Booking train tickets on line - who do you use?

[Ari]

Spent the whole morning trying to book train tickets to get to the boat show in London next month, which is off the DLR, using National Rail.

Firstly the web site kept crashing whenever I pressed "book". Then I tried calling, spoke to a young lady in India who was coming up with some bizarre train suggestions. Then I went back to the site, tried another more mainline station bit further from where I live, finally got it all sorted, tried to buy tickets, got put into a loop whereby every time I pressed "buy tickets" it opened a new window summerising the journey with a "buy tickets" button, again and again.

Gave up, called again, managed this time to get some sensible train times admittedly going from the mainline station. Hurrah.

But here's the kicker. For the exact same journey the price over the phone was £38. Cheapest on line for the same journey booked through the same company was £122.30!

So I need to find a new on line train booking site that actually works and gives the right price for tickets.

Any suggestions?

[Ari]

Just posted the cheaper tickets over the phone thing on their Facebook page.

Gone in sixty seconds!

[leyorkie]

I try Trainline but often end up with individual companies ie. East Coast as separate tickets for separate legs of the journey is often cheaper. Red Spotted Hanky is OK as they do deals for Tesco Clubcard Points.

[Ari]

Interesting, thanks.

[surveyor]

Usually use East Coast. They all seem to come up with the same price, and at least I get loyalty points...