cesco.g

Have somebody needing suggestions for travel between LON/LHR and Liverpool. What are the most convenient/cost effective options?
To stay in Liverpool about 2 - 4 days.

big_mac

From London, the simplest option is to take the train. They run about every hour from Euston, and take just over 2 hours with Virgin trains.

A standard-class off-peak return is £82.40, which can be bought immediately prior to travel.
http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?o...d=0435&tkt=SVR
This cannot be used before about 9:30am, and is quite heavily restricted in the evening when leaving London.
There are other ticketing options, including cheaper but slower journeys, first class journeys, and cheaper tickets for specific times.

When going to / from LHR travelling via Euston is a bit of a pain, and probably adds 60-90 minutes on to the journey. If you will be in central London anyway, then getting to Euston is easy.

There are fairly frequent connections from LHR to MAN, which also has a direct hourly rail service to Liverpool, which takes about an hour. There is also an infrequent coach service, which is a little quicker.

IAN-UK

The only sensible option is rail, and this can be exceptionally cheap if you book online in advance. The downside of cheap is a lack of flexibility - you book for specific trains, which can be risky if connecting from Heathrow to Euston.

The greatest pain is that clunky, time-consuming connection.

Could you fly into Manchester? From there the rail/road connection is simple, (relatively!) fast and inexpensive.

stut

Not sure of your journey pattern, but Virgin allow you to mix semi-flexible with non-flexible tickets to get the best fare. So if you're flying into LHR, you can have a flexible ticket going to Liverpool, but then an inflexible ticket coming back, bringing the price down by £20 or so.

The pain is getting from Heathrow to Euston.

Ldnn1

Indeed this is a good point. To elaborate: a flex (off-peak) return is usually not much more than a flex (off-peak) single, therefore ordinarily buying 1x flex single + 1x inflex (advance) single as two separate tickets would be more expensive than simply buying a flex return.

However Virgin let you buy together:

flex one-way at 50% of cost of flex return (i.e. less than the cost of a flex single)
plus one-way advance single. This can make the overall return journey cheaper.

Apologies for the complicated explanation but hope that makes sense!

Mizter T

It's perhaps worth pointing out that the 'flex' terminology above is not used per se by Virgin or indeed any of the train companies.

"Off-peak" - and where applicable "Super Off-peak" - are the names of semi-flexible train tickets, in that they allow a degree of flexibility for travel within an off-peak time window (what this window is depends on the journey being made).

"Anytime" tickets meanwhile can be used at any time (and can be very expensive).

I don't know if pointing that out helps or just confuses matters further!

Anyway, stut's suggestion above is a good one. These "online Off peak single" tickets aren't really promoted very well for this purpose, and furthermore don't really have a clear enough name, but they very much do exist - though only when purchased online as part of a return journey.

You'll need to buy online from the Virgin Trains (West Coast) website (or another 'Trainline-powered' booking site) - these tickets for journeys on Virgin Trains West Coast are not offered on many of the other rail booking sites out there (including, confusingly, that of Virgin Trains East Coast/VTEC... though VTEC have a similar 'online Super Off-peak Single' ticket available online for journeys on their route, again only available when bought as part of a return journey).

This Virgin Trains PDF outlines the time windows when Off-peak tickets can be used - from London to Liverpool, on weekdays it is after 0926 but not between 1501 and 1844.

Ldnn1

Just to illustrate what we mean, below is an example of an off-peak outbound combined with an advance inbound.

As the outbound is off-peak (i.e. flexible) it can be used on any train on that day – no need to change the ticket or tell anyone, you can just walk onto any train from Euston to Liverpool (including connecting services e.g. train to Manchester and change at Crewe). This would be useful if you're coming from LHR and don't want to bet on a specific train. The inbound is advance (i.e. non-flexible) so can only be used on the train booked.

The two screenshots below show the huge difference in price between buying this same thing ‘as a return’ vs buying ‘as two singles’. The £41.20 is 50% of an off-peak return (£82.40) while an off-peak single is £81.40.

Note you could combine with an advance first class ticket instead of standard class, which can be well worth it for not much extra.

stut

We're going to scare the OP off!

IAN-UK

Anorak attack

Ldnn1

OP has over 8000 posts, so I'm guessing he'll relish it

London_traveller

I don't really agree the journey from Heathrow to Euston is so painful.

Heathrow Express to Paddington, fairly easy connection to the Circle/Hammersmith & City line, then four stops to Euston Square where it's a 3-4 minute walk to the station, all signposted.

cesco.g

Thanks all for the great suggestions and tips. I will have to digest/review it, and allow to come back with any questions.

Anyway, I am glad I asked, as there are indeed unsuspectingly many options to consider, which I was not aware of. Hopefully, other board members might benefit from this valuable inputs as well.

Calchas

Try doing that at 8:00 am

flatlander

...when not-so-fresh off a 12-hour flight, 8 timezones difference, after an hour in the UK Border meatgrinder...

IAN-UK

...with bags.