December advance prices

[Leisurefirst]

Hi all,
I'm thinking about a trip to Glasgow sometime around 16th to 20th December requiring a hotel.
The hotel is nice and cheap at the moment but not refundable.
The trip is dependent really upon advance fares London to Glasgow (either from Euston or from King's Cross via Edinburgh) being available at the prices they are in any other week.
By the time they are available to book doubtless the hotel price will have risen.
Can anybody please advise are the fares for that week generally what they are any other week or more expensive?
I fully appreciate they will sell out quickly but will they be the usual prices?

 

[30907]

Friday 20 December will be pretty busy, so I would expect very limited availability of the cheapest.

 

[trebor79]

I use Hotels.com, there's usually the option to pay a few extra pounds for a refundable room (last time I think it was about £6 more on a circa £55 room). So you can secure your hotel now and cancel it if the train fares are too steep.

 

[Leisurefirst]

Thanks both for the replies.

 

[dave87016]

The 0530 Euston - Glasgow usually has cheap advances especially in first class

 

[cuccir]

Can anybody please advise are the fares for that week generally what they are any other week or more expensive?
I fully appreciate they will sell out quickly but will they be the usual prices?

The exact approach that train companies take to releasing Advance fares is a bit opaque, as the process is perhaps quite reasonably shrouded in corporate secrecy. But Advances only exist a certain prices; they're not dynamic like airline tickets. Rather a train company will release eg 20 tickets at £40, 40 tickets at £60, 40 tickets at £80 etc etc. Once all the cheap tickets have sold, they're gone, and then the next price becomes available.

Train companies don't usually release tickets at their lowest price bracket on their busiest trains, but there's usually a small number at the middle-price tiers. Even at the busiest periods, most will release some of their cheapest tickets for trains at unfavourable hours (very early/very late), to try and encourage people to use those rather than the busier trains.

I think at the start of the week of the 16th you'll still find some of the cheaper Advances available: on the Monday and Tuesday in particular I wouldn't expect it to be notably busier than any other time of year. There will be more limited availability on the 19th and particularly on the 20th. I'd advise against discretionary travel on the last Friday before Christmas, ie, the 20th, although even then you might still find a few cheap Advances to return home in the early morning, as travel on that day is often people getting away after finishing work.

 

[xydancer]

Check on Virgin's Best Fare Finder and it will have all the info you need.
Virgin have been selling advance fares for that week for a while (their horizon is now well into January - excluding the days over Christmas and New Year), so the very cheapest may well have gone but I've just looked and there are still £30 singles available some days.

 

[Haywain]

A quick look at Virgin's website suggests you can get a fare of £39 out on the Monday, and as low as £30 for the Friday return, if you don't mind leaving Glasgow in the late afternoon. I think that's pretty good.

 

[Leisurefirst]

Thanks everybody for your replies.
I noticed that VT had the fares on sale already yesterday (I'm sure they weren't pretty recently?!)
The standard are indeed surprisingly good value.
Wanted a treat really and the 1st class (for two with a 2T railcard) are a bit more than I would probably pay on LNER so my dilemma now is whether to hold out for those or just take the VT standard!