First Class (by alaric)
Once a week, I go to London for a few days, almost always by train. It costs £42 if I buy a ticket from the station on the day - or, if I book in advance at TheTrainLine, as little as £16. Tickets ordered in advance are cheaper, but it seems there is a limited allocation of each price grade - as the more popular routes quickly sell out of £8 each way tickets, then the next level up (£11.50), then the next level up (£18).
However, when I booked the tickets for last week, for the return journey on Saturday, only the £18 ones remained - but, unusually, there were still some £19.50 first class tickets left.
I'd never travelled first class before. So, I decided I'd give it a try. £1.50 isn't much to spend on an experiment.
And my conclusion is: first class equals a comfier seat and the offer of a free biscuit and tea or coffee.
Which, if I drank hot drinks, would definitely be worth the extra one fifty, at the going rate for such things.
As a non-hot-drinker, I think I about broke even with my experiment, but on a journey of more than an hour, the better seat would be well worth a similarly small price increase.
But travelling first class is nowhere near worth the more than doubling in price (£116 rather than £42) it costs if you buy your ticket on the day. That's a total ripoff.
Sun 17th May 2009 10:00 am 
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By Becca, Sun 17th May 2009 @ 4:42 pm
Yeah we managed to get 1st class tickets from Glasgow-MK for just £16 including young persons rail card, they were cheaper than the standard class tickets. On virgin trains we got unlimited tea, coffee, crisps, and cold drinks. Had larger more comfy seats and every set of seats has a proper table. So we amused ourselves with travel scrabble [really what else would you expect from 3 scientists!]. Its worth it if you can get the 1st class advance tickets, but I wouldn't pay the full price for them (£100+!). We also had the added fun of having John Prescott in our carriage LOL!
By nick s, Sun 17th May 2009 @ 4:53 pm
First class on the weekend is very different from first class during the week.
Remember that most of the people who travel first class for work usually get to expense it, either as self-employed individuals or through work. Like Photoshop licences or expert fonts, they're really not priced for retail purchase: there's always the assumption that the cost is going to be written off somewhere along the line.
By Cait, Mon 18th May 2009 @ 9:45 am
They used to do Sunday 1st class upgrades for a tenner on the East coast line up to York/Leeds/Edinburgh. Which was absolutely worth the money.
The other, I was going to say 'Cheap' but it isn't particularly. however, it may be convenient, so the other convenient way of doing it is to get a train which also includes a meal time, then you can usually eke out the whole journey in the restaurant car, which has 1st class stylin's.
By David Cantrell, Mon 18th May 2009 @ 2:07 pm
It's worth it IMO for journeys of more than a couple of hours. I generally use first class on journeys up the east coast, which I book at least a month in advance. It's mostly worth it because I don't have to share a carriage with revolting chavs and football fans.
On Eurostar it's definitely worth it. Again, you need to book in advance - a couple of months - for it to be affordable, but the seats are more comfortable, the food is tasty (although the portions are rather stingy), and there's unlimited free good wine.
By sarah, Tue 19th May 2009 @ 7:01 pm
Or take a pair of crutches and make sure the train is packed 😉 they even bought free champainge - think that was virgin from memory - shame I had to decline the champaigne 🙁 Pain killers an all 😉