Great British Rail Sale: How do these half-price train tickets work – and what’s the catch?
A temporary train ticket sale claiming to be the biggest nationwide offer of heavily discounted fares has begun.
As the government and rail industry seek to boost demand after the slump caused by the pandemic, more than one million tickets are on offer in the “Great British Rail Sale”. But most fare types are not included. So what are the offers to look out for?
These are the key questions and answers.
Deeply discounted travel on a range of rail journeys from 25 April to 27 May inclusive. Most tickets will be half price.
Almost all of the available tickets are Advance fares. These require committing ahead to a specific train.
Just like airline tickets, the price varies depending on demand: between Edinburgh and London on LNER, for example, normal Advance tickets for Tuesday 3 May range from £27.80 to £72.50. But from information put out by the Department for Transport (DfT) it appears that the discount will apply to specific Advance fares, rather than all of them.
On LNER, £22 one-way Edinburgh-London tickets are available on some trains. The flat rail sale fare between London and Leeds is £15.
The following discounted prices have been quoted by the DfT:
GWR appears to be selling all Cardiff-London Paddington tickets, including peaks, for £25 one-way, with Bristol to/from London at a flat £18.
Avanti West Coast, which runs trains from London Euston to the West Midlands via northwest England and Scotland, has badged discount tickets with a red “rail sale” symbol. One-way fares to and from the capital are Glasgow £26, Manchester £23, Liverpool £17 and Birmingham £8.
Absolutely not. The DfT says: “Great British Rail Sale tickets are not available on all routes, are limited and subject to availability and exclusions.”
Most tickets do not qualify, including Anytime, Off-peak (except in a few cases), Seasons and Flexi-Seasons.
Not necessarily. The 25 April-27 May window for travel includes the long weekend of 30 April to 2 May – when London Euston station and the southern end of the West Coast main line will be closed.
More widely, is likely that high-demand times of day will be excluded from the deal.
Looking at the way the offer is structured, it appears that connecting journeys will not qualify. For example, normally you can book an Advance ticket from Birmingham to Barrow in Furness using Avanti West Coast as far as Lancaster and a Northern train from there.
Assuming this is not possible with the deal, you would have to book two journeys to save money.
But with the same operator, connections should be possible. The DfT cites a Portsmouth-Penzance ticket for a discounted fare of £22, which is available for travel on GWR via Westbury.
Yes, which will reduce these fares by a further 34 per cent. Between Birmingham and London, for example, the £8 ticket will be cut to £5.30.
Yes, at least on LNER. London to Newcastle is £19.80 in standard and £42.20 in first; an uplift of 110% appears to be the average.
In addition, individual train operators may have upgrade offers that can be used in connection with a discounted ticket.
