Travel question: Is there a catch with split-ticketing on train journeys?

Q I read your article about “split-ticketing” on the railways with the help of a new app. Call me a cynic, but whenever I see something that claims to be a guaranteed money-saver, I wonder what catches there are. Can you enlighten me?

John P

A Split-ticketing is the increasingly common practice of exploiting the many anomalies in rail fares, particularly for longer-distance journeys. On a journey from London to Bristol on a train that stops at Didcot Parkway, you can save a fortune if you buy two separate tickets.

This phenomenon has been around for decades, and there are various websites and apps to help, but the story I wrote was about the offering from Loco2, a rail ticket agency that is now owned by SNCF (French Railways). It is a mainstream retailer (a competitor of The Trainline) but with the difference that it will always offer a split ticket where it is advantageous – such deals are marked “Pricehack”. You can click to book and will be assigned the necessary tickets.

Splitting tickets has some drawbacks. The most obvious (and potentially expensive) is breaking the basic rule: the train must call at the station(s) where the split(s) take place. On that London-Bristol run, for example, half the trains whizz straight through Didcot at 125mph. Anyone who has split the journey tickets is deemed to be travelling without a valid ticket.

A nuance that once caught me out was that the stop must be to drop off and pick up passengers: on a Birmingham-Milton Keynes-London journey, which the ticket office in Birmingham was happy to sell me, the train manager pointed out that the Milton Keynes stop on that particular train was drop-off only.

A couple of catches are to do with disruption. Suppose your planned London-Didcot-Bristol train is cancelled; theoretically you would need to wait an hour rather than 30 minutes for the next service, though a word with the train manager on the next departure may solve that problem.

And because you are booking through an agent rather than direct, benefits such as Virgin Trains’ automatic delay-repay do not apply.

Finally, if you use one of the apps that offer split tickets, you will pay commission: £1.50 in the case of Loco2, with journeys costing above £100 incurring a £6 charge. But there is nothing (except time and hassle) to stop you using the information they provide and making your own split bookings.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder