Help with getting best value advance tickets

[Bodie]

Hello,

Please could someone help me make sense of the advance ticketing minefield.

I am going away in September and have already booked hotel rooms.
I need to travel on Monday 7th September from Inverness to Lancaster, then Lancaster to Crewe on Tuesday 8th. Crewe to Lancaster on the Friday 11th and then Lancaster to Inverness on Monday 14th.

I just cannot get the best advance tickets to match up.

On one hand I can get £10 advances from Glasgow to Lancaster but Scotrail are not giving the best price of £11.30. Yet they are every day the previous week.

What I really want to know is it best to wait till nearer the time or get in now???

I really don't want to book some tickets and then leave the rest till another day. I want to get them all in one go.

I'm sick of this complex game of hide and seek.
Isn't progess great.

 

[Romilly]

I don't think Advances for the 14th will be on sale until Friday this week. I will have a look at the details though.

Edit: that's right, no Advances yet for the 14th. Probably best to try from 10am onwards this Friday. As for the 7th, it seems to be a popular day for leaving Inverness: there are £21.90 Advances to Glasgow in the morning (but for some trains only one or two left at that price) and £11.30 Advances for afternoon trains.

Further edit: if you want to get the 0755 Kings X train out of Inverness on the 7th as far as Perth, there's about £3 to be saved by buying Inverness-Perth and Perth-Glasgow separately.

 

[Bodie]

Thanks,

Tell me about it. Better get that booked then, before the price increases.

Any help on the Lancaster to Crewe legs of my journey.
I can't get anything cheaper then £20.30 off peak singles.

Have all the advances for that route on the days I want (Tues 8th and Fri 11th) gone???

 

[Romilly]

Virgin trains West Coast haven't released Advances for later than 6th September yet, so I would wait until they do before buying for 8th & 11th September. The previous week has Advances between Crewe/Lancaster from £6.50 one-way.

 

[30907]

Don't seem to be Advances for those dates available for LAN-EUS which suggests they haven't yet been loaded. Though as you say, GLC-LAN are already available on Virgin.

 

[Bodie]

Thank you,

I think i'm getting the hang of it now.

Why though would one section of the WCML be up earlier then an other.
Surely easier for the passenger if the whole WCML advances were added at the same time.

 

[Clip]

Engineering works not confirmed I would suspect.