July 7, 2022

Save Money On Train Fares With Split Ticketing

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Are you looking to save money on rail fares? Split Ticketing could be the answer.

Train journeys can be notoriously expensive. Recent examples of people trying to avoid huge rail fares include Jordan who flew to Berlin as it was cheaper than taking a train and Tom who managed to charter a private plane for less than the cost of his planned rail journey.

While most of us probably wouldn’t go to these extremes to save money, there are plenty of ways we still can save on the cost of train journeys including booking well in advance, split tickets and using a railcard.

Split Tickets: Save Money On Train Fares

Living in Somerset, it can often feel as though I’m a world away from London. There have been several occasions when I’ve had to turn down blogging events and meetups as the cost of travel and overnight stays haven’t been affordable for me.

That said, we have been getting the train quite a lot recently for shorter, local journeys. I recently took my one-year-old daughter on her first-ever train journey and she loved it. It was also much less stressful than getting the bus with a buggy in tow!

How To Save Money With Split Ticketing

Buying split tickets (also known as split ticketing) is one of the easiest ways to save money on train journeys. Many train fares are actually cheaper when split up into smaller chunks. As a very basic example, it could well be cheaper for me to travel from my hometown of Bridgwater up to Bristol on a single ticket and then buy another single ticket from Bristol to London.

However, searching for each and every single ticket train fare between here and London to try and make a saving would take hours and hours. That’s where traintickets.com come in. They do all the hard work for you and will come up with the ticket combination that saves you the most money. They specialize in split ticketing so should be your first port of call when looking to save money on train fares.

Do Split Ticketing Mean Lots Of Train Changes?

Nope! In some cases when using split tickets you won’t need to change trains – or seats – at all. On other occasions, you may need to change, but it’s likely you would have needed to do so anyway.

Using the example above of me travelling to London, there simply aren’t any direct trains for that journey, so I would always need to change at Bristol, split tickets or not. Traintickets.com will always try to make sure you that when you reserve a seat, you won’t need to change, but this might not always be possible.

Does Split Ticketing Break Any Rules?

No. Firstly, it’s not something I would be recommending people do if it wasn’t completely legal and compliant with train company rules. Secondly, as you’ve already paid for each leg of your journey you aren’t doing anything wrong. You have a valid ticket and that is all the train companies can ask of you.

The train does need to be stopping at all the stations your ticket covers, but that’s the beauty of getting traintickets.com to do the leg work for you – they’ll never sell you a ticket that isn’t valid and will allow a reasonable amount of time between any changes too.

If your journey has been split into several sections it’s worth getting your tickets in the right order so you know which one to show if asked to present it while travelling.

Are There Any Fees When You Use Split Ticketing?

While traintickets.com will never charge you to use the site or to look up the price of the train journeys, there is a small fee if you do go ahead and purchase a ticket. This is fee is a flat 10% and is taken from the savings made on the journey.

Depending on the savings made, this can be anywhere from a few pounds to a few pence. For example, if they save you £30 on your rail fare, £27 of savings are passed on to you and traintickets.com keep £3 as an admin fee. These fees are made very clear before purchasing tickets and there are never any additional costs such as booking fees or credit card fees.

As you can see from the example below (Dawlish to Manchester) it’s very clear how much the tickets are, how much the fees are and which stations the split tickets are between.

What If Split Ticketing Won’t Save Money?

Of course, there may be the odd occasion when split tickets won’t save you any money. If this is the case traintickets.com will let you know and you can choose whether or not to continue with your train ticket purchase.