Great Western Coffee Shop

With the easing of lockdown, I have just started looking to book a Thurs or Friday departure from Lostwithiel to Stoke on Trent, returning on the Sunday.  Wondering in our collective opinion if there is a split ticketing website of choice or preference please.  Advance travel, over a month away.

Cheers all !

When not doing my own research, I'll use the following:

https://raileasy.trainsplit.com/

Very comprehensive, with plenty of advanced options to really drill down on the best split for your itinerary. It also clearly separates Advance and walk-up fares. Remember, Advance Purchase tickets usually come with a seat reservation (definitely with CrossCountry should you choose to go via Birmingham), so split Advances can mean musical chairs. If you buy split walk ups from a station you can try booking a through reservation at the same time, but there's no guarantee you'll get a booked seat throughout. Particularly with CrossCountry who allocate very few seats for reservation away from their own sales channels.

You don't have to buy from 'trainsplit.' Although they factor in a percentage of the split savings as their fee, they also show a breakdown of all the tickets needed for a particular split before you get to the payment screen. You can take this information and buy the tickets yourself, avoiding the fee, or you can pay 'trainsplit' for doing the legwork. Your call.

What 'trainsplit' won't find for you though are the anomalies in routeing, fares and easements, and it won't tell you how to take advantage of the National Rail Conditions of Travel for potential savings. Using the Routeing Guide, Easements and NRCoT are, I'd suggest, not for the 'novice' split ticketer, but if you are interested in one particular loophole for your journey then I'll happily explain it here.

I could take a look at some options for you, with a little more afro. Dates? Number travelling? Direct with (mostly) CrossCountry, or via London? Ballpark departure/arrival times? Railcards?

I've found the a little knowledge about split ticketing can beat the algorithms.  Example, just going from Redland to say, Cheltenham can save you a fiver if you split your ticket at Temple Meads.  Even more savings for, let's say Brum or Malvern can be obtained from a further split at Worcester.  Up until my last jaunt in that direction, no split ticketing site found that for me.

Very generous of you to offer your help BNM.............but in return for a hairdo? Are things a bit wild post lockdown?  ;)

Haven't so far, found any enforcement of the booked seats on Cross-Country. Mind you I always sit in the non-bookable seats.

That’s a tad mean. There are many who would not otherwise choose to sit in a reserved seat in case the reservation holder might appear to claim it. So you effectively occupy two seats

It's only 'a tad mean' if you've booked a seat in the first place.

If you buy your tickets through XC you can ensure that you are in the same reserved seat on their services even if you split. While since I've done these so it may be possible through other sources.

Very likely if on XC as they require a reservation to travel at the moment

I was able to travel with XC recently without a reservation.

My formerly regular trips to Blackpool always involved a split at Cheltenham, plus a coffee and something fattening in the cage across the road. I suspect this allowed me to benefit from the largesse of the Welsh government on the up journey.