Yo, I wasn't sure where to put this but I could really use some help with travelling down to Auto Assembly this year

Turns out my student card for the rail network allows me to get back from Birmingham to Scotland safely enough but I can't get down there without offering up my arms and legs as payment. So, I'm looking at a travelling cost for adult tickets on the train of around about £270, but I found that if I got to London King's Cross then to London Euston then to Birmingham it's cheaper

I'm tempted but my main problem is... I don't know my way around London at all! I guess that's my problem for living so far North. If anyone else happens to be taking this deranged route I could really use some help by following other people and getting lost together instead.

Though knowing me I'll just give away my arms and legs and take the easy route and save myself getting lost in London

I'm starting to find travelling is my worst nightmare of all time, everything costs too much or doesn't match the costs of other lines such as:
- Aberdeen to Birmingham £191
- Aberdeen to London £28
Anyone else seeing something very wrong here?

King's Cross & Euston are right next to each other - I can walk from Kings cross to dominion theatre in 15 minutes & you have to walk passed Euston station.

A501 Euston road going west to east north side - Warren street underground [UG], Euston station UG/Bus, St Pancras church/station, Kings cross UG/station. end of road.

oohh!!! I get it now, thanks I believe I know the place now, been years since I last walked along there. As long as I remember those place names I should be okay.

Woot! I just found a way to make the journey cheaper by cheating the rail companies! I don't have to go to London anymore, plus I'd rather avoid London due to the timing...

Well, I feel slightly smarter

Stupid as it sounds, it's a known problem with the train network that there are a lot more options to journeys than they tell you about. There's also a way of travelling where you can split tickets for journeys so you could buy each leg of your journey in parts but still stay on the same train and save money.

For example, if Aberdeen to Birmingham was a single train but passed through Manchester it may be cheaper to get Aberdeen to Manchester and then Manchester to Birmingham. That works for quite a few routes even though you're still making the same journey and it's perfectly legal. Buying tickets in advance and specifying the exact time of day that you travel can save money as well (some services offer discounts if you limit your travel options to a fixed number of trains).

I don't know what travel date you checked, but I did a very quick search for a direct route (without going through London) leaving Aberdeen on Friday and leaving Birmingham on Monday, and found a journey for £137 without using any railcard. With your student card, that drops down to £90!

That any better?

The Friday may be cheaper, but the problem is we're coming down on the Thursday and for some reason the railcards are not valid that day, or at least through the website I'm using. Though we're cutting through Haymarket which gives us time for lunch at least unlike last year where me and my friend showed up and were starving on the Friday and left the convention early that evening, at least we found the most delicious pizza we've probably ever eaten at least

Thanks for the help, more or less splitting the journey is what we're doing

What site did you use to check? I did a Friday journey but used qjump.co.uk and thetrainline.com (the link for that on is on the AA website and we get commission from them towards our 2013 guest fund!) and both come up with the same price of £90 even for Thursday!

We used Virgin trains and the Crosscountry website. I'm beginning to really hate trains now, plus the people at the local train station were very unhelpful too and didn't offer us much help either. Even the train station didn't mention anything near £90, they were asking for £300+

Well I managed to get the tickets from Virgin for just a little higher than £90 but that's due to the fact we decided to take an expensive train back and avoid cutting the journey up because I doubt we'd have the energy to jump on and off at various stations.

It's rare that stations will advise you of the cheapest options for buying train tickets. About 10 years ago I went on holiday to Blackpool and when I was trying to find out about tickets I was lucky and actually told at the station that if I bought my tickets a few weeks in advance and specified what trains I travelled on, I could get a return from Birmingham for £10, otherwise it would have cost me several times more!

I have to give my local station credit though... one time we went out for the day and bought two adult and one child ticket to go somewhere and we were advised to get a group saver ticket for three adults instead and we saved about £5 on a local journey. They don't apply for all journeys but now when we go anywhere as a family, Hannah travels using an adult ticket to save money! It's not *quite* as cheap as us getting a family railcard (we do need to get one at some point) but it's not far off!

Awesome I wish travel up here in Aberdeen was anywhere near that cheap or nice XD

Buses like to boost their prices up nearly every week, the trains are okay when travelling just in Scotland but the second I need to go anywhere else then it costs too much.

Ah well, at least my tickets this year have been cheaper than last year anyway and I'll be remembering all these little tips for next year unless I feel brave enough to drive down, which I severely doubt because I'm not used to motorways and larger roads quite yet.

If I thought there were enough people travelling from the same area or along the same route and it was financially viable, I'd try to find a coach company willing to do a package deal for us. I've arranged supporter coach travel for a basketball club I used to run so it's not too difficult to arrange but maybe that's something for another year if there's enough interest...

Sounds like a good idea, my local gaming clubs do similar things for larger gaming events by getting a bus if enough people are going. The only problem for me is my terrible habit for getting severe car sickness XD No one will ever sit next to me on a bus.

I would highly suggest figuring out if this is a viable option for some.