How do I buy a cheap ticket for a Greater Anglia journey online?

It’s easy to buy a ticket online for our trains and journeys on other networks too. If you’ve never done it before you’ll soon be a pro! We’re currently advising people to buy tickets online or use our app because that way you can spend less time at our stations, which helps us all with social distancing.

For the cheapest tickets online, go to the Greater Anglia website. In the top left-hand corner, you’ll see a "Buy tickets" box. Just enter where you’re travelling to and from and follow all the instructions. There is a drop down box to select stations – and options include every station in the UK. You then need to fill in all the details about your journey – how many adults and children are travelling, what time you want to go and if you want to avoid or travel via certain stations, for instance you may wish to avoid going through London. When you press the button marked "Find times and tickets" some discounts, such as Groupsave, are automatically applied.

The fastest journey is selected for you – but you’ll see there’s an option at the end of the grid of tickets to choose a slower journey which may be cheaper. This applies mostly to longer journeys across the country where there are different route options available.

When you’ve selected your journey, you’ll be offered some extras where applicable such as "plus bus tickets" which include bus travel in the price. You can also book some assistance if you need a bit of help getting the train.

Before you check out, you need to choose how you get your ticket. The best and most convenient way is to opt for an e-ticket – which you can either print out or show the PDF on your phone. E-tickets are available on most of our routes where an Advance ticket is offered. Otherwise you can purchase a mobile ticket (m-ticket) for most other ticket types on Greater Anglia. Mobile tickets barcodes that are sent to your phone only and can’t be printed. You can pick up your ticket via a station ticket machine, but you may need to queue and you lose the contact-free advantage of having a digital ticket. If none of these methods are suitable for you, then you can opt to have your tickets sent to you in the post, with a small charge for postage. and

Once you’ve chosen everything you want, it’s time to pay. You can set up an account or check out as a "guest".

Is it easy to buy a ticket on the app?

Yes – we also guarantee the cheapest ticket available if you buy it on our app. Download the Greater Anglia app and then just tap the "Plan & Buy" button. As with buying online, you just have to select your journey, what sort of ticket you want, how many adults and children are travelling, and the app does the rest for you. Under the "Travel flexibility" option, you’ll see all the different ticket types and prices available for your journey. If you’re travelling with three adults and you’re all going to be sticking together, then make sure you tap "Groupsave" to bag yourself a 1/3 discount. Mostly you can only get e or mobile tickets via the app, with some exceptions - particularly where other operators are involved in the journey. Your tickets can be found in the ticket wallet on the app and if you have a mobile ticket, you just need to activate it when you travel. If it’s an e-ticket, just ensure you have it ready to show on your phone or printed in advance. You can also opt for your ticket to go on your Smartcard.

Get further discounts with a railcard

There is an "Add railcards" button both online and on the app. There is a large range of railcards available, most of which give you a third off the cost of your journey – even off the cost of our cheapest Advance tickets. The 16-17 Saver railcard gives a massive 50 per cent discount. There’s a page on our website which tells you all about the different railcards available and how to get them. If you’re planning on making several journeys, then you’ll get back the cost of the railcard and more in savings.

Other discounts are available

We have a large range of discounted fares available to buy online. You can find out about them on our website. They range from discounts if you’re in a group of three or more (Groupsave), a special London evening out fare if you’re staying overnight in the capital (London Evening Out) to our Club 50 discount if you’re aged 50 or over.

There are some amazing cheap fares available at the moment, as many of our cheapest Advance fares have not yet been sold. These prices start from £6 for Southend Victoria-London Liverpool Street, £8 for Cambridge-London Liverpool Street and £10 for Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester to London Liverpool Street. Use our best fare finder for help with finding the cheapest Advance fare available.

Travel safely this summer

Once you’ve bought your ticket you can get on your way. Please follow our advice to help us help you to travel safely this summer. You must wear a face covering on our stations and trains, unless you’re exempt, and you could be fined £100 if you don’t wear one. Please wash your hands and use hand sanitiser. Never travel if you have symptoms of Covid. We’ve done a lot to make our trains and stations safer, from extensive cleaning to making it easier to social distance. You can read more in this blog . We’re looking forward to welcoming you back.