As if January isn’t depressing enough, rail operators like to make the post Christmas blues that much more painful by ratcheting up our rail fares. Earlier this month, fares rose by 5.9% across the board and by as much as 8% in the capital.
Fortunately there are a few ways to make sure that you’re not paying over the odds for the luxury of having your head in a sweaty man’s armpit every morning…
1. Season tickets
If you’re a very regular commuter, a season ticket is probably your best bet. Cue sinking hearts nationwide. Yes season tickets have leapt in price recently, but for very regular commuters, they still work out the cheapest way to travel. Most weekly season tickets will give you 7 days for the price of 5 and most annual season tickets will give you 52 weeks for the price of 40. National Rail Enquiries have a great tool for working out the cost of your season ticket fares. The best way to make them work for you is by ensuring that you’re not paying for days and weeks where you’re not travelling. For instance, if you’re going on holiday in three weeks’ time, it doesn’t make sense to buy a monthly pass. Contrary to popular belief, you can get season tickets for more unusual time lengths (such as 16 weeks) to fit round your lifestyle and upcoming plans. Ask at your local train station for more details.
Some season tickets offer benefits and discounts off other train travel, which are worth exploring. For instance, if you buy an annual season ticket, which either starts and/or finishes in the Network Rail area (south and south east), you’ll also be issued with an annual Gold card. One of the perks of the card is that you can get a Network Railcard for just £1 (normally £28), which gets you 1/3 off off-peak travel for you and up to three other adults.
2. The smart season ticket trick
Here’s a perfectly legal tactic to reduce the cost of your commute; sometimes splitting your journey with two season tickets works out cheaper than travelling with one.
Say I commute from Swindon to London every day. Right now, a weekly season ticket will cost me £212 and an annual season ticket will cost me £7,448.
Swindon – London Paddington= £212/week or £7,448/year
Now if I get two season tickets to cover the same journey…
Swindon – Didcot Parkway = £69.90/week or £2,748/year
Didcot Parkway – London Paddington = £111.30/week or £4,348/year
Total = £181.20/week or £7,132/year
By buying two season tickets, I can save £30.80 per week or £316 per year. This tactic doesn’t mean that I have to get off the train at my ‘middle station’ (in this case Didcot Parkway) BUT to stay on the right side of the law, the train must stop at this station, rather than just pass through. The reason this method works is because different rail operators fix the prices for different parts of the rail network. The lead operator will often set a higher fee than that of the regional rail operators combined. If you break the journey down into its individual parts, you can make the most of the regional operators’ lower prices.
3. Carnets
If you make the same journey regularly, but not regularly enough to justify a season ticket, a carnet of tickets might be your best option. You can buy a batch of 12 single tickets for the price of 10, to use on any journey at any time (usually) within a 6 month period. These tickets can be given to anyone, so if members of your team at work all tend to make the same journey, carnets might be your cheapest travel option.
It is, however, worth bearing in mind that carnets aren’t available on all journeys. For more details about where you can get them and routes they are valid on, take a look at MyTrainTicket.co.uk.
4. Get on your bike
Another way to reduce the cost of your daily train commute is to walk or cycle to the train station. As the London Evening Standard reported this week, thousands of commuters are now facing station car park fees of over £1,000 a year. Bike racks, on the other hand, won’t cost you a penny to use. You could even substitute your walk or cycle to work for your usual gym routine, saving you £45+ per month in gym fees.
Keep an eye out for the next part in this series, where I’ll be taking a look at how to get the cheapest train travel nationwide.
How do you save money on your commute?
If you’re in London, taking the bus instead of the tube can as well save some money! With a bus fare in zone 1 at £1,35 vs. £2 for the tube, you save 65p each time, 1.30 if you take it to commute so £6.5 a week and £26 a month! When like in my case it’s only a matter of leaving the house 10min earlier it is definetely worth it!
Cheers Jo! Yep the Network Railcard is flippin’ amazing. Even though I’d seen it advertised pretty extensively, I didn’t know just how useful it was until a few months ago.Â
We’ve got another article on cheap train fares in the pipeline, so we’ll be looking more closely at railcards etc very soon. Watch this space!
If you travel regularly by rail in London and the South, there’s also the network railcard. It will get you 1/3 off rail fares (even if, like me, your student railcard has long since expired), which if you make frequent journeys is easily worth the £28 it costs.Â
You can get to and from London from as far out as Weymouth, Brighton, Dover, Southend, Colchester, Cambridge and Worcester – pretty good!Â
I was in London over the New Year and noticed reports in the papers that your transit fees were up to 8 000 pounds a year — this is absolutely disgusting… I’ve searched online for a reason as to why but I can’t seem to find a reason. Are the rail operators corrupt/inept? Do Londoners just *accept* this outrageous fee?
Also, as a tourist… almost 5 pounds to ride the subway without an Oyster card? Insane.
I’m all about the biking option.  Finding  a way to schedule in exercise these days can be a battle.  Just out of curiosity, is London called, “The Big Smoke” because of its role in the Industrial Revolution?Â
I definitely need to write a post about cheaper London travel (including making the most of the bike network).
I do always love a good history question. London developed a pretty terrible smog problem during the industrial revolution. However, I believe that the term ‘big smoke’ was actually coined in 1952, when air pollution in the capital reached an all time high.Â
Yep the prices can be extortionate, but I think £8k is probably pushing it a bit far. The most expensive Oyster card, for example, would set you back £3,040 for an annual pass (zones 1-9). Even the most expensive commuter routes (from outside the Oyster zones) don’t tend to top the £3,000 mark.
The higher prices are meant to foot the bill for mega investment works that are going on at the moment (cross rail, for example). And yes, us Londoners tend to lump the price rises or otherwise think of savvier ways to travel. The tube map is very deceiving, making destinations look artificially far apart. Walking, buses and Boris bikes can work out better (and sometimes faster) ways of travelling.
I’d recommend that any tourist visiting the capital to buy an Oyster card. It costs a fiver, yes, but 1 peak single ticket without an Oyster will cost you £4.30, whereas a single with an Oyster will cost you £2.30. In just a few journeys, you’ll quickly see the money back that you spent on the Oyster.
It’s tough for you Londoners!
Is there a lot of people who can replace a train commute with a bike? I’d imagine the raising fares would push a lot of people to th ebike option if that were the case.
Where I live, I would go with “ask about flexible hours”, “work from home some days”, or some other car-based method, heh.
CAR BASED METHOD? IN LONDON? ARE YOU MAD?!
Driving in London is an activity reserved for bus drivers, taxi drivers, people with smart cars, people with death wishes and the wealthy who can afford the congestion charge.
Cycling is definitely a good way forward. I’ll have to post about this soon!
 Do a cycling post, for sure!
You caught me – I’m just an uncultured American, haha. We love our cars… the bigger the better. Also, what is ‘diesel fuel’?
Traffic is pretty bad here, but it’s pretty much the name of the game (San Francisco Bay Area). Is it true there are fees to just bring your car into London?
Yes ,you are right .Seasonal tickets are the best way to travel . We will save money by using the seasonal tickets.Really enjoyed the post, thanks for posting.I’ve recommended this blog to some of my colleagues. I’m sure they’ll find it is useful as I did.
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