Have you heard about the amazing way to save money on your train fares? I thought I’d share how to save money with split ticketing today and also tell you why I personally prefer not to do it!
What is Split Ticketing?
Split ticketing is a way to save money by buying two or more tickets to travel on a journey where you could just buy one. So, for example, your usual train might go from A-B with one ticket that costs a set amount for the whole journey but you could buy individual tickets that would take you A-C before travelling C-B.
Here’s the example from the Split Ticketing website that I use:
An Off-Peak ticket to return the same day between Birmingham and Leeds costs £61.10 (May 2017). However, you can buy a ticket from Birmingham to Derby, one from Derby to Sheffield and one from Sheffield to Leeds for a total of £40.10, saving £21.00. At peak times, the savings can be much bigger.
So, split ticketing is basically splitting your trip into smaller portions to save some money, but is it worth it? I’m not so sure but I’ll get to that in a minute.
How do I ‘do’ Split Ticketing?
It’s actually really easy, despite it sounding like a total faff on to sort out. The best site that I could find that worked out your journey automatically was SplitTicketing.com and all you need to do on there is tell their clever little search system where you want to set off from, where you’re going and when…
Once you’ve done that, you’ll get a handy little choice of train journeys and prices for your chosen route…
The Super Off-Peak Return fare on this on TheTrainline app is £135.70 so I could save £20 by Split Ticketing which is a pretty significant saving when you think about it.
But… instead of going on the direct, fast train that takes me around 2hrs 20 minutes, I’d have to change at Doncaster and wait for 20 minutes. That and the fact that the trains are slower and stopping at more stations than my usual one increases the journey to almost three hours.
It’s the same story on the way back, getting off the train at York with a 26-minute wait before getting on the next train which would be the last thing I’d probably want to do personally when I’m on my way home from a weekend away.
If you’re OK with that though, and I know lots would be, then it’s a great saving for an extra 40 minutes or so on your journeys.
There are simpler journeys though – some you don’t even need to get off the train as the split tickets you might buy could be for the same train just broken into individual tickets.
I’d love to hear if you’ve saved some money with Split Ticketing in the past, so please do leave your experiences in the comments – maybe your regular route has a better journey/saving than mine?
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