When are the fares loaded onto the Databases?

[Benjurs]

Hi All

I have a quick question or two!, I would like to travel from Cambridge (CBG) to Glasgow (Queen St or Central) return on 2nd or 3rd Sept 2015 and return on either 7th or 8th Sept - whatever is the cheapest...

I can travel at any time of the day and hold a Adult Disabled Railcard...I've done this journey many times and once managed to snag a return for around £85 first class, last year. The fares were normally £65 standard class return.

So my question is, when is the earliest time that I could buy a ticket with the best chance of a first class ticket or failing that a standard class ticket.

Hope this is clear enough for everyone and thanks in advance for all and any assistance.

KR

Benjurs

 

[CallySleeper]

Mid-ish June roughly. VT have a facility on their website whereby you tell them when you want to travel and they'll email you when the tickets are available. Can't link for you unfortunately as I'm on mobile.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Here it is

 

[alistairstubbs]

The inline do a Ticket Alert available on the link below. I found the VT one told me a week after I had bought the tickets.

http://www.thetrainline.com/ticketa...n=text&tduid=d6bacc9c1546d528fc60c8cd0a8e1968

 

[CallySleeper]

The trainline may offer a similar service but in any case buy your tickets direct from the operator (EC in this case), DO NOT buy your tickets from the trainline.

 

[kieron]

The inline do a Ticket Alert available on the link below. I found the VT one told me a week after I had bought the tickets.

National Rail Enquiries have one here. This shows weekend booking horizons separately, as weekend tickets can sometimes become available late due to uncertainty about line closures.

Oh, and the important thing is that you should buy from an operator web site. It's a lot less important which you use. As Virgin, Virgin East Coast and Crosscountry all offer Cambridge-Glasgow advance tickets, it could be a bit awkward to use the operator for each ticket you buy.

The main reason I'd use a specific site is to take advantage of the fact that sites which use booking engines created by The Trainline, WebTIS and Assertis sometimes offer different tickets for the same route.

 

[alistairstubbs]

I have found the National Rail is only updated weekly where as tickets are released every day. For example today it is saying the furthest in advance I can buy a VT ticket is 11th June where as on VT's site I can buy them up to the 17th. I have found TheTrainline alert sends me the email the day the tickets become available and I then buy the tickets from VT.

 

[Benjurs]

Thanks for all the prompt responses and information...I'll wait until later on this year!

 

[SirAlf]

New user so I hope it is OK to reactivate this old thread

I regularly travel East Midlands Trains, also a few journeys each year with other operators. I always know well in advance my travel dates. I have always registered for cheap ticket alerts with thetrainline.com and when the email arrived I then booked tickets from the operator

But it seems now that the ticket alert on thetrainline.com has stopped working, I haven’t received any alerts for several weeks and on their website they have all operators offering cheap tickets only up to mid-Sep

So two questions that I hope somebody can help with:

1. Has thetrainline.com given up emailing alerts?
2. Is there a way of getting alerts for multiple operators from somewhere else?

Thanks in advance

 

[wibble]

Not an alert, per se, but the National Rail website has a list - gets updated at least once per week....

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/44703.aspx