Tired of paying over the odds on rail fare and journeying by car instead? A travel expert may have the solution for you – with a savvy way of cutting costs on short and long distance trips.
Cheap holiday guru Chelsea took to TikTok to explain that she’s discovered a way of “hacking the system” using her “train splitting” method. “This is when you buy two or more train tickets that make up your full journey, that end up being cheaper than if you just bought 1 ticket from start to finish,” she began.
“Fortunately, lots of websites do this for you now – including Trainline, TrainPal and Virgin Trains Ticketing – and so it’s pretty easy to do.” In video footage of an example, Chelsea explained that she booked a single ticket to Crewe [from London] where she waited an hour, before embarking on a second train to Carlisle.
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“What they don’t currently do is highlight when you could split your ticket between standard and first class!” she emphasised. “And that’s what this hack is all about!” In doing so, she was able to treat her partner James to first class travel on the second part of their journey – and still saved money overall.
“Let me explain what I’ve done here,” she said to her followers. “Our journey was from London to Carlisle, where an advanced first class ticket is £113.40. So I looked through all the stops on our journey to see if there was anywhere that was cheap to get a standard single to – and cheap to get a first class ticket from – Crewe was that sweet spot.”
Chelsea also detailed: “You could book both tickets for the same train, but for our journey it was much cheaper to get an earlier and faster train to Crewe – hence why we had to wait an hour. So I booked the two trains separatley and it worked out at £60.85, which is an absolute bargain [a saving of £52.55 each].”
She detailed her method further in the video’s caption, penning a step-by-step guide:
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Find out how much it would cost to book first class in full – I recommend booking well in advance if you’re interested in this as sometimes you can get a good deal for the whole journey!
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Find out all the possible stops on your journey – for ours there were actually 2 train options, a fast and a slow train, and so I checked all of them
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Search for singles between your departure point and your final destination, noting the standard price and the first class price. I ended up using LNER to do this as they clearly show the first class cost at the same time as the standard one
She closed: “And then it’s simply a case of seeing if you can spot a ‘cheap’ first class leg!” One of Chelsea’s followers praised the tip: “Definitely would do this, it’s not like it’s was £5 of a difference, it’s a good saving. Awesome.”
A second added from experience of the ‘hack’: “I used to deliver cars for a living and would use to trains to go pick a car up or get home after delivery. I saved so much money by split ticketing. Ticket prices are insane if you pay full whack.”
A third person added: “It’s a good option. It would be perfect for someone who can’t sit for the whole journey and needs a break anyway and/or if the station is near something worth a short visit.” Whilst a fourth recalled: “Yep I split trips up when buying tickets. Split fare was £30 for two to go from Coventry to York, the solid trip was £150 – it’s ridiculous.”