Easter mini-Interrail: sums
tl;dr
I bought my four-day Interrail pass with 25% off in the Christmas sale for 270€. Ideas I had in mind at the time for “what to do with a four-day Interrail pass” included:
- “How far can you get on a four-day Interrail pass” (a riot that blog post would’ve been), and
- “How many countries can you drink in on a four-day Interrail pass” (because why not?).
When the time came to look at train tickets for Easter, it was clear that it was a better deal to use the pass to travel back to the UK and have an adventure along the way than it was to buy point-to-point tickets and do the journey directly. In fact, the first two trains alone cost more than my pass, and even with the reservation fees added there still wasn't much in it.
The Interrail pass allows holders two "home country" days which allow travel in your country of residence at the beginning and end of the pass. I live in France, and so any journey that involves the UK eats an outbound/inbound day, precluding any en-route trips to anywhere not in the UK. My resulting dilemma was whether to use the pass just to do two days' travel there and back, or to have a mini-adventure of some kind, either en route or having a weekend while I was there.
Normal people wouldn’t probably consider travelling from Bordeaux to Leominster via Glasgow, but I was determined I'd make full use of the pass. Yes, I could have flown but even that was quite expensive and every time I fly Ryanair, Greta Thunberg has to punch a kitten.
I decided I'd have a go at the "how far can you get?" idea and on the off-chance accidentally rang Avanti to find out whether they could make me a seat reservation. Rabia was lovely, and before long I had a seat number for a train to Glasgow and then had to set about lining up all the other trains. I should have known better.
SNCF and Eurostar legs were booked using Raileurope.
tl;dr
It's cheaper and much more fun to use an Interrail pass to travel from the south-west of France to somewhere near Wales via Scotland and back again than it is to buy direct point-to-point tickets.
The answer to the first question, by the way, is (so far) 4,438 km.
James Coates
Bordeaux - Lille - London - Glasgow
I wanted to leave from Angoulême, but I didn't have any way of getting to the station for the 6:38 so paid 6,70€ for a train from Thiviers to Bordeaux thanks to my Poor Person's Railcard. I stayed overnight in Bordeaux and took the same train from there half an hour earlier. The seat reservation cost 10€, whereas the full-fare ticket to Lille Flandres would have been 91€.
The Eurostar was showing 206€ for the one hour and twenty minutes between Lille Europe and Saint Pancras (scandalous, really) which was reduced to 38€ by the Interrail pass. The onward travel to Glasgow was free as a pass-holder but would have cost me 268€ if I'd bought a ticket.
James Coates
Glasgow - Carlisle - Crewe - Leominster
The cheapest I saw the Glasgow to Crewe leg was 170€ with split-save tickets on Trainline.com, or – wait for it – 260€ on the Avanti site. The Transport for Wales service from Crewe to Leominster was 31€.
James Coates
Leominster - Hereford - Birmingham - York
When I looked at how much this would cost me were I paying for the tickets, the total was 126€, which seemed reasonable. However, the journey went wrong from the start and I rerouted as I went.
Once in Hereford with an hour to kill until my next train, I checked Trainline to see the cost of a last-minute ticket from Hereford to York via Birmingham in first was 362€.
James Coates
York - London - Paris - Toulouse
I forgot to check this at the time but looking now with similar advance booking, the cost for the 11:58 is a very reasonable 123€. The Grand-Central service that leaves four minutes earlier is showing at 74€ (not bad, will try another time) and the later, more splendid 225 service (I am assured I missed a trick on this one) at 99€.
Eurostar seat reservation fees remain flat at 38€. Tickets for the London-Paris service I took were 157€ when I made the reservation. The onward night train to Toulouse was 20€ with my pass, and would have cost 86€ without it.
James Coates
Toulouse - Agen - Périgueux
I paid for these tickets outright because my pass had run out. The TER from Toulouse to Agen was 10€ booked the night before.
My Poor Person's Railcard brought the Agen-Périgueux train in at 6,30€.
Here come the sums, here come the sums.
Without my Interrail pass, the journey from Bordeaux to London alone would have cost 297€. I would normally not travel onwards from Euston because of the cost, and would instead take a GWR service either direct from Paddington to Hereford, or via Newport for about 60€. As it happens, UK trains play really well with Interrail – the SNCF could learn a thing or two – and provide free-stuff and lounge access in some cases, so on the outbound travel alone, I was quids in.
By contrast, had I paid full fare in advance for all of my journeys, I would have paid a staggering 1408€. I paid 270€ for my four-day pass, on top of which I added a total of 122€ in seat reservation fees for the Eurostar and the trains in France. Additionally, I had to get to and from my start and end points in France, which came to 23€ with my discount card.
In total, then – drum roll, please – I paid 415€ to do this journey using an Interrail pass and saved myself a grand.