cross to Grantham and then on a local train to Nottingham?

I don't know if this is viable for Leicester though?

[Caerlyr Osprey]

In my defence I would like to say that I've been checking the EMT website daily since they started selling tickets for May 29th which was back in early March.

To start with all the train fares (both into and out of London) were at the higher end of the price scale but on March 19 I was able to purchase a cheap first class ticket to get me into London on the 29th.

But I'm pretty sure that the return tickets have never been available at the cheaper rate. I'm just going to keep checking until hopefully I can secure a cheap one or it's twenty quid I've wasted.

[Kinoulton]

Im my experience, the rail companies love to trumpet their "cheap fair" deals but actually allocate very few of these to even a large train with around 8 carriages.

So once a family on a day trip and a couple of students have taken up the advertised cheap offers, every other sucker has to pay a much higher price, even when the trains are only a quarter full.

The mini bus option, when taking into account all the fuel and it's customary not to charge the driver, can also be pricey, but it's a lot of fun.

Although when taking a minibus to football, the police ave the power to confiscate all the beer on board. I'm not sure if this is true of rugby. Probably not.

[kingol22]

i would presume that if you were pulled over in a mini van with beer it would be confiscated no matter where you were going.

[captain_insaino]

The club may put on some buses, but for how much I do not know...
Can anyone remember anything from last year?

[kingol22]

think it was 20 something last year a few quid cheaper for st holders

[fitzy]

try the one day travelcard
mkt harb through to twickenham (inc tubes zone 1,2,3 ) is £38

yet i always take my son
2 of us for £30 with family railcard (£26 valid for 1 year)

first class extra £6 each way

prices from mkt harb

fitzy

[fitzy]

oh
and i think you can travel on any train ...

[Gray]

Try splitting the jounrey into several parts and buying a ticket for each part, rather than one ticket for the whole journey.
When I travel by train to London I never buy a return ticket to St Pancras (at the time of writing a return for today costs £48).
But if I buy a return ticket to Kettering (£10.10), a return from Kettering to Bedford (£9.70), Bedford to St Pancras (18.00), total £37.80. And with those tickets I can travel on the same trains.

Just looked at single ticket for St Pancras-Leicester on May 29th after 20:30......£95!!! Using the same train, a cheaper way is St Panc-Bedford (£28), Bedford -Kettering (£17), Kettering-Leicester (£29) total £74. Yif you want to look at other variations you might find a cheaper way still.
If East Midlands trains are asking that amount, I'd seriously consider offering driving my Disco to Twickenham - six spares seats, say £35/person, £210 in my pocket.....

Or try National Express, they're currently selling tickets to/from Victoria coach station from £7 each way (eg depart Leicester 08:15, arrive Victoria 10:30. depart Victoria 20:00, arrive Leicester 22:25)

[me2]

The key thing to remember when buying split journey tickets is that the train you use must actually stop at the stations you have your split for.


ie you couldn't use a the tickets described above on a train that was a non-stopper from Leicester to St Pancras, or one that didn't stop at Bedford for example.

So long as the train stops at that station you are OK. You don't even need to get off & back on again.