From London to Manchester and back

[Hexaphim]

In late April, a friend and I are thinking about attending the UFC70 (mixed martial arts) event, which will be held in Manchester.

We can get to London pretty cheaply, by flying to Stanstead with RyanAir, but we're less sure about how to get from there.

We originally thought taking a train from London to Manchester would be easy and cheap, but since then I've heard rumblings about shitty and expensive trains in the UK.

Does anyone have any good suggestions on how we can get to Manchester in one piece, and without murdering our credit cards?

[madlittleme]

You are right, the trains are pretty crappy unless you are willing to pay expensive for Virgin and they can range from anything up £300.00 (http://www.thetrainline.com), you can get cheap day saver tickets but you have to check the rules. You can fly from London Heathrow to Manchester for about £90 return with BMI (direct flights). They seem to have lots of departures in and out of Heathrow each day and takes about an hour. Have a look on http://www.expedia.co.uk. I am sure others on here will know cheaper options for you but hopes this helps

[davemacfrombath]

You can get cheaper tickets by ordering well in advance, but you're still talking a few quid. beter option would be to try to fly direct to manchester airport.

[stargurl]

Air Berlin (http://www.airberlin.com) would also take you cheaply from Stansted to Manchester

[Hexaphim]

Hrmf. How quickly/easily can you get from Stansted to Heathrow? You really can't fly cheaply from Norway to London without going through Stansted, apparently.

[Timbob]

hah
and i thought the dutch train system sucked.

[madlittleme]

It is about an hour and a bit by road to Heathrow from Stansted and by train, you have to into London City then catch the Heathrow Express - a bit of a nightmare journey!!!
Which airport in Norway are you closest to? There are flights out of Olso direct to Manchester although times are not great, and cost around £160.00. Also there are flights with BA that connect through Heathrow but they cost approximately £180.00. There are flights from Sandjford or Kristiansand but no directs and cost approximately £200.00. Check out the website in last post, it is pretty good for cheap flights.
Other than that I have no idea but wish you luck

[Hexaphim]

Thanks guys. Aimee clued me on to http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch , which seems to be very good for finding cheap flights to where I want to go.

Of course, I'd probably have to switch flights down in dirty Amsterdam...

[tcb2000]

Ken - try http://www.megabus.com. They have really cheap bus journeys - I've just had a quick look and they can do London to Manchester and back for £9 for the two of you!

Never been on them myself but probably worth a look.

Rich

[stylustrouble]

The trouble with Megabus is it's well cheap but it stops off in Milton Keynes Coachway on the way for about 3 hours making the whole journey take about 8-9 hours(on a good day) and there's absolutely crap all at the Coachway station apart from an appalling greasy spoon cafe and a whole load of 50s-throwback truckers.

Advance train tickets are still the best way,IMO....usually about £25 return http://www.thetrainline.com (although they're being a bit more selective about when they're available these days) and the journeys just over 2hours during the week (about an hour more on Sat & Sun for some reason).

[Timbob]

i can't believe they still have trains in england at that price

[Mucus]

Does anyone have any good suggestions on how we can get to Manchester in one piece, and without murdering our credit cards?

Getting to Manchester in one piece shouldn't really be a problem, it's getting OUT in one piece that will be quite an achievement!

[Hexaphim]

Well, thanks everyone, but we ended up not taking the trip. All in all, it was just too expensive.

No worries, though, they're coming to London later in the year, which will be a lot cheaper for us.