Scottish Students - Claim back Travel Expenses

dd1989

If you are a resident in Scotland and have Applied for a loan through the SAAS you can log on to their website on https://www.saas.gov.uk and apply for yearly travel expenses, they paid me £350!!!

celticfcz

Hi,

I applied for this on the 21st of December and havent heard anything yet. Obviously I have to take into account the holiday period so am not worried was just wondering how long it took for you to get a reply?
The £350 you mention is that how much it calculated when you were applying and they paid you the full amount? Because some people are saying they pay you less than it comes to?
Also I havent applied for a loan - I though everybody had a chance to claim their travel expenses back?

Thanks

The_One_Who

They try to deal with it within 21 days, but what with having Christmas and New Year and the general influx of application they'll get they will deal with it as soon as they can. If you applied online you can track your application, so if you haven't had any written correspondence try looking at that. I'd also check your bank account because sometimes it can go in and the letter telling you about it can take a while to arrive.

You have to pay the first £155 pounds of travel yourself. Then, SAAS will only refund your expenses if you have used the cheapest form of travel (so getting a monthly train card instead of buying returns or singles everyday).

The expenses are income assessed. So if you didn't apply for a loan or they don't have your parents' income details on file then you'll have to provide evidence of that before they can fully process your application. Contact them to ask how to go about doing this.

Bamber19

It's also worth mentioning that in previous years travel expenses have been limited to train/bus journeys and it has expressly been a condition that petrol costs cannot be claimed back but from last year pertrol costs were included up to the value of the train/bus journey you would have taken. Not sure if this is really a good thing as it leave the system open to abuse (People claiming they travelled to uni 9-5 mon-fri with no way of disproving it whislt before there was always the threat of being checked up on and asked to provide proof of travel.)

The_One_Who

I thought it was still the same regarding petrol costs. If you can get there by public transport then they restricted claims to that. But if you can only get there by car then they allowed you to claim some petrol costs, you have to explain all this to them in writing though.

Bamber19

The_One_Who wrote: »

I thought it was still the same regarding petrol costs. If you can get there by public transport then they restricted claims to that. But if you can only get there by car then they allowed you to claim some petrol costs, you have to explain all this to them in writing though.

That's not what last years documentation suggested, it said that if you travel by car you can claim petrol expenses but these will be limited to what it would have cost to travel by public transport. In any event i don't know of anyone who has ever had their claim audited.

The_One_Who

Oh, I read the thing wrong. Yes, they'll give you the amount that public transport would cost.

I have known two people who have had to send in their train tickets for proof of what they were claiming. It's pretty rare though.

Bamber19

I think it's most likely in your 1st year. Actually had another look and the current website seems to contradict itself, saying at one point they wont pay petrol costs but then giving an example and saying they will pay up to the cost of the equivalent public transport. I used to always keep my train tickets anyway just in case.

dd1989

OP here, sorry I didn't make it clear to begin about the initial travel expenses not being covered, my claim was 350 but they put 195 in my bank account.

thefuturesbright_2

Christ almighty what more shall we give Scottish students!

Correct me if i'm wrong but don't they get FREE uni Education and now some form of travel expense rebate while us in England who provide the most for the UK economy get naff all.

Bamber19

thefuturesbright wrote: »

Christ almighty what more shall we give Scottish students!

Correct me if i'm wrong but don't they get FREE uni Education and now some form of travel expense rebate while us in England who provide the most for the UK economy get naff all.

Build a bridge and get over it.

Of course England provides more, being that it's ten times the population but there's plenty of areas of England that provide much less than Scotland. There was some daft newspaper editor on Question time that went on an anti-Scotland rant last year only to be provided with facts about the amount earned by the govt. per head showing something like Scotland being 2nd behind London in terms of giving more than they received.

You present it as if Scotland give absolutely nothing whilst every head in England contributes themselves into a state of poverty to pay for Scottish education. The reality is that Scots are contibuting also, in fact some may even contribute more than you. Scotland has a yearly budget which they can choose to spend how they like. The Scottish Government has decided to fund university education and travel but the cost of this hasn't been added on on top of the budget, it's come from within it.