Through ticket dearer than individual tickets - why?

[Shrop]

Just yesterday I used my senior railcard for a day out from Shropshire to Durham. I fancied going up the WCML and back down the ECML, not least to bring back pleasant memories of my rail travel from many years ago, but feared that the cost would be pretty high.

So I looked at the Crewe to Durham day return fare and found it to be £107, unless departing after 09.30 when it would reduce to just under £80. Since leaving after 09.30 carves up much of the useful daytime, I tried the Split Ticketing website and found that I could do the trip for just £43, leaving Crewe at 07.27. Not only that, but I could stop off in Carlisle for a quick browse and a snack, and also in Newcastle, before enjoying exploring Durham. As I recall, stopping off on outward portions of day return tickets isn't permitted, so this was a great bonus, and all whilst saving a huge amount of the fare. I just looked at a similar trip for September and find that this can be done for £32.

If our railway companies don't like people buying split tickets, then I guess they only have their own fare structures to blame.

 

[Tester]

And there is the answer to a massive problem.

You persevered, and ended up with a fare that suited you (and clearly suited 'the railway' since it was offered) - classic win-win!

What would 'normally' happen is that, on finding the fare to be £107, Joe Average would say, "Stuff that - I'll drive". And next time he wouldn't even bother to look.

Split ticketing is a necessary fix for something which is fundamentally broken.

 

[Hadders]

With 2,500+ stations, peak and off-peak fares and different routes you can never eliminate ticketing anomalies.

Anyone proposing a new ticketing system is welcome to start a new thread setting out their proposals but I will have some challenging questions to test the robustness of any proposals....

 

[Shrop]

And there is the answer to a massive problem.

You persevered, and ended up with a fare that suited you (and clearly suited 'the railway' since it was offered) - classic win-win!

What would 'normally' happen is that, on finding the fare to be £107, Joe Average would say, "Stuff that - I'll drive". And next time he wouldn't even bother to look.

Split ticketing is a necessary fix for something which is fundamentally broken.

Then you get even crazier situations where people who want to travel a couple of hundred miles across the UK, find it's cheaper to fly to somewhere in continental Europe, change flights and fly back to the UK, than it is to buy a direct rail fare. You can't get much more environmentally unfriendly than this, but this is what our rail fares are incentivising.

 

[30907]

As I recall, stopping off on outward portions of day return tickets isn't permitted,

It is generally permitted on Offpeak Day Returns (and always on Anytimes of course).
There are some Offpeak Return fares where it is not permitted (particularly around your area IIRC) but AFAIK they are not day fares.

BTW I presume your saving involved Advance tickets?

 

[Shrop]

With 2,500+ stations, peak and off-peak fares and different routes you can never eliminate ticketing anomalies.

Anyone proposing a new ticketing system is welcome to start a new thread setting out their proposals but I will have some challenging questions to test the robustness of any proposals....

I'm not in the least convinced that providing a more robust fare structure is any answer, not on its own anyway. What we need is a Government that is strong enough to stop pandering to the roads lobby (and the petrol-headed press) and make people think a bit more about their actual costs of driving. And flying. Most drivers have absolutely no comprehension nor care about the fact that they ARE the congestion that is so expensive to our economy, and they ARE also the reason that so many people end up in hospital or worse, plus that insurance costs are so high, and that pollution abounds. We should be encouraged to focus on these things rather than leaving it to Joe and Joanne Public who never think about the hassles that their own trips cause to others.

It's crazy that air fares can be so cheap too, this also needs focus. Only then we can we meaningfully re-assess our rail fare structures - looking at rail fares alone will always be limited at best.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jul 2025 ==

It is generally permitted on Offpeak Day Returns (and always on Anytimes of course).
There are some Offpeak Return fares where it is not permitted (particularly around your area IIRC) but AFAIK they are not day fares.

BTW I presume your saving involved Advance tickets?

Only booked one day in advance for the trip that I did, but the split ticketing meant I had separate tickets to Carlisle and then to Newcastle, which made natural start and end points for each section, ie where through-barrier access was completely without question. (And Carlisle wasn't even attended anyway!)

 

[Tetchytyke]

A Mildmay Overground Line ticket from Kensal Rise to Clapham Junction is in Zone 2 only so costs £2.10 each way.
And a Clapham Junction to Woking Anytime Day Return is £21.70.

So buying separately for each leg costs £25.90 compared to £30.60. Why is this?

In this particular case it is because TfL want people to use Oyster and Contactless, and so paper tickets are more expensive. In this case, the paper ticket would be £8.60, so splitting would still be cheaper but only by 30p.

 

[cholsey-choose]

And there is the answer to a massive problem.

You persevered, and ended up with a fare that suited you (and clearly suited 'the railway' since it was offered) - classic win-win!

What would 'normally' happen is that, on finding the fare to be £107, Joe Average would say, "Stuff that - I'll drive". And next time he wouldn't even bother to look.

Split ticketing is a necessary fix for something which is fundamentally broken.

Not sure about this. There will also be many Average Janes who pay the £107, which is a win for the railway - those who can be bothered to seek out cheaper deals pay less, and those who can't be bothered pay more. Similar to how coupons at the supermarket are also kind of a pain to use.

 

[Shrop]

Not sure about this. There will also be many Average Janes who pay the £107, which is a win for the railway - those who can be bothered to seek out cheaper deals pay less, and those who can't be bothered pay more. Similar to how coupons at the supermarket are also kind of a pain to use.

Interesting that you mention being a pain. Yesterday was fraught with "issues", not least that most trains in both directions were delayed by around 20 minutes between Newcastle and Berwick. My Trans Pennine Express train started southbound from Newcastle so it was on time when I boarded in Durham, but then it had its own "technical" issues which meant it was held at Leeds for over 20 minutes.
Throughout this time the on-train messaging displays were suggesting that passengers should claim delay compensation, so I looked into that today. This was more out of interest than because I want a refund since I got a cheap deal anyway, but oh boy, the procedure is complicated! Yes, passengers are entitled to compensation, but it's quite a pain to actually get it!

 

[cholsey-choose]

Interesting that you mention being a pain. Yesterday was fraught with "issues", not least that most trains in both directions were delayed by around 20 minutes between Newcastle and Berwick. My Trans Pennine Express train started southbound from Newcastle so it was on time when I boarded in Durham, but then it had its own "technical" issues which meant it was held at Leeds for over 20 minutes.
Throughout this time the on-train messaging displays were suggesting that passengers should claim delay compensation, so I looked into that today. This was more out of interest than because I want a refund since I got a cheap deal anyway, but oh boy, the procedure is complicated! Yes, passengers are entitled to compensation, but it's quite a pain to actually get it!

I agree delay repay with split tickets can be a nightmare!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree delay repay with split tickets can be a nightmare!

I don't find that it is, most TOCs now allow you to select that you made the journey with multiple tickets and enter each one.

 

[cholsey-choose]

I don't find that it is, most TOCs now allow you to select that you made the journey with multiple tickets and enter each one.

Well maybe nightmare is a bit strong, but I've encountered several problems:

• Many split ticket booking sites (including this one?) send you all the e-tickets as a single PDF. But to enter multiple tickets as you say, you then need to split the PDFs and put one Aztec code per ticket.
• Several times (well, twice!) I've had TOCs wrongly hand over my delay repay case to another operator that supplied one of my split tickets. I had to appeal.

 

[urbophile]

This is split ticketing, which often does save money, even in very simple cases where it really shouldn't. It is completely legitimate in the UK (though illegal in the Republic of Ireland!)

How could it conceivably be illegal, in Ireland or anywhere? If you have a ticket from A to B, and another from B to C, that must entitle you to travel from A to C. How do they police it in Ireland? And what would 'offenders' be accused of?

 

[cholsey-choose]

How could it conceivably be illegal, in Ireland or anywhere? If you have a ticket from A to B, and another from B to C, that must entitle you to travel from A to C. How do they police it in Ireland? And what would 'offenders' be accused of?

This is an extremely clear case of not reading the rest of the thread before replying

 

[styles]

It seems stupid, to members of the public. You wouldn't expect a "meal deal" to cost more than the individual prices of the sandwich plus snack plus drink

Perhaps a tweak of wording. There certainly have been meal deals where the meal deal costs more than the individual items - the key difference is the checkout automatically calculates that well you only bought a ham sandwich, bottle of water, and pack of ready salted and that's cheaper so we'll charge cheaper. The checkouts for (major) shops which offer 'meal deals' offer the best price regardless of the items added. Unlike if I rock up to an LNER ticket office and they don't offer me split tickets even though they may be cheaper; I'm defaulted to paying for a 'meal deal' style through fare.

 

[cholsey-choose]

Perhaps a tweak of wording. There certainly have been meal deals where the meal deal costs more than the individual items - the key difference is the checkout automatically calculates that well you only bought a ham sandwich, bottle of water, and pack of ready salted and that's cheaper so we'll charge cheaper. The checkouts for (major) shops which offer 'meal deals' offer the best price regardless of the items added. Unlike if I rock up to an LNER ticket office and they don't offer me split tickets even though they may be cheaper; I'm defaulted to paying for a 'meal deal' style through fare.

I don't think a meal deal is a good comparison here. Maybe it's more like you buying six individual 1L bottles of water when a pack of six 1L bottles would be cheaper. The supermarket won't automatically charge you less in that case!

 

[styles]

I agree delay repay with split tickets can be a nightmare!

I find it's way better than it used to be.

When I first started split ticketing, when I was a student and looks for 'hacks', it was a bit of a niche thing.

Now, if you go to the ScotRail website, it sells split tickets. LNER briefly sold split tickets for LNER legs. And of course Trainline and Trainpal are massive mainstream services selling split tickets.

As a result, I find most operators are actually ok now at dealing with split ticket delay repay claims.

It can fall apart when there's weird re-routing things going on, or if the split tickets are made in separate bookings, but an email appeal/to customer services normally sorts it out.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jul 2025 ==

I don't think a meal deal is a good comparison here. Maybe it's more like you buying six individual 1L bottles of water when a pack of six 1L bottles would be cheaper. The supermarket won't automatically charge you less in that case!

No I agree I don't think it's a good comparison either! I was kinda trying to help the other poster make it work a bit better is all

 

[cholsey-choose]

Now, if you go to the ScotRail website, it sells split tickets. LNER briefly sold split tickets for LNER legs. And of course Trainline and Trainpal are massive mainstream services selling split tickets.

This can lead to its own problems, though - a relative had a massively delayed GWR service to Wales (on a Sunday of course) and had bought on trainline, didn't know what 'splitsave' meant. I pushed delay repay on him hard because he was ranting about the trains being useless. Driving that route routinely means 2 hours+ delays and you don't get money back for that! But he got frustrated and gave up on the delay repay website, thinking he'd only be able to get money back for one of his tickets. I tried to explain but my credibility was pretty low at that point...

 

[styles]

This can lead to its own problems, though - a relative had a massively delayed GWR service to Wales (on a Sunday of course) and had bought on trainline, didn't know what 'splitsave' meant. I pushed delay repay on him hard because he was ranting about the trains being useless. Driving that route routinely means 2 hours+ delays and you don't get money back for that! But he got frustrated and gave up on the delay repay website, thinking he'd only be able to get money back for one of his tickets. I tried to explain but my credibility was pretty low at that point...

I agree there's certainly issues with split tickets becoming 'mainstream'. Not least, Trainline (and e.g. ScotRail which uses Trainline's journey planner including split tickets) not communicating the limitations of split tickets.

But I do now find the operators are mostly ok in terms of issuing delay repay compo. Unfortunately they sometimes need poking a bit, but compared to say 10 years ago, it's like night and day.

 

[Nicholas43]

With 2,500+ stations, peak and off-peak fares and different routes you can never eliminate ticketing anomalies.

Anyone proposing a new ticketing system is welcome to start a new thread setting out their proposals but I will have some challenging questions to test the robustness of any proposals....

I have, and look forward to your scorn ...

 

[Shrop]

Further to my above post at #39 along with responses saying it's pretty straightforward, here's an update - TPE have declined my claim.
They acknowledged that my train was sufficiently delayed that I missed my connection at Huddersfield, and that by the time I could have reached Manchester (Piccadilly), my train to Crewe would also have left. Now, my instructions when buying the tickets were that I could ONLY travel on the intended trains, but TPE said I should have travelled on the next available train, which was a faster (but considerably more expensive) TfW train to Crewe, and since I would then have arrived into Crewe just under 15 minutes after my original time, I was not entitled to compensation.
Okay, I understand all that, but am I right in thinking that if I'm delayed on any train journey anywhere, then I can catch whatever train comes next, even a much faster one and at a much more expensive fare, in order to complete my journey? So this then gets around any need to complete my journey using the same train company? This does make me wonder what advantages might be possible using this apparent advice from TPE ...

 

[island]

How could it conceivably be illegal, in Ireland or anywhere? If you have a ticket from A to B, and another from B to C, that must entitle you to travel from A to C. How do they police it in Ireland? And what would 'offenders' be accused of?

You could be prosecuted for fare evasion under the Railway Safety Act.

It is not actively enforced, and fare structures mean it is rare for it to be cheaper. There are a few odd journeys like Balbriggan to Arklow where splitting at Kilcoole might save a few euro, because of the Dublin area fare zone cap.

Conversely, back in 2006-09 I used to get ticket splits at Dundalk for cross-border trips because I had a Faircard (16-25 Railcard analogue) which was only valid in the Republic. This split was always offered to me by booking office staff, and Enterprise conductors never batted an eyelid, even on the train that was fast Portadown-Connolly.

 

[Trainbike46]

You could be prosecuted for fare evasion under the Railway Safety Act.

It is not actively enforced, and fare structures mean it is rare for it to be cheaper. There are a few odd journeys like Balbriggan to Arklow where splitting at Kilcoole might save a few euro, because of the Dublin area fare zone cap.

Conversely, back in 2006-09 I used to get ticket splits at Dundalk for cross-border trips because I had a Faircard (16-25 Railcard analogue) which was only valid in the Republic. This split was always offered to me by booking office staff, and Enterprise conductors never batted an eyelid, even on the train that was fast Portadown-Connolly.

Sounds like that situation was covered under "except where specially authorised" in the conditions of carriage that Haywain cited.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Further to my above post at #39 along with responses saying it's pretty straightforward, here's an update - TPE have declined my claim.
They acknowledged that my train was sufficiently delayed that I missed my connection at Huddersfield, and that by the time I could have reached Manchester (Piccadilly), my train to Crewe would also have left. Now, my instructions when buying the tickets were that I could ONLY travel on the intended trains, but TPE said I should have travelled on the next available train, which was a faster (but considerably more expensive) TfW train to Crewe, and since I would then have arrived into Crewe just under 15 minutes after my original time, I was not entitled to compensation.
Okay, I understand all that, but am I right in thinking that if I'm delayed on any train journey anywhere, then I can catch whatever train comes next, even a much faster one and at a much more expensive fare, in order to complete my journey? So this then gets around any need to complete my journey using the same train company? This does make me wonder what advantages might be possible using this apparent advice from TPE ...

If your Manchester to Crewe ticket was an advance restricted to Northern Only, they're completely wrong, unless you'd have been stranded for the night which I am sure you wouldn't have been. You were entitled only to the next service whilst adhering to the operator restriction, not just to hop on any train. You'd have been reported for prosecution if "caught" doing this using the full might of the Railway's almighty and uncompromising legal powers.

However, don't be too discouraged. Almost all my DR claims ever have been split tickets, the majority of them have been initially declined, for lots of reasons, and every single one of them has been successful on appeal, sometimes with more of a fight than others.

Once you contact a person by email on the Customer Service team and can explain the situation and in cases like this, correct their colleague's misinterpretation of the rules, they're usually resolved. Your case here is very clear cut.

One last point. Bear in mind that if the next Northern service arrived at Crewe 1 minute early, they will deem your delay only to have been only 29 minutes and you'd only qualify for the lower bracket, but 25% is better than nothing.

 

[Shrop]

If your Manchester to Crewe ticket was an advance restricted to Northern Only, they're completely wrong, unless you'd have been stranded for the night which I am sure you wouldn't have been. You were entitled only to the next service whilst adhering to the operator restriction, not just to hop on any train. You'd have been reported for prosecution if "caught" doing this using the full might of the Railway's almighty and uncompromising legal powers.

However, don't be too discouraged. Almost all my DR claims ever have been split tickets, the majority of them have been initially declined, for lots of reasons, and every single one of them has been successful on appeal, sometimes with more of a fight than others.

Once you contact a person by email on the Customer Service team and can explain the situation and in cases like this, correct their colleague's misinterpretation of the rules, they're usually resolved. Your case here is very clear cut.

One last point. Bear in mind that if the next Northern service arrived at Crewe 1 minute early, they will deem your delay only to have been only 29 minutes and you'd only qualify for the lower bracket, but 25% is better than nothing.

If this is correct, then how many members of the public who are refused compensation for delays, would want to appeal against it, or have the knowledge or confidence to do so? This appears to make a mockery of the compensation system, it looks like something that train operators say, but with very little sincerity, and that's after all the initial hurdles of finding your way through the system to make a claim in the first place ...

 

[Royston Vasey]

If this is correct, then how many members of the public who are refused compensation for delays, would want to appeal against it, or have the knowledge or confidence to do so? This appears to make a mockery of the compensation system, it looks like something that train operators say, but with very little sincerity, and that's after all the initial hurdles of finding your way through the system to make a claim in the first place ...

Oh very few, in my view. Most don't even claim in the first place.

Personally, much as I use it when entitled to, I wouldn't be against multiple tiered obstructively administered computer-says-no DR going away under GBR, given what must be very high admin costs and a process that mainly benefits the truly tenacious.

Split ticket savings... back on topic... in an ideal ticketing world they wouldn't exist but they do; I use them routinely and frequently, the industry has made the choice to accept and even embrace their existence rather than fight it. They get price-elastic marginal revenue they may well not otherwise have got (you may well have driven or not gone) and they certainly have no drive or imagination to do anything about our complex ticketing system which was finely tuned over half a century.

Under those circumstances, I am happy to use the workarounds, search for the quieter cheaper slower routes, make discretionary journeys I couldn't otherwise afford or my employer wouldn't pay for. And now and again, pay quite a bit more for a circuitous route achieved with splits that I want to do but would otherwise not be permitted routes.

 

[317 forever]

I can't quite tell whether this has been covered here yet or not.

It's just that sometimes more expensive through tickets offer a choice of routeings, where such examples might not interest us.

For example, I found it cheaper to split my off-peak return (not day return) from Stockport to Derby at Stoke-on-Trent. As I was not interested in going via Sheffield either way I saw no need for the more expensive through ticket.

 

[cholsey-choose]

I can't quite tell whether this has been covered here yet or not.

It's just that sometimes more expensive through tickets offer a choice of routeings, where such examples might not interest us.

For example, I found it cheaper to split my off-peak return (not day return) from Stockport to Derby at Stoke-on-Trent. As I was not interested in going via Sheffield either way I saw no need for the more expensive through ticket.

Same for me. Can often save a few pounds going from London to Carmarthen with a split ticket, but lose the option to come back via the Heart of Wales and the English Midlands on a whim.