You do not need to be spending £20 to get a return ticket to London from Brighton! A day trip to the capital can cost you just £13.50, this is how..
Disclaimer – there are no tricks, slight of hand, illegal activity or rail discount cards used in this hack.
As an ongoing promotion to get more people visiting London, “British Rail” offer a ticket called the Super Off-Peak Day Return (previously known as the Price Buster!!1!one!). This ticket can only be purchased in Brighton, as it’s designed to get people to travel to London to presumably spend money on touristy things. Traveling to Brighton as a tourist, well that’s of course, unheard of! (duh)
However, it’s possible to get this same ticket in London, for the purposes of traveling to Brighton. Let me explain.
Traveling from Brighton to London to Brighton (a day return)
- Use a “quick ticket” machine, this is important, the staff on the counter will try to up-sell you other versions
- Select “find station” or “station a-z” and explicitly type in “London V”, this is because you’re going to London Victoria, not “London Terminals” which is pretty much everywhere (and becomes important later in the story *)
- Select the only station you’re presented with in the results, which will be London Victoria
- Now, on the right hand side list, select the Super Off-Peak Day Return, it’ll be £13.50
- Done. Now of course, this can only be used off-peak, so that’s after 10am on the way out, and not between 4pm and 6pm on the way back. (or something like that, you work it out)
What’s important to remember is that the train companies, and in fact their business models, are profiting through obscurity. By this I mean that they take advantage of us by providing an awful user experience that ends up in us spending the most money. The first options we see are the most expensive, not the most economical. This is bad for several reasons, but mainly (for me, personally), is that if the trains *were* cheaper, or more people knew how to get cheap fares, then we would use the trains more, and thus not our cars. Big picture, joined up thinking guys! Come on!
Traveling the other way, London to Brighton to London (also a day return)
Now this is the fun bit. (if you enjoy watching confused people trying to work out what you’re up to)
- This time, queue up at the counter. Yes you’re going to have to try to have a conversation with one of these people. They (usually) don’t want to help you, be prepared for questions.
- When it’s your turn, which it will be eventually, trust me, ask the nice person for a Super Off-Peak Day Return from *Brighton* to *London. Yes, from *Brighton* to *London*.
- Answer their questions with “yes, I know it sounds weird, and yes I know I’m already in London, I know what I’m doing. Kthx.”
- Hopefully you’ll then be able to pay them £13.50 for your ticket, which will be a return, from Brighton to London and back to Brighton. (bear with me)
- If you’re not now paying for your ticket right now, that may be because they’ve claimed that it’s not possible to sell you a ticket from a station that you are not at. This is not true. They can sell you a ticket from *anywhere to anywhere*.
- To prove this, use this logic: ask them to try, if the computer doesn’t let them, then it’s not possible, and they will be proven correct! However, if it works, you get your ticket.
- And here’s the clever bit, you’re now going to use the return half of your ticket for your outgoing journey to Brighton. And then your outgoing half of your ticket for your journey back to London. This is the bit that confuses them, they don’t life hack. What you’re essentially buying is two one-way tickets, it doesn’t matter which order you use them in.
It’s important to stand your ground, you are in the right in this situation. They just have a failure to understand the logic. What you need to impress upon them is that that is not important! Their job is to sell you a ticket.
Of course there would be no need for this hack if they played nice. Old (business 1.0, ack) school businesses need to understand that, long term, being nice is better. Simple as that. Make it obvious that the cheap tickets exist, or better still, reward us for wanting to use the train at all!
* London Victoria isn’t the same as London Terminals. If you try to buy a ticket from the ticket machines in London Victoria, they don’t allow you choose where you’re traveling from, and default to London Terminals. Clearly you are standing in London Victoria. This is why you have to queue up and explicitly ask for the ticket you want.
UPDATE 1: I got a tip the other night about the “DaySave“, which is an all-day ticket that can be used throughout the entire Southern network, starts at £10 off peak, peak is only £30. Could be a winner!
Comment by Whatleydude
October 17, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
Love. It.
Great hack man.
Comment by Clive Andrews
October 17, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
That is great.
Nothing dodgy, nothing illegal, just playing them at their own game.
I had an argument recently with a ticket seller.
I wanted, within the same day, to go from Clapham Junction to Farnham, then return from Farnham to Brighton, changing at Clapham. So a day return Brighton to Farnham would have done the job.
I got told they could not sell me that and I had to buy a Clapham to Farnham ticket, then another Brighton ticket later.
I like your advice of ‘Try it – if the computer lets you, you can do it.’
Top tip. Thanks.
Comment by Remy Sharp
October 17, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
That’s brilliant, particularly the reverse return ticket.
One other tip that might be worth exercising, and worth while if you do more than a few trips to London per year: get a network railcard (it’s only £20 for a year). It’ll knock off another 34% off the cost. So far as I can find, I can’t see anywhere that says you can’t combine the network railcard with a super saver ticket.
Comment by Dan W
October 17, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
I’ve used the technique shown on: http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/236157/london-to-brighton-advance-train-ti/ previously. With a YP railcard you can get £4 London-Brighton return. the problem is the ticket booking site has a minimum spend of £5! Use http://nationalexpresseastcoast.com/ to book it. Not sure if this still works
Comment by Mat
October 17, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
You can get these tickets from the counter as well, just ask for a day return to Victoria, its the London Terminals bit that racks up the cost. So long as your travelling after 10 then its £13.50. There are no time restrictions on traveling back. The only *major* thing that you need to be aware of that these tickets are only valid on the Southern trains *not* the old Thameslink. So if you’re thinking of switching at East Croydon then you’ll get stung if the ticket nazis are on the train.
Comment by Mat
October 17, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
@Remy Sharp. Its the same price with a Railcard.
Comment by Job Abijah
October 18, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
Dude, that’s genius – I’m going to try it next week!
Thanks very much for posting this – do I have to give you 10% commission on the money I save? :)
Comment by Sus
November 18, 2008 @ 4:46 am
Is there any cheap tickets leaving Victoria before 9am?
Comment by k dowd
November 18, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
Cheaper monthlies – ask for a monthly to City Thameslink not London Bridge.
Current cost as of 12/2008 is £283.
The special bit is that these on these tickets the default route is “ANY PERMITTED”.
This of course means you can use any Southern or Thameslink train – using Southern trains into LBridge is normally something like £310 I think.
er.. thats it
Comment by Sus
December 7, 2008 @ 5:59 am
We have managed to book cheap tics to Brighton from London, now we are trying to work out the cheapest way to get to Falmouth from Brighton and back again the next day..does anyone know a way of doing this online or on the day of travel?
thanks
Comment by jimbob
January 6, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
Does anyone know whether buying a ticket to eastcroydon and then getting travel card zones 1-5 added, is a valid way of getting to london bridge and london victoria?
Comment by Jane
July 20, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
Just had an argument at Victoria. Totaly refusing to sell it on the grounds of "wrong procedure". Some sort of adviser called Sybil served me – she refused to give her last name or call anybody senior. Is that legal?
Comment by Mark Ford
August 10, 2009 @ 9:41 am
That Day Save is worth knowing about. A peak day return Worthing London is usually £42.
Comment by daveph
August 10, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
“What you’re essentially buying is two one-way tickets, it doesn’t matter which order you use them in. ”
I don’t have a copy of the terms and conditions to hand, but if memory serves, this is incorrect. The terms of sale of a return ticket is that you must use the outward portion *before* the return portion.
The major issue here is that the dumb ticket gates don’t have any concept of this, so the rail network can’t enforce it except by refusing to sell you a ticket. Since they don’t know your intent is to use the ticket in breach of T& Cs, they should still sell you the ticket (as Josh points out, you can buy a ticket from anywhere to anywhere, though I’d be suprised if you bought a day return from Glasgow to Edinburgh while in corwall, for example).
Of course, it’s your choice to use the ticket in breach of the T&Cs, and as long as you haven’t told the poor schmuck at the ticket counter this, then they shouldn’t refuse the sale.
Comment by Nick S
October 8, 2009 @ 8:38 pm
I’ve done this successfully a few times, it works best if you but the ticket from a different station from one on the London-Brighton route as it doesn’t raise suspicion. However I tried this tonight, 8PM from Clapham Junction to get to Brighton. The cheapest “normal” ticket is a Clapham Junction to Brighton Off-Peak Return for £18.60 (cheaper than a single). The ticket seller got very agitated and suspicious and went to get her manager, a very passionate and loud carribean lady who started screaming her head off at me and telling me what I was doing was illegal etc! In the end it was so embarrasing I just said forget it and got a normal ticket. Looks like they are wising up. Expect to be challenged if travelling late in the day!