Manchester – Inverness split suggestions

[Panceltic]

Hi all,

I am planning a return trip in April from Manchester to Inverness.

I can save about £40 by splitting at Edinburgh, but I haven’t been able to find any further options to bring the cost down.

Does anyone have any suggestions please? Ideally I’d like to avoid advance tickets.

Thanks!

 

[AlterEgo]

Have you used the forum's ticketing site?

 

[yorkie]

Hi all,

I am planning a return trip in April from Manchester to Inverness.

I can save about £40 by splitting at Edinburgh, but I haven’t been able to find any further options to bring the cost down.

Does anyone have any suggestions please? Ideally I’d like to avoid advance tickets.

Thanks!

Rather than do your own manual calculations (for which BRfares.com is a good starting point, but it won't tell you about Advance quotas!) and buy each ticket individually, I strongly recommend you leave it to the forum's ticketing site.

Advantages:

• The system will automatically calculate if it's cheaper to split; there is no booking fee, so if it's no cheaper to split, you will pay the same as if you bought from TPE, Scotrail etc.
• If it is cheaper to split, at least 85% of the savings will be passed on to you
• It helps with the upkeep of the forum, and helps us to fund events such as fares workshops
• You will get a through itinerary, which is strong evidence of a contract to travel for the entire journey
• If trains are retimed, cancelled or delayed, having a through itinerary can be advantageous and you would also have the support of the retailer in the event you are in dispute with the train company
• The forum's site has a seat selector, so you can pick the seats you want (to get the best use of this, you may want to bring up a PDF of the relevant train type side-by-side)
• The forum's site has an option to avoid advance fares; if you go to filters, you can specify walk-up tickets only.

 

[Panceltic]

Thanks both for your answer!

The forum’s ticketing site only offers the Edinburgh split, it seems to be the only option if I want to avoid advance fares.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The forum’s ticketing site only offers the Edinburgh split, it seems to be the only option if I want to avoid advance fares.

What's being offered? And why not a Glasgow split as well? There are usually several direct trains most weekdays from Glasgow Queen Street up to Inverness, maybe cheaper fares via Aviemore?

 

[Panceltic]

Northern to Preston, Avanti to Edinburgh, and ScotRail to Inverness. It’s a Manchester-Edinburgh off-peak return (route Avanti&Northern) combined with an Edinburgh-Inverness anytime return (route via Aviemore). There aren’t any cheaper options via Glasgow unfortunately.

The combination above costs £146.80 as opposed to £186.30 for a Manchester-Inverness off-peak return.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Northern to Preston, Avanti to Edinburgh, and ScotRail to Inverness. It’s a Manchester-Edinburgh off-peak return (route Avanti&Northern) combined with an Edinburgh-Inverness anytime return (route via Aviemore). There aren’t any cheaper options via Glasgow unfortunately.

The combination above costs £146.80 as opposed to £186.30 for a Manchester-Inverness off-peak return.

So noted. The main downside of using a route "Avanti & Northern" restricted ticket, I would suggest, is that it's typically only 1tp2h between Oxenholme and Edinburgh (with Avanti as you can't use TPE) on what's already going to be a fairly longish overall journey.

 

[Panceltic]

Yeah, I’ll have to decide if it’s worth extending my journey for nearly an hour each way (and throwing in another change) for the sake of £40.