Weekend Trip to Nottingham

[BluePenguin]

One of my friends moved up to Nottingham last Friday and has been feeling homesick. Another friend who lives there I have not seen in a long while and has invited me to theirs for the weekend.

I have been looking at fares to Nottingham and Newark Northgate. It seems the LNER sale has ended? I had expected it to last until the end of today. I have a 16 - 25 railcard. I plan to travel on Friday 10th or Saturday 11th and return on the Sunday.

Transplit made various suggestions which were not much cheaper than a flexible return, such as travelling from Euston to Nuneaton and changing. Going from Kings Cross changing at Grantham also seems to be an option.

Does anyone have any advice to get the cost down please?

 

[Haywain]

It seems the LNER sale has ended? I had expected it to last until the end of today.

Yep, closed at 09:00 this morning, as advertised.

 

[Nunners]

One of my friends moved up to Nottingham last Friday and has been feeling homesick. Another friend who lives there I have not seen in a long while and has invited me to theirs for the weekend.

I have been looking at fares to Nottingham and Newark Northgate. It seems the LNER sale has ended? I had expected it to last until the end of today. I have a 16 - 25 railcard. I plan to travel on Friday 10th or Saturday 11th and return on the Sunday.

Transplit made various suggestions which were not much cheaper than a flexible return, such as travelling from Euston to Nuneaton and changing. Going from Kings Cross changing at Grantham also seems to be an option.

Does anyone have any advice to get the cost down please?

I assume this is from London?

 

[Watershed]

One of my friends moved up to Nottingham last Friday and has been feeling homesick. Another friend who lives there I have not seen in a long while and has invited me to theirs for the weekend.

I have been looking at fares to Nottingham and Newark Northgate. It seems the LNER sale has ended? I had expected it to last until the end of today. I have a 16 - 25 railcard. I plan to travel on Friday 10th or Saturday 11th and return on the Sunday.

Transplit made various suggestions which were not much cheaper than a flexible return, such as travelling from Euston to Nuneaton and changing. Going from Kings Cross changing at Grantham also seems to be an option.

Does anyone have any advice to get the cost down please?

Where are you travelling from?

 

[BluePenguin]

I assume this is from London?

Yes

Where are you travelling from?

From Sandwich

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Sep 2021 ==

Yep, closed at 09:00 this morning, as advertised.

Such a shame

 

[BJames]

One of my friends moved up to Nottingham last Friday and has been feeling homesick. Another friend who lives there I have not seen in a long while and has invited me to theirs for the weekend.

I have been looking at fares to Nottingham and Newark Northgate. It seems the LNER sale has ended? I had expected it to last until the end of today. I have a 16 - 25 railcard. I plan to travel on Friday 10th or Saturday 11th and return on the Sunday.

Transplit made various suggestions which were not much cheaper than a flexible return, such as travelling from Euston to Nuneaton and changing. Going from Kings Cross changing at Grantham also seems to be an option.

Does anyone have any advice to get the cost down please?

I travel London-Nottingham fairly often for Uni. I prefer to go direct St Pancras-Nottingham on EMR Intercity, but if I've left it a bit late to buy an advance, I will do the split ticket via Grantham - LNER King's Cross to Grantham, EMR Grantham to Nottingham. Be aware of connection times at Grantham with EMR's regional at the moment - some LNER trains connect well with the EMR to Nottingham (i.e. a 5-15ish min wait) while others less so.

An off-peak single from Grantham to Nottingham on 16-25 railcard is £6.60. There are usually quite cheap fares between King's Cross and Grantham, I can see there are quite a few at £13.85 and still some at £11.65 and £12.50. On the Saturday morning there are some at £9.80, making the total trip between London and Nottingham £16.40 one way. I doubt to be honest that you will get cheaper by looking at other routes, and you're right that this is a good option and is not much longer than going on the direct EMR Intercity route.

(Also - if you're a student you can get 40% off LNER at the moment on Unidays, a little more than the 1/3 offered on the 16-25 Railcard)

 

[BluePenguin]

I travel London-Nottingham fairly often for Uni. I prefer to go direct St Pancras-Nottingham on EMR Intercity, but if I've left it a bit late to buy an advance, I will do the split ticket via Grantham - LNER King's Cross to Grantham, EMR Grantham to Nottingham. Be aware of connection times at Grantham with EMR's regional at the moment - some LNER trains connect well with the EMR to Nottingham (i.e. a 5-15ish min wait) while others less so.

An off-peak single from Grantham to Nottingham on 16-25 railcard is £6.60. There are usually quite cheap fares between King's Cross and Grantham, I can see there are quite a few at £13.85 and still some at £11.65 and £12.50. On the Saturday morning there are some at £9.80, making the total trip between London and Nottingham £16.40 one way. I doubt to be honest that you will get cheaper by looking at other routes, and you're right that this is a good option and is not much longer than going on the direct EMR Intercity route.

(Also - if you're a student you can get 40% off LNER at the moment on Unidays, a little more than the 1/3 offered on the 16-25 Railcard)

Thank you, this was very helpful. I forgot about the 40% LNER offer. In the end I found a cheap advance from Kings Cross to Neward Northgate for £15.50 Including the Unidays discount I was charged £13.80. Although 40% of £15.50 is £6.20 which makes me wonder whether I made a mistake? Perhaps @Wallsendmag can help by kindly shedding some light on the issue

 

[Nunners]

Thank you, this was very helpful. I forgot about the 40% LNER offer. In the end I found a cheap advance from Kings Cross to Neward Northgate for £15.50 Including the Unidays discount I was charged £13.80. Although 40% of £15.50 is £6.20 which makes me wonder whether I made a mistake? Perhaps @Wallsendmag can help by kindly shedding some light on the issue

The 40% offer on unidays isn't on top of a Railcard discount unfortunately, so it's actually about 7% off.
Was the £15.50 a fare with the Railcard discount applied? If so, the full fare would have been £23.25ish you you've been charged about right (60% of 23.25 is 13.95)

 

[robbeech]

Thank you, this was very helpful. I forgot about the 40% LNER offer. In the end I found a cheap advance from Kings Cross to Neward Northgate for £15.50 Including the Unidays discount I was charged £13.80. Although 40% of £15.50 is £6.20 which makes me wonder whether I made a mistake? Perhaps @Wallsendmag can help by kindly shedding some light on the issue

Do more trains towards Nottingham call at Newark Northgate nowadays or will you still be required to do a walk across town to Newark Castle? It’s not a bad walk, and the cafe on Newark Castle station is very good.

 

[Watershed]

Do more trains towards Nottingham call at Newark Northgate nowadays or will you still be required to do a walk across town to Newark Castle? It’s not a bad walk, and the cafe on Newark Castle station is very good.

There's one train a day, the 05:50 from Northgate. No return service. So yes, quite the choice

 

[BluePenguin]

The 40% offer on unidays isn't on top of a Railcard discount unfortunately, so it's actually about 7% off.
Was the £15.50 a fare with the Railcard discount applied? If so, the full fare would have been £23.25ish you you've been charged about right (60% of 23.25 is 13.95)

I understand now, that does make sense. Yes the fare was £15.50 with a railcard discount. I had looked up the journey before opening the promotional LNER page so it was saved. I was rather tired and didn’t look at the price too closely as I had already decided which train I wanted to travel on earlier.

There's one train a day, the 05:50 from Northgate. No return service. So yes, quite the choice

Oh what conveniently timed and useful service! A good thing my friend drives and is picking me up lol