Is there any way to save on train season tickets?

London_Town

I'm not very familiar with train travel as I've always commuted by car. However, I'm thinking of applying for a job that would mean I would get the train into the city centre. Driving just wouldn't be an option.

I'm a bit shocked that the season ticket is about £1500.00 for a year. They mention you may be able to pay by D/D, but would this be interest free? Is there any way to get that price down through any MSE action or is it just the price you have to pay?

wealdroam

What's the journey?

Who "mention you may be able to pay by D/D"?
Are you talking about buying a yearly ticket by paying monthly instalments?

Some employers offer interest free season ticket loans.
Might be worth asking.

CoffeeCup

I travel into London daily. Only discounts you can get is with weekly/monthly/yearly tickets. I travel at peak times. Defo look into employers paying/contributing. Train travel costs just keep rising.

Wish I'd thought more about travel to this job - I spend most of it standing. Either on the train or on the platforms endlessly waiting for trains.

It's taught me not to be so polite...

property.advert

Train for me is over £4000 and that is cattle class. I think first is nearer £7000.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

property.advert wrote: »

Train for me is over £4000 and that is cattle class. I think first is nearer £7000.

gotta be in the south that then.. though thats only £100 P/W. go look and see how much a weekly is for your journey and then you will love the saving you are making.

dzug1

London_Town wrote: »

I'm not very familiar with train travel as I've always commuted by car. However, I'm thinking of applying for a job that would mean I would get the train into the city centre. Driving just wouldn't be an option.

I'm a bit shocked that the season ticket is about £1500.00 for a year. They mention you may be able to pay by D/D, but would this be interest free? Is there any way to get that price down through any MSE action or is it just the price you have to pay?

What is the specific journey? There may be ways of reducing it a bit - though it doesn't often happen

alanrowell

In my case monthly & three monthly tickets worked out cheaper once you'd taken into account times - holidays, weekends - when I wouldn't be travelling on that route. It took a bit of planning but it did work out somewhat cheaper and meant I didn't have to find the money for an annual ticket (it also meant that I wasn't out of pocket when 7 months into the year I was made redundant and didn't need the season ticket anymore).

London_Town

Thanks all for the replys. The journey is in the West Midlands, Telford Central to Birmingham New Street. When I had a look on National Rail Enquiries it suggested that your train operator may consider D/D, but maybe it's either rare or expensive. I think my operator would be Arriva Trains.

I'm shocked to read what some of us have to pay in the South East. Unless you have a highly paid job, how on earth are you supposed to afford a figure like that??!!!

I did wonder whether it could be cheaper to buy less than a year, but the working pattern for this job would be 5 days out of 7, sometimes including weekends. Therefore, perhaps there isn't a way to cut the cost down unless you could exclude weekends, which I couldn't.

I hadn't thought of asking if the employer would assist with the costs in any way. Is this quite common sometimes? Of course, only something to ask if I was offered a job rather than at any interview!

At the moment, all I could definately do to reduce the cost is to buy the ticket on a cash back credit card.

dzug1

Can't see anything obvious. It's complicated by Telford being out of the West Midlands travel area and New Street inside.

The DD payment is a discount on the monthly rate - there isn't any interest, you just pay less for each monthly ticket. It's still more expensive than buying an annual ticket though

http://tickets.networkwestmidlands.co.uk/ may help if you don't already know about it

alanrowell

dzug1 wrote: »

Can't see anything obvious. It's complicated by Telford being out of the West Midlands travel area and New Street inside.

When I lived just outside of West Yorkshire it worked out cheaper to have a ticket between home & West Yorkshire boundary and a separate ticket within West Yorkshire

London_Town

dzug1 - thanks for the link, I'll take a look.

Alan - that's interesting. I imagine Wolverhampton is defined as inside the West Midlands travel area, otherwise I could maybe look at a ticket from Telford to Wolverhampton and then another one on to New Street.

It's frustrating that even though you pay to be able to travel anytime on any day, you can't lend a season ticket to friends and family as it has your photograph on it. I think that's one of my biggest gripes. If I have a day off work now, I save on the cost of the fuel to get me there. If I commute by a rail season ticket and have a day off, I've still paid. It seems a shame that the system won't allow you to buy a season ticket for 20 working days a month rather than the full 30.