A Train Trip to Birmingham

Last week was Boo’s birthday and she was very lucky and received some money. Whilst she wanted to save most of it to spend on her trip to Disney World next year, she was also keen to buy a few things. We decided to go shopping in Birmingham so she’d have lots of shops to choose from.

Sometimes we’ll drive into Birmingham to shop, but whenever we want to make it more of an adventure, we get the train in. It’s only around a twenty minute journey and it brings us into Grand Central with its fab shops and right next to the Bull Ring.

We hit a lot of shops! From Lush to Smiggle to Hema to H&M to the Disney shop and The Entertainer, and plenty more besides, it’s fair to say she checked out all of her options! They also squeezed in a cake stop at Greggs as to be fair, Little Man was in need of sustenance by that point!

In the end, it was Little Live Pets that drew Boo in, which was no surprise as she has several of these already. She has now added ladybirds and a rabbit to the collection.

We had a lovely afternoon, and getting the train in made it hassle free as there are roadworks everywhere in Birmingham at the moment, and we didn’t have to think about parking either.

Which brings me on to telling you that we now have a Family and Friends Railcard, which makes getting the train the much more appealing option.

The Family and Friends Railcard costs £30 for the year and it offers 60% off kids fares anywhere in Great Britain and gets you 1/3 off Standard Anytime, Off-Peak and Advance fares across the National Rail network on adult prices. Up to four adults and four kids (aged 5 to 15) can travel on every journey and I’ve named the Husband on mine (no extra cost) meaning he can travel without me and use it. You must be travelling with at least one child (aged 5 to 15) in order to use your Family and Friends Railcard.

On one trip to nearby Birmingham, we made a £6.20 saving so in just five trips we will have covered the £30 fee, which is great as we go into the city centre regularly. I have also used the Journey Planner tool to see how much we would save on a journey to London as we like to take the kids down at least once a year. It’s a saving of just over £60 – well worth it!

As a bonus, another great benefit is that by travelling by train, we can get 2 for 1 entry to many attractions across Britain, such as the London Eye and Tower of London and also restaurants meaning we can go to Bubba Gump’s whilst we’re in London on this offer, yum!

I’m so pleased I’m working on this campaign as I didn’t know about the Family and Friends Railcard and I know it’s going to save us money this year so I’m wanting to spread the word as I’m sure it would be of benefit to so many families.

What do you think?

Disclosure: Written in collaboration with the Friends and Family Railcard, though all opinions remain my own.

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12 thoughts on “A Train Trip to Birmingham”

  1. I used to have a friends and family railcard, I can’t even begin to tell you how much it saved me over the year but it was most definitely worth every penny and them some! We definitely put it to good use #triedtested

  2. We love travelling by train and if you do it often enough a family railcard really helps you to save money. I bought ours before a particularly long journey so got my money’s worth pretty much straight away!

    #TriedTested

  3. We’ve just used a Family & friends Railcard for the first time ourselves. Quite why we didn’t make the investment years ago, I don’t know! We will certainly be using it again and again.

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