PEOPLE can now travel by coach from York to London for as little as £4.99 - only £1.49 more than the cost of a Park & Ride adult return ticket into York city centre.

Inflation may be soaring in the UK but travelling to the capital from York seems to be getting ever cheaper.

A company called FlixBus is running services direct from the Memorial Gardens in Leeman Road to London Victoria coach station for exceptionally cheap prices.

A ticket to ride on a FlixBus leaving York at 10.30 am on Friday May 13 could be booked on Wednesday evening for £4.99, plus a £1 'service fee.'

A ticket booked to return from Victoria at 5.30pm on Saturday could be booked for £6.99, plus a £1 fee.

In contrast, an advance single ticket for the 10.32 LNER train to Kings Cross on Friday, booked on Wednesday evening, cost £53.50 - more than ten times higher than the FlixBus fare.

However, passengers on the train would arrive at Kings Cross at 12.31pm, while a passenger on the FlixBus would not get in to Victoria until 3.50pm after stopping at Leeds, Sheffield, Leicester and London's Finchley Road on the way.

The cheapest single ticket on Grand Central's 10.26am train service to London, getting in at 12.31pm, cost £47.50 to book on Wednesday evening.

FlixBus was also offering better value than other coach firms for the Friday trip.

National Express charged £17.50 on Wednesday evening for a single direct service leaving York at 11.05am on Friday and arriving in London at 4.55pm.

Another coach firm, MegaBus, charged £14.73 for its 11.30am coach from York, which arrives in London at 6pm after passengers have to make one change in Leeds.

However, anyone thinking of booking with FlixBus needs to be aware of a couple of issues.

The firm is currently running only one direct service each way per day - and not every day either.

There are direct coaches to London on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but then none until next Friday,May 20. The firm suggests passengers use services from other cities such as Leeds on Tuesday to Thursday.

A spokesperson for FlixBus did not respond to a request for comment from The Press, but the firm says on its website that it is 'one of Europe’s leading coach companies' with 400,000 daily connections to over 2,500 destinations in 40 European countries.

"We’ll take you from A to B at unbeatable prices," it says.

It adds that passengers have free unlimited access to 4G Wi-Fi and charge their devices using onboard plug sockets, and their coaches don't make unnecessary stops as they are all equipped with a toilet and seats with extra legroom.