So, I’m booking tickets to travel from Cardiff to Heathrow Airport on Friday afternoon… I can:

• Travel directly by coach (I hate coaches), takes up to 3 hours 30 minutes, costs £35 or £28 with a £10 youth discount card I don’t have.
• Travel by train to Reading, and then by the train company’s coach (of course!) to Heathrow, takes up to 2 hours 45 minutes, costs £30 with a young persons railcard (which I already have).
• Travel by train to Paddington, and then by an infeasibly expensive train to Heathrow. Also takes 2 hours 45 minutes (despite being an extra 45 miles, and giving me 25 minutes to hang around in London), but the ticket costs £50 even with the discount, because the second train has no cheap tickets.
• Travel by train to Paddington on a heavily discounted ticket, and then on the expensive train to Heathrow with a seperate ticket. Takes the same length of time obviously, but costs £36 in total.

Boggle.