Great Western Coffee Shop

To put this in context, just won a family ticket to the NRM Railfest event in June: no kids of my own but I was going to offer to take some friends' kids for the day who would appreciate it. Planning on travelling by train.

1. If two adults and two children are travelling together throughout a journey, is it permissible for them to purchase a GroupSave 4 fare where available?
2. Am I correct in thinking that an alternative possibilty would be to buy a Family Railcard for the group, given that it would easily pay for itself on the one journey? None of us would be related to each other (at least as far as I'm aware... :o)

1.  Yes it's allowed.
2.  As long as there is 1 child travelling, yes.  (It's Family and Friends Railcard), so the fact no-one is related is fine.

First consideration is whether you can use TOCs that allow GroupSave for the entirety of the journey. If that criteria is met then there is nothing stopping you 'buying' adult tickets for children to take advantage of GroupSave. This can often yield better savings than using a F&F Railcard; depending on journey and composition of group.

As for a Family & Friends Railcard, there's no criteria in the T&Cs for the group of adults and children travelling to be related. Just a minimum of 1 adult named on the railcard (plus up to three additional adults) and 1 child (max 4) in the group to qualify for the 34% off adult fares and 60% of child fares.

If applying for the F&F railcard, it's always worth having a 2nd named adult included on the application (again no requirement for any blood relation) for additional flexibility.

I've cast around online to see if there are any current x% off offers on F&F Railcards. Sadly not. The discount offers only tend to run in late Autumn, early Spring.

Ta!

On a tenuously related note, were I to play around with a bunch of split tickets for said journey, is there a straightforward way to procure through seat reservations for all travellers or would it require a trip to a travel centre incurring the wrath of both the clerk and the queue behind me...?

With split tickets you will have to run the wrath of a booking clerk to get 'through' seat reservations. Booking the various splits online could get you seat reservations, but the chances of bagging the same seat(s) on the various splits is most unlikely.

In an attempt to cause minimum fuss at the ticket office then, could I book the splits online, pick them up from a ToD machine then show the stack to a clerk and ask them to make the reservations after the tickets have been issued?

Or has the facility to make reservations free of charge other than at the time of ticket issue been withdrawn?

That's an interesting one. I believe TOCs reserve the right to make a charge for seat reservations if made after the original purchase of tickets.

Whether you are charged or not is down to various factors:

How that clerk is feeling on the day.
His/her directions given by head office.
How you ask.
Whether it's a Tuesday, or a month with an 'r' in the name.

Okay, I'm making up possible reasons, but.... In short, no definitive answer.  ;)

It's not that big a deal to sort out through reservations on split tickets, I'd sort it for ya.

If you do use Groupsave as mentioned earlier they are TOC specific. That means NOT XC or VIRGIN at the very least. These do NOT accept Groupsave

Yep, turns out that GroupSave is going to be a no-go, as there's no way of making this journey (without jumping through ridiculous hoops) that doesn't involve XC or EC, neither of whom will honour GroupSave tickets.

Looking like a family railcard job...


Don't be too surprised if I turn up at your booking window at Paddington at some point... ;)