If you use a monthly travelcard, have you ever been prompted to renew it on a Friday, only to not need over the weekend? Two days paid for, but wasted.

What if you planned that to happen though, can you manipulate the travelcard expiry dates to minimize the dead days?

As it happens, if you synchronize some of your holiday dates and can avoid using the travel card on days off, then it is possible to scrape as much as a month a year off the cost of travel.

For example, renewing a travelcard on 4th January 2016.

  1. Jan 4th-Feb 3rd
  2. Feb 8th-March 7th (2 days holiday)
  3. March 8th-April 7th (1 day holiday)
  4. April 11th-May 10th
  5. May 11th-June 10th (1 day holiday)
  6. June 13th-July 12th
  7. July 13th-August 12th
  8. August 15th – Sept 14th
  9. Sept 19th – Oct 18th (2 days holiday)
  10. Oct 19th – Nov 18th
  11. Nov 21st – Dec 20th

That’s 11 monthly payments for 12 months worth of travel, accepting the use of about a week’s worth of holiday time to create a few long weekends. You just need to plan ahead and book those “long weekends” so that you don’t waste money on travel you wont use.

The saving varies for each person, based on bank holidays, or sheer bad luck.

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11 comments
  1. For many people there may even be a valid question of whether a Travelcard is even the cheapest option. It’s no longer assured that it is given the rises in Travelcard prices have generally been higher than pre-pay. If you just use the Tube for your daily commute, it’s worth checking whether pre-pay is cheaper. I gave up my annual Travelcard earlier this year and except to SACD a couple of hundred pounds over the year.

  2. For many people there may even be a valid question of whether a Travelcard is even the cheapest option. It’s no longer assured that it is given the rises in Travelcard prices have generally been higher than pre-pay. If you just use the Tube for your daily commute, it’s worth checking whether pre-pay is cheaper. I gave up my annual Travelcard earlier this year and except to save a couple of hundred pounds over the year.

    • Ian Visits says:

      I saw a pie chart some months ago making a similar claim, and am crunching numbers in my spare time to try and work out the break-point for switching.

  3. Harry says:

    In February I switched from annual to pay-as-you-go with £40 auto top-up. Since then I’ve spent £800. If I’d renewed my annual card (Zones 1-4) I would have ‘spent’ (ie, had deducted from my salary) £1,300 in the same period. The main reason for switching is that I now work at home two or three days a week and don’t use the tube much at weekends.

  4. John P says:

    I’m on a monthly contract so I do this. I’ve managed to line up holidays quite well this year;
    I will have spent £4739 (Xmas-Xmas) as opposed to £4872 for the yearly season.
    I don’t travel at weekends or have use of a gold card so those might tip the balance for others.

  5. TIm Stringer says:

    Or you could just buy an annual one and save 2 months!

    • Ian Visits says:

      Which is indeed ideal — if you have the ability to save up the cash in advance for an annual card.

  6. robert says:

    Is it not possible to buy odd length tcards e.g. 1m2days thus making yr plan even better?

    • Ian Visits says:

      Such oddly dated payment options do not exist.

    • Mike says:

      That’s exactly what I used to do before I became eligible for an interest-free annual season loan. Assuming no weekend travel one weekend in 5, I got a “monthly-rated” season from Monday to the Friday 4 weeks+4 days ahead, so I didn’t pay for one weekend in 5. This was for a paper rail season to “London Terminals”.

  7. Matt says:

    On SouthEastern trains you can purchase an extended monthly ticket, which charges you at the monthly rate for any period beyond the month – so if you know you have a 6 or 7 weeks until a period of leave (school holidays for example), you can purchase for the whole period and not be left with paying extra for monthly, weekly, weekly, daily, daily for example. Pity I had been travelling for nearly 24 years before I became aware of this!!! Not a ticket that they appear to advertise to widely!

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