Updated September 2026
Yes, it is legal, and it has a name: split ticketing. You buy one train journey as several tickets. Instead of one ticket from A to C, you hold one from A to B and another from B to C, and sometimes that costs a lot less for the exact same seat on the exact same train. The one rule that matters: the train has to call at the station where your tickets meet.
It is allowed under the national rail conditions, so nobody is going to tell you off for it. You are not dodging a fare, you are buying the same journey in the order the fares happen to be cheapest.
It works because fares are set route by route and the prices do not line up. Splitting simply lets you buy the cheap stretches separately.
The savings are not theoretical. Across 40 real journeys we measured in August 2026, nearly a quarter carried a genuine split, worth about £22 on average. The best of them turned a £193.00 Manchester to Euston ticket into £131.50 by meeting at Nuneaton, which is £61.50 for buying the same seats in two halves.
Being driven partway is the same idea one step earlier. The lift replaces the expensive first stretch of the rail fare entirely, and then the fare from your drop-off station may split again on top. The two tricks stack, which is why the right drop-off can save serious money while the wrong one saves pennies.
No, and please don't try it by hand on a motorway. Tell Partway, our free iPhone app, about the drive and your destination. It prices real, bookable fares from every station along the route, hunts out the cheap ones, and hands you a shortlist with what each drop-off saves. When a fare is only an estimate, it says so plainly, and booking happens on the retailer's own site.
One lift plus the right ticket beats most discounts going. Get Partway free on the App Store.