How To: Save money on Train Fares

Having mentioned that singles are often cheaper than returns I thought I should do a demo to show how this works.

For a journey from Birmingham to Glasgow Thetrainline.com produced the following fares:
The cheapest possible fare is an Apex return at £48, while a saver return is £92.50 and a first class return £273.

If we now click through to the single fares page, we see the following options:


So if we team up the two cheapest singles, as highlighted, we get a return fare of £42, saving £6. But if you look lower down the list at the "Value Advance 1st Single C" line we see £35 each way to travel in first class, saving over £200, and only £22 more than the cheapest return on the previous page.

Bear in mind that in First Class you we will be getting food and drink included, and it's a no-brainer for me. One last check to make is that the cheap fares are not restricted to services with lots of changes, then it's out with the credit card and a day later the tickets arrive in the post.

There is an added benefit that if you travel regularly on Virgin in 1st class you qualify for their "frequent flyer" club, which gives you free travel for two, from Friday to Monday lunch-time (it's a brilliant deal) and even these deep discount tickets qualify.