travel

Off to foreign lands

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Bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer

This morning, I’ll be flying off on my first overseas trip abroad for work. I’ll be visiting various middle eastern countries in order to recruit students for the university where I work.

It will actually be a number of firsts for me. First overseas trip for work. First overseas trip on my own – every time I’ve left the country before, I’ve been with a friend, family member or partner. First time in the middle east. First time that I’ve been away from Christine for more than two nights since we moved in together in November 2010.

It will be a busy week whilst I’m there – this isn’t some overseas jolly; I’ll be working every day without a break and with some overnight air travel. In all I’ll be taking 8 flights over the 8 days, with the longest at around 7 hours.

The countries I’m going to are significantly less liberal than Britain, with a very different culture. I’m hoping to spend part of the long flight over there reading about customs and things to do and not to do whilst out there.

I’ve been making use of TripIt to help with planning my itinerary (which runs to eight pages when printed – told you I’d be busy). I’ll do a full review later but being able to forward confirmation emails to have it build out your plans really helps.

I’m hoping that it’ll be a good experience, and, if it goes well, this will be the first of a number of overseas trips that I’ll get to make for work. I’m excited to go, but also a little daunted at just how much work I’ll have to do whilst there. That being said, my iPad is loaded up with books, magazines and Pocket articles to read as and when I’m stuck without internet access and need something to pass the time.

I’ve got a couple of blog posts queued up to appear whilst I’m gone, but I doubt I’ll have much spare time to post anything new whilst away. I’m hoping that I’ll have plenty to talk about on my return, next Friday. See you then.

The Two Together Railcard

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A screenshot of the Two Together Railcard web site

There’s a new addition to the railcard family – the Two Together Railcard. Launched some time ago as a pilot in the West Midlands, it’s now available nationally, as of yesterday.

Unlike most railcards, issued to a single person, this is issued to two named people who must travel together for it to be valid. You needn’t be related, so if you regularly travel with a particular friend or housemate then they can be on the card. Like most railcards, it costs £30 and is valid for one year, and gives you a third off almost all rail tickets. You can also get 10% from this link, so it costs £27 for the year. The card can be bought at staffed ticket offices at stations, or online.

As Christine and I do a lot of travel together, this card has the potential to save us a lot of money, so we’ve ordered one. The £30 cost will easily be recuperated as we regularly spend more than £90 per year on tickets where both of us travel. In fact, it may pay for itself after just one long return journey. Until now we’ve been making use of Northern Rail’s Duo tickets, which allow a second adult to go half price with a full-fare paying adult. But this is limited to only some of Northern’s trains and isn’t a national scheme.

Right now we don’t qualify for any of the four other existing national railcards. The 16-25 railcard is for those aged 16-25 (we’re too old) or older people in full-time education (we’re not). The Friends & Family railcard is for those with children aged 5-15, which won’t apply to us for some time – you need to be travelling with at least one child in that age range for it to be valid. We’re both thirty years too young for the Senior railcard, and neither of us are disabled, so the Disabled railcard is out.

So, if you’re like Christine and I – adults who work full time, are approaching middle age and are childless or don’t have any children over five years old – then the Two Together railcard is a welcome introduction.

Taking the Megabusplus to London

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Leading on from yesterday’s post about our trip to London, here’s a little more about the Megabusplus service that we used. I’ve taken it before, when I needed to get down to London to fly to France for a holiday in 2009, but this was Christine’s first time, and also my first return trip.

Like the regular Megabus, it is run by the Stagecoach Group, and takes advantage of the fact that Stagecoach is also the current East Midlands Trains franchisee. So rather than getting a coach all of the way, time-wise roughly half of the journey is by coach and the reminder by train, with the switchover talking place at East Midlands Parkway railway station.

This is significantly quicker than taking a coach all of the way. Taking Halifax-London as the example, to do this by coach takes almost 6 hours in total. Megabusplus knocks this down to a little over four hours. You also arrive into London St Pancras railway station, which has much better onward transport links, than Victoria coach station. And I find that I can’t read on coaches (I get travel sick), so for me there’s less ‘downtime’ than a regular coach.

However, compared with a direct train Megabusplus is still slower – the 08:06 Grand Central train from Halifax left a few minutes after our coach and would have reached King’s Cross a full hour before we did.

The prices are about the same as regular Megabus, with fares starting at £1 one way, plus a 50p booking fee. I was too late to get it this cheap, but it was still much more affordable than the train at the last minute. Your ‘ticket’ is the reference number that you get by email when you pay – most people print this out but you can just show it on your phone to the driver, like I did.

The Halifax service actually starts from Bradford, then calls at Halifax and onto Huddersfield, before running direct to East Midlands Parkway. I say ‘direct’ – Huddersfield’s links with the southbound M1 are pretty poor and so we went on some very narrow and windy roads to get there. On the way down we briefly called at a service station, but this was only to change to a different driver and customers were not allowed to alight. East Midlands Parkway is effectively a service station though, with a café, toilets and a vending machine.

The Megabusplus coaches themselves are reasonably bog-standard – single-decker, space below for luggage, and a toilet. There’s no on-board catering, and seats aren’t allocated. Most of the people on the two journeys we made were travelling on their own, so if the coach is busy you’ll have to sit next to a stranger. Pre-booking is mandatory – there’s no facility to turn up and pay, although you can book up until the night before, as I did. On the other hand, this means that if everyone arrives early, then the coach can leave early – as happened on the return leg.

I would definitely recommend bringing a music player. Unlike trains, there’s no quiet coach, or any way of moving to another carriage if it’s too noisy. On the way back there was a very restless baby, so I was glad I had some music to listen to.

If you need to get to London cheaply, and don’t want it to take all day, then Megabusplus is worth it. But if you’re able to get a cheaper train ticket, then the train is a quicker and better experience.

Buying rail tickets

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Pendolino

Buying rail tickets for train travel in the UK is complicated. Despite some simplification introduced last year, it’s still possible to buy a range of rail tickets at different prices that will get you on the same seat on the same train.

The fantastic Money Saving Expert has a very thorough guide and it’s well worth a read, but here’s my summarised advice:

  • Buy your rail tickets in advance, and as early as possible – you can get them up to 3 months ahead.
  • Rail tickets bought on the day (so-called ‘walk on fares’) offer lots of flexibility but are also usually the most expensive – you can book as little as 48 hours in advance and save a lot of money.
  • Avoid thetrainline.com – it charges extra fees.
  • You can usually book any ticket from any train company, even if your journey doesn’t use their trains. So you could book with CrossCountry to travel on a First Transpennine Express (FTPE) train and get the same price as you would booking direct with FTPE.
  • Rail Easy displays fares in a different way which can make it easier to find cheaper tickets. I also found that they are more likely to send tickets by first class post for free, rather than charge £6 for next-day delivery. They do charge a booking fee though.
  • If you spend more than £76 per year (or £6 per month) on rail tickets, get a railcard. If you are between the ages of 16 and 25 you can get a 16-25 railcard. You can order a new one right up until the day before your 26th birthday too. Family railcards and senior railcards are also available. They give you 34% off the price of almost all train tickets, including those booked in advance.
  • Sometimes two single rail tickets are cheaper than a return – always check both. This is especially true if you book in advance.
  • Megatrain is worth a look as its fares start from £1 (plus 50p booking fee). Trains run from Sheffield, Derby and Portsmouth into London, but there are connecting coaches from cities like York and Bradford (I travelled from York to London for a total of £3.50 last year). There’s also additional discounts for NUS Extra card holders.

There are many more tips out there, which shows how confusing the system is. Ultimately, the best way to get the cheapest fare is to book as far in advance as possible, use a railcard and shop around a bit.