I haven't travelled by train this century! Any tips when booking a ticket, I'm a bit shocked at the prices!

[TomasinaTheTankEngine]

I'm travelling from London to Durham on Saturday morning to a Uni open day.
It's too far to drive so going by train.
I haven't booked a train ticket or travelled by train since the internet was invented!
There's so many different sites.
On trainline the best I can see is £67 leaving Kings Cross at 8am.
Can I get cheaper?

Will my son(17) have to pay full adult fare even though he's in school. He doesn't have any rail travelcard.

TIA

Buy a 16-17 railcard for your son (you can get a digital version so can use immediately). They can be used early in the morning and give 50% off. Once that runs out he'll have to have a 16-25 one which gives 1/3 off and has more restrictions. He will need a passport photo.

£67 sounds pretty good for that time in the morning and that distance. Grand Central are worth a look although I don't know if they call at Durham (my son sometimes uses them for York).

It’s very expensive: I was going to take my children away for my birthday but the train tickets would have been £300 return so giving it a miss 😅

I did the 16-17 travelcard for my ds the other week - so easy using Trainline and its stored in the app too. They also auto split the tickets on Trainline which can make them much cheaper.

If you will be doing a few uni visits together by train, the Two Together railcard might be cheaper though - its £30 for a year and gives you both 30% off (though only offpeak). Worth playing around on Trainline with different options

Too late now, but sign up for the release of Advance singles and try to book as early as possible. Get railcards, and also look at split ticketing sites. Trainline offers split ticketing sometimes and tells you automatically.

I'm going from Stansted airport to Bath via London next week and paying only £22 with a combination of time of day, Railcard, split ticketing and advance singles.

Agree with 2 Together. DD and I had that before she went to uni and saved a fortune.

I think that's an LNER route so you could try their website but actually it looks like Trainline have given you a cheaper route. You'll make your money back on a two together Railcard just this trip - bear in mind that £67 is each and presumably one way!

yes £67 is one way

My advice would be to get a Two Together railcard for £30*. Then buy super off-peak singles with the railcard for £55.30 per person per direction. The advantage with the super off-peak singles is that you can use any train, whereas the tickets suggested by trainline I suspect will only be valid for a specific train and if you miss that then you will then have to fork out for more tickets.

Also don't buy through thetrainline as they add a £1.99 booking fee. If you buy directly from a train operator then you won't pay this.

*if you have clubcard vouchers then you can use these instead.

If I get a 16-17 rail card or the 2 together railcard, it says I need a passport photo.
Can I just take these photos on my phone (using a passport photo app) or are they super strict and I need to get it professionally done?

Nah, you can use any. Mine isn't a passport photo. The Railcard is digital so as long as it "reads" the photo properly it doesn't mind.

Too late, but you have to book advance singles weeks in advance to get good prices. I'd get a 2 together railcard, you should make your money back just with that trip. use the train provider website instead, train line charge a booking fee. I use this website a lot Split Train Tickets (Official Site) (splitticketing.co.uk)