Train operator, Greater Anglia is offering cheap train fares with its annual Spring Hare Fares sale – with returns from London from just £12.
(c) Greater Anglia
The new Hare Fares offer passengers off-peak day returns across the Greater Anglia network at simple return prices: £6, £12, £18, and £24, and children can travel for just £2 return each.
There is no limit on the number of tickets, but they must be booked by 12th April for travel between 2nd April and 11th June (excluding 8th April, which is scheduled as an ASLEF strike day).
Example return fares from London:
Destinations for £12 return
- Hertford
- Cambridge
- Chelmsford
- Southend Victoria
Destinations for £18 return
- Harwich
- Colchester
- Clacton-on-Sea
Destinations for £24 return
- Felixstowe
- Great Yarmouth
- Bury St Edmunds
Hare Fares are available as standard off-peak day return tickets only and can only be booked online exclusively at the Greater Anglia website.
Hare Fares are not valid on journeys wholly within the Oyster zone. Standard refund rules apply. Railcard discounts don’t apply.
A further money-saving tip
When searching for journeys, most people put “London (any)” as the departure point in the search box. Once you find a trip you like, look for the next station the train stops at, and if you can catch the train there AND avoid travelling into London Zone 1, you can reduce your travel card cost as well.
For example, trips that start at Liverpool Street will cost the same if you catch the train at Stratford, but you might be able to avoid paying the TfL Zone 1 fare to get to Liverpool Street to start your journey.
Last summer it was £10, £15, £20,
so that’s a 20% increase.
Still a bargain, but not as generous as it looks.
They’ve been the same price since at least Spring 2020 — so the price rise is lifting them in line with inflation.
Why don’t these discounted fares apply to the reverse journey, say from Bury St Edmunds to London? Discrimination I’d say.
Unsurprisingly, this London focused website provided details about journeys from London.
If you check the Greater Anglia website (or maybe a local news publication where you live) BEFORE you typed alleging discrimination is going on, you’d have realised you had nothing to complain about.
Have they skipped Norwich to London this year? That was £20 last year, and now it’s £24 Norwich to Chelmsford – a route that rarely even happens!
You’d need to contact them to ask — I only write about trips from London, not the other way round.
If you need a return spanning more than one day, then 2 x Hare fares may be cheaper, or may not. Need to separately price the trip both ways, as a “open return” to be shown the hare fare, and as a fixed train advance return.
As a sample for next week, SRA-NRW Tuesday evening -Thursday evening was significantly cheaper as two advance singles than 2 hare fares