'I flew from Manchester to Berlin for £200 less than if I went to London on the train'

A holidaymaker bagged return flights from Manchester Airport to Berlin for only £33, costing her seven times less than a peak return train ticket to London. Samantha Wragg managed to secure the bargain tickets to Berlin Brandenburg airport for her city break.

The flights cost her far less than the £235 she’d have spent on a peak return ticket to the UK capital from her home in Matlock. The tickets even came out cheaper than a super-off peak ticket to London, which would have set her back nearly £80.

To make the holiday even sweeter, she spent just £95 on a six night stay in a Berlin hostel. This is less than half what she had to pay for four days in a similar room - which she shared with eight others - during a trip to London last November.

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Samantha, 35, said that the cost of domestic trips is increasingly putting her off holidaying in the UK. She explained: “It’s so much harder to have city breaks on a budget in the UK.

“For one, there’s less choice of accommodation when compared to other places. But it’s mainly the cost of trains.

“It’s a lot easier to get the train than to drive because you’re immediately in the centre of a city and don’t have to pay to park. But you’ve also got to consider that you can spend more than £200 on a ticket which is ridiculous.

“Off-peak and super off-peak tickets are cheaper but if you want to get there and leave for a reasonable time during the week you are likely going to get stung. That’s such a big chunk of your budget that you want to spend on doing things rather than travel. Something needs to be done about it because it’s putting people, myself included, off holidaying in the UK which is a