Off peak train times

[YukonGold]

Virgin trains are a fecking joke, off peak to London from Stafford starts at 10.42am. That will get me to London for approx midday.
I’ve not looked at the return journey but suspect it’s all about return times i.e. back at Stafford mid afternoon.
This means leaving London about 2 hours after I arrived.....
A peak ticket costs me £225 return.
I could move to Spain and fly to London with a low cost airline every day of the week for the same cost of my daily rail ticket, how crazy is that?
Apologies if I’ve got it wrong but feck me my rail ticket seems very very expensive
AIBU to think that when travelling to London thatleaving after 9am should be seen as off peak?

Off peak is 9.30 onwards iirc

The 9.27 train was empty and the 9.57 full where i used to live.

Have you checked The Trainline? There looks to be a couple of earlier cheap ones on there

Any use?

The Trainline only sells the same tickets as everyone else but with a booking fee so works out more expensive.
I imagine that you are looking at super off peak rather than off peak if the first arrival in London is midday.

From National Rail Enquiries website, hope this helps.

I've just been on the Virgin website itself and you could go today at 9.55, returning by leaving London at 1646 or 1746, for £39.50 return. Even the most expensive return was £140.

There's no such thing as super off peak any more, and off peak doesn't start at 9.30am automatically.

It depends and is set by the train operating company.

Cheaper tickets in peak times will be Advance ie limit you to a specific train, which might work for the OP and might not; provided there are any left for when she wants to travel.

OP you are entirely correct, it's ridiculous. But everything about Virgin trains is awful so not sure why you're surprised unfortunately...

It’s not Virgin trains on this journey.