Booking Cheap Train/Bus Travel
Booking UK Bus Travel
The comparison site Check my Bus is a good starting point to find the best deal.
Megabus offers some great deals (E.g £1 ticket promotions) whilst National Express is the national carrier and can be worth comparing with train/plane travel to get the best deal. Bus travel is usually the cheapest travel option, book in advance to get great deals that will make you smug with how little you have paid!
Booking UK Train Travel
- Compare train ticket prices on Train Genius, Rail Easy and The Trainline
- Always looking to buy in advance and if possible try travelling during off peak times to get the best deal.
- Train ticket pricing does not make much sense which means there are things worth trying to save money. Buying two single tickets as opposed to a return ticket can sometimes be cheaper.
- Splitting tickets is another way of getting cheaper tickets, this where you have two tickets for the one journey. E.G London to Manchester you may have a ticket for London to Milton-Keynes than Milton Keynes to Manchester even though it is the same journey.
- Touring UK by Train: Ranger and Rover are tickets you can purchase that allow unlimited travel over a set region of the UK, for more information try this website Railrover.
Booking Europe Bus Travel
The comparison site Check my Bus is a good starting point to find a good deal.
Eurolines is another good site to find pricing and bus services for individual journeys across Europe. Busabout offer excellent value for money with their hop on- hop off bus service to popular European destinations designed for travelers looking to explore various European countries.
Booking Europe Train Travel
You really need to do your own research to ensure you get best value for money, as some rail services won't use the third party websites we recommend and other times the third party websites can be considerably more expensive. You need to find the right website to use for the right journey.
- First identify train services for the journey you require. The best website for this is Bahn which gives bring up timetables for destinations across Europe. Useful App with the timetables across Europe are DB Navigator (online) and Railplanner (offline).
- To find fares direct for trains from their national companies website this Interrail link will help. Also try comparison sites The Trainline and for a bus/train comparison try Go Euro and Virail. Snap Eurostar is a good resource to find cheap fares from London on the Eurostar.
- Some tickets have set prices so it does not matter when you book while others will offer cheaper tickets for advanced purchases.
- Consider buying two single journey's rather than a return ticket as well as split ticketing where you split your journey up buying two tickets for the one journey. e.g rather than getting a ticket direct from Amsterdam to Bruge. It could be cheaper to get a ticket Amsterdam to Antwerp and then Antwerp to Bruge.
- If you are looking at traveling across Europe and making multiple journeys via train it could be worth purchasing are rail pass from Rail Europe or Interrail. Make sure you do your homework first using the resources above to see whether this would save you money. In some cases it will in other cases it will cost you more money.
General Money Saving Tips for travel by bus/train in the UK & Europe
- Always look to book as far in advance as possible, the closer the time to your travel the more expensive tickets become.
- Look to book off peak times if you can, they are cheaper.
- Don't assume travel by one method is cheaper than another compare costs of flights, buses and trains when looking to travel.
- Use the price comparison sites suggested above to find the best deal for you.