Great Western Coffee Shop

Sorry if already posted.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inada.trainai&trainai.source=bcfc

Just one of many split ticketing apps/websites out there.

This one charges a £2 booking fee and 10% of any split ticket saving identified.

Hi all
I'm planning a return trip to York via Birmingham New Street from Basingstoke with my family soon. I have heard about the marvel that is split ticketing. What is the best way to split ticket a return ticket to York via Birmingham New Street leaving on the 19th Feb returning on the 26th Feb with 3 adults and 1 child with a family and friends railcard?

It may be worth looking at Advance (single) tickets via London. They are still available for your dates. BSK to YRK is showing at £36.30 on a railcard. I have always found it cheaper to go via London to York, Liverpool and the like than going via Birmingham.

I am not sure whether XC Advance tickets are available yet for beyond 28th February.

Advance tickets, as I understand them, were designed to help fill unused spaces on quieter trains.  With service slashed back on Cross Country routes from Southampton and from the South West into / via Birmingham, will / has the quantity of such tickets, especially at the lower cost end of the scale, shrunk our of proportion to the volume of passengers wanting to use them?  In other words, are there now far fewer cheap journeys available resulting, in effect, in a price rise that's not reflected in high fares of the sort the media love to highlight?

The cynic in me suggests that XC are waiting for the anticipated price hike in March to be activated and loaded into the system before they release any 'cut price' tickets.

I would probably agree with this comment

However, there being more services to/from York and London than via Birmingham. The chances of lower fares on that route are always better. I doubt there’s much time difference either.

You’ve left looking for Advance fares rather late as they go on sale gdnerally 12 weeks in advance and we’revonly a week away now. Also half-term won’t help as increased demand.

Cheapest currdntly is via Waterloo / Kings Cross & Leeds @ £207.60 for all travellers WITH railcard quoted

Out: BSK 0957 WAT 1049
KGX 1203 LDS 1416
LDS 1430 YRK 1500

Return
YRK 1023 LDS 1050
LDS 1115 KGX 1315
WAT 1505 BSK 1547

Tickets (price for all)
ADV BSK - Peterborough £51.60
ADV Peterborough - LDS £43.40
ADV LDS - YRK £8.50

ADV YRK - LDS £7.60
ADV LDS - BSK ££96.50

Definitely travel via London and use LNER from KGX. You might find some really good value 1st Class Advance fares - we have frequently travelled KGX>WKF for £30 which includes pretty decent hot (and cold) food & drinks.

Advance fares are likely to be very limited - it's the two Saturdays wrapping half term, which is just a week away and those will be popular days - if there were any bargains in the first place, most of those will have gone already and on routes where walk up returns are only a fraction more that walk up singles ... the advance fares may not work.

One question we have not asked - how important is "via Birmingham"?  Original poster mentioned it twice in a short first post, though no mention of how long is needed there, if any?   The solutions offered via London look about the best you'll achieve, but not much good if you need to break the journey in Birmingham for a quick social visit to the pub with Uncle Gerald and Aunt Agnes who live there.

I haven't greatly explored your splits via Birmingham - just a few experiments in the Leamington Spa area that saved pence rather than pounds.  Past personal journeys to the North West have proven much cheaper by driving to Warwick Parkway and taking the train from there (change at Smethwick Galton Bridge) but again not via New Street - Moor Street and Snow Hill, and a need to make extra changes if you're splitting to ensure you're on a train which actually goes that way and stops there.

At the time of posting, the advance fares I quoted were available on the trains quoted.

I have found Ticketysplit website very good. We travelled from Liskeard to Edinburgh last year and the route via Kings Cross with multiple split tickets was way cheaper than XC via Birmingham.

https://www.fredolsencruises.com/2024-cruises
https://www.fredolsencruises.com/cruise/world-cruise-s2402

Ultimate in split ticketing

Liverpool to Southampton via the world - from £15199
WORLD CRUISE FROM LIVERPOOL TO SOUTHAMPTON - S240102
Borealis  05 Jan 2024  103 nights

Or if you split

TWO-NIGHT LIVERPOOL TO SOUTHAMPTON CRUISE S2401 - from £299
Liverpool Borealis  05 Jan 2024  2 nights

WORLD CRUISE S2402 - from £11999
Southampton Borealis  07 Jan 2024  101 nights

Before you ask - to dream is free!

Would this mean disembarking & re-embarking into a different cabin though? I guess its worth it for that saving!

Quite possibly. Cheaper still (just) would be take a train to Southampton, although that would lose two days of sailing tantalisingly just too far from the coast to see anything.

And given that is early January, tantalisingly missing out two days of south-westerly gales and blinding rain.

I suspect we have had a thread on this before, but searching "even" I could not find the link

Question - if I travel on "split tickets" - tickets A to B and B to C with the train I am on calling at B (and I may have to change there)  and my train or trains get cancelled or delayed, or I get delayed by an official connection missing and I arrive over 15 minutes late at C,  am I entitled to a delay/repay payment

a) for the whole A to C journey
b) for the B to C journey
c) for the A to B journey if it was very late there, even if it got to C less than 15 minutes late

From National Rail


My understanding is that this is a journey issue,  and that compensation is claimable and it says in the national rail paragraph for the journey - and that's irrespective of the ticket(s) you are using.   So (for example) I travel from Trowbridge to Swindon on time, change there to a London express that calls as Didcot but gets held up because of a points failure at Hayes and Harlington and arrives 35 minutes late in London, I can make a claim for a partial refund of both my Trowbridge - Didcot and Didcot - London ticket.

However, at WWRUG in Trowbridge on Wednesday evening this question was raised, and one of the members showed me a long explanation written by a member of booking office staff explaining that the customer should not buy a split ticket for a journey as he would then only be able to claim back from the final portion if his train arrived very late into C - he could not get compensation for the whole journey, nor if a connection at B missed because his A to B train was a few minutes late and did not connect, even if he had allowed the official change time there.

We all agreed that the best solution for the railways to reduce delay / repay refunds is to run the trains more on time - having said which, can anyone tell me what the official answer is?

I've successfully claimed on split tickets many times through GWR and would take the view that the Conditions of Carriage make clear that it is one "journey". The GWR Delay Repay form allows separate tickets to be entered, with a fare and ticket type entered for each and I've had no problem claiming for single+return+season combinations!

Through other TOCs it is more difficult as there is sometimes only space to upload one ticket. I have made a claim with Southern where I submitted a photo showing two tickets which were both returns, so I could choose the return option. On these forms I've never bothered to claim for more exotic combinations. In one case where I had return+season both legs were delayed equally so I claimed both separately. In other cases with such TOCs I've sometimes just cut my losses and claimed for the "main" delayed leg.

If I stood to lose a lot by not claiming for a more complex combinations  with one of those TOCs I would probably submit it as best I can, wait for the system to reject and appeal, but the more 'complex' claims I've had have been through GWR so it hasn't been an issue.

My wife recently travelled from Bristol to Derby with ticket split, as you would expect, at Cheltenham. The lines were closed between Bristol and Gloucester on the day, so she ended up being diverted via Severn Tunnel Jct and was just over two hours late at Derby.

There was a certain amount of toing and froing with Cross Country, who initially denied that she could have been delayed that much - but she was able to provide screenshots of online evidence (which was of course available to Cross Country!) proving her case. In the end she got something like £69 back on an £84 fare - so not the full refund, but it seemed reasonable.

The Rail Delivery Group briefing document is quite clear:
Anything to the contrary is the result of people / organisations making up their own rules.

But that does mean that a delay on A to B, but not on B to C (the wait at B means that a connection would still be made), would mean no Delay/Repay on A to B

That would be the theory of it, yes.   But then if you split at "B" with the intent of nipping out of the station to the flower shop on station approach to get a bunch of flowers for your date when you go to "C", and weren't able to do so, you could treat the trip as two journeys and claim.   Might be the smallest of your worries if you date was expecting flowers and you appeared empty handed - could be lifechanging!

....and claim only for the delay A to B. nothing for B to C as you'd have to catch the following service.

That depends on the big and personal decision you make - is you date going to be most unhappy if you turn up without flowers, or turn up late?   Delay / Repay can be a very poor and limited compensation for the consequences of trains not running to timetable.