I take a look at short journey on Avanti West Coast.
Travelling on a First Class ticket is very cost effective, the perks you get and increased comfort make this choice a no brainer.
My typical Avanti West Coast Journey is from Rugby to Birmingham. Here are the prices for a recent search on the Avanti website.
This is with my senior railcard discount of 30%
It’s only a short journey but you will get a much more comfortable seat in a much less crowded carriage. You also get complimentary food and drink. As the journey is so short I usually just have a proper cup of tea with whatever biscuits they have, lemon shortbread is the usual thing.
I could probably sit in standard , buy a cup of tea and biscuit on the train for about the same cost. But why would you do that!
As you’ll see in the video there’s great service, you just sit down and you get stuff bought to you right away. Your tea is made properly in a teapot and served to you in a china mug.
On my other regular journey of Rugby to Birmingham International (The airport station) the price difference is even smaller. Its just a 20 minute ride , but theres still time for a cup of tea. It’s even better if you are doing the return and just got off a plane, that cup of tea is a godsend. And the difference in price is £2.15, you cant get a cup of tea for that at the airport that’s for sure!
The only downside is that occasionally (its only happened once to me) theres no “service” , perhaps staff shortages? In that case though I was told I could get complimentary food/drink in the buffet car. I didn’t bother as it was at the other end of the train and I had a lot of luggage
This price differential gets larger as the length of journey increases though so probably isn’t worth it for longer trips, although the level of comfort is far far better than standard and its much quieter and better space if you are travelling with luggage.
Here are example fares for Rugby to London and Rugby to Glasgow so you can see the difference in price.
It’s also worth noting that the fares to BHM and BHI are Anytime Singles but EUS and GLC are Advance Singles only valid for a specific train/time. There are other “wrinkles” around the time of day you want to travel which might affect your choice of ticket.
So what do you think? Leave a comment below. Or better still go watch the video and leave a comment there