Great Western Coffee Shop

As I posted on the "introduce yourself" page, I am the trip coordinator for a group of 33 Americans who will be arriving in May for a week's walking around Dartmoor - South Devon. 

I am trying to figure out what advice to offer my group regarding the purchase of tickets.  I have spent considerable time on both the Nat Rail and FGW websites, so I am pretty familiar with the schedules, etc.  Part of my questions relates to applying what I have learned.  Here are the group particulars:
Each person is booking his own air, so everyone is not arriving the same day or on the same flight.
- However, we will all be traveling to Newton Abbot on Saturday, May 8, and we will all be leaving Newton Abbot on Saturday, May 15. 
- Not everyone has booked their flights yet, but as of now, all will be traveling to Newton Abbot from Heathrow except for a few early arrivals traveling from Paddington.
- I am planning to advise the use of the RailAir coaches to Reading and then connect to the train, as I think this will be less stressful than connecting in Paddington, and hopefully less expensive.
- Due to the timing of flights to Heathrow, I know that we will have a group of over 10 traveling together, and also one or more groups of at least 4, but less than 10, traveling together.
- Some are planning to fly from Exeter to other European destinations, so they will not be requiring a return ticket.

So what is the best option for the best fares.
1.  Advance tickets?  When I checked yesterday, the fare for midday Heathrow-NTA one way was 57.5GBP and the return with a morning departure was 115.  Am I correct in assuming that anytime on Saturdays is considered off-peak?  I know that advance tickets pertain to a specific train which can be a bit problematic after an overseas flight, but I am advising a two hour interval between scheduled landing and airport departure.
2. Groups of 10 or more travelling together?  The GFW webite indicates a 26% discount.  But what is the base for the discount?  Can it be combined with the advance ticket savings?  If not, which is better?
3. GroupSave for 3 or 4 people travelling together?  OK, 3 or 4 can travel for the price of 2 adults, but again, what is the base for the discount?  The GFW website says that this fare can be booked on line, but when I tried to find the price for 4 people online, even after using the dropdown box for the group discount, I got the 4 times the price that I listed above.

As you can see, I am a bit confused and overwhelmed as to what is the best fare.  Any help and suggestions on this would be most welcome.  Thanks!

Welcome Tours2Go!

The Railair Coachlink to Reading is cheaper, and can even be faster, but it's a lot more hassle, particularly now (and please correct me anybody if I am wrong) that you have to catch the train from T4 or 5 to the Central Bus Station, get off, and then join your coach to Reading. That's a pain if you've got lots of luggage, particularly when you then have to do the same again at Reading. And again twice on the way back.

If you arrive at T1 or 3 then it's not quite so bad, as you can board the bus direct.

Once you are on the Heathrow Express or Connect it's easier to stay on and go all the way into Paddington where you will have no more than a 1 minute (step free) walk to your main line platform. That bit is easy.

I would be wary of advance tickets as they are completely inflexible, and so you would have to build in enough margin for error that your guests will end up kicking their heels for ages at Paddington or Reading, which is not really a great way to start their holiday. And with that many coming in, someone is going to be delayed enough to miss their booked train.

Groupsave offers 3 or 4 people for travel at the price of 2, so (if 4) effectively halves the prices you quote. But they all have to travel together on both journeys.  Not sure whether it is valid on the Heathrow Express though, in which case either travel via Reading or book the Heathrow Express leg separately.

I'm sure others will have comments, but hopefully that's a start for you.   

A few tips from me...

Advance tickets - these are generally the cheaper option, but give you very little flexibility. You must travel on the train you have booked, or your ticket is regarded as invalid and you will have to pay a full fare. Refunds are not available, changes of journey are possible but will cost you an admin fee (GBP10.00 I think) plus any difference in fare between the ticket you hold and the cheapest ticket available for travel on your "new" train. Also, they will generally not be released for sale more than 12 weeks ahead of time, so I doubt Advance tickets will be available for the weekend you want at the moment. According to the front page of FGW's website, the current "booking horizon" is 28 Apr 10.

Off-peak/super off-peak - these should be available for travel any time at the weekend. They are more flexible tickets, which is to say they are valid on any train within the "super off-peak" or "off-peak" time limits. You can reserve seats, but this is not compulsory, and even if you hold a reservation you do not have to travel on your reserved train. In general on FGW an off-peak or super off-peak single is approximately half the cost of the corresponding return ticket. as JohnR says, GroupSave is available on off-peak tickets and can save you a lot of money (3 or 4 passengers travel for the price of two). This may be a good solution for your travel needs, as it effectively offers a 50% discount. Further, there is no advance booking requirement so you could, if you wanted, buy it on the day of travel. However, the one drawback to this is that each group of 3 or 4 must travel together, or all the tickets become invalid.

The RailAir coach should be significantly cheaper than Heathrow express, and since it's effectively operated by FGW, GroupSave tickets will be valid for the through journey. One disadvantage I have found in the past is that it can be a little tricky to get the website to actually offer you journeys using the bus - the most reliable way of getting the journey you want is just to enter "Heathrow" as your origin then select the relevant terminal and "railair bus" from the drop-down list of options that should throw up. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Reading, which compares favourably to the total journey time using Heathrow Express if you're heading west. Further, at Reading the RailAir bus sets down at the front of the station from where it's a short, step-free walk to platform 4 where the Newton Abbot service should be leaving from (unless there's something unusual going on at Reading).

Just tried Heathrow to Newton Abbot on 8th May using Groupsave 4 and got a price of ^33.25 per person.

It did route automatically via Paddington from Terminal 5 so I checked Terminals 1,2,3 and also from 4. Terminals 1,2,3 and 5 you're on Heathrow Express, from Terminal 4, it's Heathrow Connect and the journey time is 30 mins longer. Tried forcing it via Reading on the bus, it didn't accept Groupsave. The journey times were pretty much identical (5 mins difference).

Knowing Paddington and Reading, I would far rather go via Paddington on the train than via Reading on the bus. Don't know Heathrow though so can't comment on which is easier from there.

If you put 8 people in the search, make sure you update the Groupsave4 quantity to 2 - it doesn't do it automatically.

Some more thoughts, if I may....

Having reread the original question, it's clear that with some visitors travelling back to LHR and others only going as far as Exeter, it will probably be quite complex to use return tickets with a GroupSave, though not impossible.

Single fares are only around 15% more expensive than half a return, so it will be relatively simple to turn up and buy Super Off Peak singles (the fares that are relevant on Saturdays), and where numbers allow, get the benefit of GroupSave.

As Devonian has said, that works out at a reasonable cost, though I was surprised to know that GroupSave wasn't an option via the RailAir Link service, as it's run by FGW. I'm sure someone will confirm this.

An exception is that if you have a group travelling down together from Paddington having overnighted there then they could travel cheaper on advance tickets as they have the relative certainty of getting to the station on time. 

If your guests are feeling like a bit of extra comfort then for an extra ^20 each way they can upgrade to 1st Class - just sit in 1st and pay on the train - no need to book in advance. The advantage is really only space and seating, but worth it for 2 1/2 hours.

My final piece of advice is to sit on the left hand side so you can enjoy the scenery between Exeter and Newton Abbot. Dawlish Wall is one of the scenic highlights of the UK railway network.

To my knowledge it's a sort of partnership between FGW and First Bus (Berkshire and Thames Valley) but don't quote me :P

You guys are great with many timely suggestions.  The key to my failure to find the Group 4 savings was identified by devonian, and agreed to by John R - it doesn't compute with RailAir.  When I tried again using both Heatrow rail-NTA and RDG-NTA it worked fine.  Therefore, as advised, using Group tickets sounds much better considering restrictions for Advance.
Based on the comments, I would feel more comfortable in recommending the connection in Paddington then before, and, as mentioned, the advance fare is a good option for those originating travel from Paddington.
The largest portion of my group will be arriving at Terminal 5 on the British Air non-stop from Atlanta, and it looks like RailAir has a discounted ticket for a group of 8+ to Reading, which combined with the Group 4 or 3 savings from RDG-NTA will result in the best alternative.  Another sub-group of at least 4, including myself will be flying in on Delta at Terminal 4, but we will be arriving earlier and I feel confident in navigating Heathrow to the Central Bus Station to catch the RailAir.  Hearing that it is easy to get from the RailAir to Track 4 in Reading is reassuring.
And I will certainly advise my group to sit on the left side of the train for the scenery.
Thanks so much for everyone's input, and I will try to stop by the Coffeeshop periodically to see what's happening.