What are Advance tickets?
Advance tickets are single (one-way) tickets for a specific train, only available to be bought in advance. If you don't mind being flexible about your travel times, Advance tickets can save you a lot. They are normally our lowest available prices for a given journey. They tend to get snapped up pretty quickly, too, so you're best off booking ahead if you can.
You can buy Advance tickets for Standard or First Class - we'll allocate your seat when you book. This means you can book Standard Class for your outward journey and First Class for your return journey, and vice versa. (We're helpful like that.)
Even if you can only travel off-peak on one leg of your journey, you can still save money. Just buy the lowest price single ticket for every stage of your trip. We put Standard and First Advance tickets on sale at least 12 weeks before departure.
If you want to be the first to find out when cheap tickets become available, sign up for our ticket alerts service here.