Cardiff (CDF) to Bristol (BRI)

[Willie Bee]

My wife and I are having a few days in Cardiff soon and fancy a day trip to Bristol.

I always buy advance tickets, but I see there is an 'off-peak day return' ticket for this journey, which would work out much cheaper.

I realise this would let me return at any time, I think before 4:30, which seems great.

Can I simply buy this ticket on the day of travel, say from one of the ticket machines .. at least then I don't book up and find that on our travel day it's raining.

thank you

 

[jfollows]

Can I simply buy this ticket on the day of travel, say from one of the ticket machines .. at least then I don't book up and find that on our travel day it's raining.

thank you

Yes

 

[John R]

My wife and I are having a few days in Cardiff soon and fancy a day trip to Bristol.

I always buy advance tickets, but I see there is an 'off-peak day return' ticket for this journey, which would work out much cheaper.

I realise this would let me return at any time, I think before 4:30, which seems great.

Can I simply buy this ticket on the day of travel, say from one of the ticket machines .. at least then I don't book up and find that on our travel day it's raining.

thank you

I think you raise an issue with advance tickets. They seem to be so heavily promoted on rail ticketing sites, whereas the day return fare is often cheaper than two such single tickets. And of course have much more flexibility as to use. I suspect a lot of people don't realise that.

 

[jfollows]

I think a lot of companies mandate advance tickets for business travel nowadays, fortunately I don’t work any more but when I was doing some work for a charity I got the same thing, but they were amenable to my counter-proposal of a day return instead.

 

[The exile]

My wife and I are having a few days in Cardiff soon and fancy a day trip to Bristol.

I always buy advance tickets, but I see there is an 'off-peak day return' ticket for this journey, which would work out much cheaper.

I realise this would let me return at any time, I think before 4:30, which seems great.

Can I simply buy this ticket on the day of travel, say from one of the ticket machines .. at least then I don't book up and find that on our travel day it's raining.

thank you

As far as I can see, the only time restriction on this fare is the morning peak - nothing restriction in the afternoon.

 

[jfollows]

Outward Travel & Return Travel​
Restriction Code: W1 Restricted Days: Monday to Friday Mondays to Fridays​
Not valid on trains timed to depart after 04:29 and before 09:30.

And, as @Willie Bee says, the day runs until 04:29 the following morning.

 

[Willie Bee]

OP here .. thank you all for the replies.

And, as @Willie Bee says, the day runs until 04:29 the following morning.

You're giving me too much credit .. I actually thought the tickets were only valid for journeys starting between 09:30 and 16:30

 

[jfollows]

The majority of tickets that I buy are day returns or off-peak returns, because I don’t want to be bound by the restrictions of advance tickets. I also use split tickets. So, for example, Wilmslow-Birmingham with a split at Stafford is likely to be cheaper than advance tickets and also allows me to travel when I want to travel, within some restrictions.

I had a couple of trips to Bromsgrove with the Stroke Association and they were fortunately amenable to my buying open return tickets, splitting at Stafford again, for no more money. Advance tickets are a complete pain if you don’t know when you’ll return. Virgin allowed outbound advance with Saver Half return, which was ideal, but that’s been killed by Avanti now.

I use advance tickets for Wilmslow-London and Wilmslow-Edinburgh only, at least in recent years. Even London can be the same price (or 10p more) for an off-peak returns.

I occasionally use Northern’s really cheap advance tickets, but last time I mis-guessed so I had to buy a new ticket, so the savings aren’t always there.