BritRail England Pass

I was really impressed--I bought a first-class ticket and it was extremely good value. It didn't cost much more than a regular ticket, but the seats, service food and drink made it a whole lot more comfortable. Admittedly, I got my full value by travelling quite a lot during my 8 days--Heathrow to Cambridge, then to Reston (Notts), across the Penines to Preston, to the lakes and Carlisle, down pretty much as far as one can go, to Romney Marsh, and from there to Oxford. Just getting a regular return ticket between Carlisle and Romney Marsh would have cost about the same as my entire pass, if I'd tried buying on the same day. In other words, if you're planning on travelling quite far during your 8 days it's excellent value for money. The best trains I was on were Virgin trains--excellent service and very comfortable indeed.

We used our 3 day rail pass in May 2018. We went first class from London to York and for the extra money it was worth it. Easy to get on the train to assigned seats and coffee etc. was offered during the trip. Boy was it fast compared to Canadian Trains. But the hostess said she had never seen a pass like the one we had. York to Liverpool the trains was packed but we had seats. Made the mistake of travelling when there was football match at Manchester going on. Nobody entered the date of the pass saying it was our second trip so we did. Just had to show the pass to get out of the station. Liverpool to London we found out which carriages were 3rd class so we got seats again and the train was fairly full. The conductor looked at the pass but that is all. Again no one put in the date of this trip on the pass either so we did. The pass was only good for the month. As mentioned all 3 different company trains were very fast and the seats were very comfortable.

Rail travel in UK is expensive, particularly if you want the flexibility of last minute rail travel decisions. My wife and I used an 8 day flexible pass and were pleased that it included the Heathrow and Gatwick express. We had 10 days of train travel and selected the least expensive legs to pay for directly. Being able to include multiple train journeys in one day and just show the paper pass at the train station gate meant that we were able to pay for the most of the train journeys before departing Australia. The London underground is not included so I suggest purchasing an Oystercard at 5GBP and adding around 20GBP to start with. We were able to recoup the balance at Heathrow station when we left. I found for the train journeys we did to see large parts of southern England the Rail Pass was value for money as we had flexibility of last minute decisions on train times.

Used in early December 2017. Pass was very easy to use. Although I could have kept it on my cell phone, I did make a paper copy and used it. No problems with it being accepted readily by conductors on the trains or in showing it to pass through exit gates. Only problem was when I tried several days ahead of time to obtain seat reservations on a Sunday London-York trip. I was told that I could not get them, and thus we had to run and barely found seats in a sold-out first class. I don't know if we saved any money by having a pass. But it did allow us the flexibility to change our original travel plans at no extra cost when faced with a strike and bad weather.

Top marks for convenience! An excellent way to see the UK! I used the Mobile Pass, a new product. As a result, the rail system was surprisingly not technically programmed to scan the pass most of the time. Some rail employees had never seen the Britrail mobile pass before. This caused some inconvenience. Overall, however, I would not hesitate to use this excellent product again.

This review is specifically for the BRITRAIL ENGLAND CONSECUTIVE M-PASS. I found the mobile pass to be incredibly inconvenient. Most train stations I visited did not have gates where my mobile pass could be scanned directly from my phone. Instead I had to show it to attendants who did not understand what it was and why it was on my phone. Almost nobody seemed aware that the M-pass was an option for Britrail. I was told that I had to go actually buy a train ticket in one instance because just showing the pass on my phone wasn't a ticket. They did not understand that it was the same as a normal paper Britrail pass. I spent time at nearly each station and on each train explaining that it was simply a mobile version of the paper Britrail pass. This took away from my enjoyment of my trip and nearly caused me to miss a train when one of the attendants had to go speak with a supervisor to confirm that the pass was valid. I feel that information about this pass was very poorly rolled out to train stations in the UK. For future trips, I think I'll just stick with the paper pass and pay the shipping costs.

This is my favourite way to travel every time I go to England. Using a rail pass is so convenient. There is no standing in line for a ticket. You can easily make a reservation if you choose and it is often advisable to do this during peak season. You can use it as many times as you wish during the period you purchased. If you change your mind mid-trip, there are no concerns because you can get on and off as you wish. If your plan is to do a lot of travelling, you cannot beat the price of BritRail ticket.

I found this pass to be excellent when there was plenty of room on the trains I wished to take, however I don't know how well it would work in busy times, ie. when trains are full. It was fully recognized everywhere I needed to go even in the small places. I would purchase again for the convenience as well as for some saving.

I purchased a Britrail four day pass for use during the month of September/October. Great value for money! I did more than one journey on three of the days out of the four--this made the pass great value when you consider the cost of purchasing multiple tickets. The trains were comfortable and on time. You have to take into account that you have to sit wherever if you don't have seats reserved--this was a small price to pay for the value. You can reserve a seat but I don't think it is worth doing as we always got on the train we wanted. Space for luggage was some times a challenge on the busy trains. Pack light. Happy travels.

Everything was amazing. Had no problem in getting the pass, process was smooth. Only problem I faced was at some of the train stations in England specially in London they had no idea about this pass and always put me on hold to see what pass I have and after thorough inspection they let me get to the platform. Otherwise it was really a convenient product.