In a few weeks time, rail fares will change as most will go up in price, so here’s a range of ways to save money on your travel costs.
Including at the end, an exceptional deal for people commuting around London.
Many of the savings on longer trips outside London need a bit of thinking and forward planning, but the money saved on rail trips can be quite substantial.
For London Commuters
Annual train tickets
All the train companies and TfL offer a discount to buyers of annual travel cards, typically the equivalent of 52 weeks of travel for the price of 40 weeks.
Some examples, based on prices for 2022
| Zones | Annual Travelcard | 12 Monthly Travelcards | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 & 2 | £1,536 | £1,770.00 | £234.00 |
| 1 to 4 | £2,208 | £2,544.00 | £336.00 |
| 1 to 6 | £2,812 | £3,240.00 | £428.00 |
| 2 to 3 | £1,152 | £1,327.20 | £175.20 |
| 2 to 5 | £1,528 | £1,760.40 | £232.40 |
However, many people are working hybrid, often commuting just three days a week — so let’s check how that compares, and make some assumptions, such as commuting Tue to Thur and having 4 weeks holiday (so working 48 weeks), and paying for one peak hours ticket in the morning and one off-peak ticket in the evening.
| Zones | Annual Travelcard | 48 * 3 daily commutes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 & 2 | £1,536 | £835.20 |
| 1 to 4 | £2,208 | £1,065.60 |
| 1 to 6 | £2,812 | £1,296.00 |
| 2 to 3 | £1,152 | £532.80 |
| 2 to 5 | £1,528 | £691.20 |
So you can see that using contactless payments for hybrid working can save a lot of money – but note that these prices exclude the cost of travel at weekends.
Let’s make another assumption — such as a person who travels around a bit on a Saturday — and reaches the daily fares cap for travel zones usually travelled through.
| Zones | Annual Travelcard | 48 * 3 daily commutes + Sat |
|---|---|---|
| 1 & 2 | £1,536 | £1,267.20 |
| 1 to 4 | £2,208 | £1,593.60 |
| 1 to 6 | £2,812 | £1,972.80 |
| 2 to 3 | £1,152 | £964.80 |
| 2 to 5 | £1,528 | £1,320.00 |
In fact, unless you commute at least 4 days a week and travel at the weekends, you may be better off using contactless payments instead of buying a travelcard.
Additional benefits
Buying an annual travelcard does however also save you a third off rail trips outside London with a Gold Card. Just a few trips per year can add up to a considerable additional saving on your travel costs.
You can however get the same one-third discount on national rail journeys if you buy a RailCard for just £30 a year.
How to save money on an annual travelcard
If you do need to buy an annual travelcard, how can you reduce the hit to your wallet?
Interest free loans
Many employers offer staff benefits that include an interest free loan to buy an annual travel card.
You’ll need to speak to your Payroll/HR dept to see if your employer offers that benefit — or to harangue them into starting it if they don’t.
Interest free credit card deals
If buying an annual card yourself but struggling to secure the hefty upfront cost, it can be worth hunting around for an interest free offer on a new credit card, or a balance transfer deal.
You’ll need to pay the balance off over the time frame the card company is offering their 0% interest rate offer to avoid high credit card rates, but it can be a very cheap way of being able to afford the cost of an annual travelcard.
This is an offer that enables you to pay as normal for 11 monthly travelcards, and then you get the 12th month for free.
Refunds
The railway companies will offer refunds on annual travel cards if your plans change.
However, if for example, you seek a refund after six months, you don’t get half your money back, but a percentage based on what you would have paid had you bought six monthly tickets instead.
Avoid Zone 1
Sounds obvious, but have you ever seen just how much you can save by avoiding Zone 1?
Someone with, for example, a Zones 1-4 travelcard could save £932 per year if they could use a Zones 2-4 travelcard instead.
If you travel into Zone 1, then my tip is to commute to the edge of Zone 1, then grab a hire bike for the last mile. Annual bike hire is just £120. Save money and get fit!
Obviously, not everyone can avoid Zone 1, but if you live on one side of London and work on the other, that means you’re paying a premium in travelling through Zone 1. If renting, the savings from moving to the other side of London may justify the initial inconvenience.
Avoiding Zone 1 can also be possible with the London Overground for some journeys, as you can loop around the edges of Zone 1 — although that usually means a slower commute, at least the trains are air-conditioned.
For travel outside London
Once you decide to arrange a trip outside the capital, the fares can be more complicated, but there are a number of ways of saving money on train fares, and some of the savings can be quite substantial.
Split tickets
This is the gold-standard way of getting huge savings on train tickets, but will also involve some effort in seeking out the deals.
For example, what if you were to want to travel from London to Warminster (via Salisbury) for Imberbus.
If you tapped that into a train ticket website, you might be offered a return fare of £38.40.
But if you split the ticket, into returns from London to Salisbury (£18.40) and buy a separate return from Salisbury to Warminster (£8.60), then the cost is just £27. A considerable saving.
That’s just one example, and the savings tend to be highest when swapping between different train companies along a route — but there are many opportunities to split fares.
It’s easiest to work out that a split fare option exists when you are having to change trains at stations, as you can check each leg of the journey.
Remember, you can split fares on a single train trip, even if you don’t get off the train – so long as the train calls at the station where you split the tickets.
Split tickets for peak hours travel
This is particularly useful if you are on a long trip that starts during the rush hour.
Let’s take a trip from London to Leeds, leaving in the morning and returning in the evening.
A standard return fare leaving at 8am can be found for £59.30, but if you buy return tickets from London to Doncaster (£39.30), and return tickets from Doncaster to Leeds (£7)… the fare would be just £46.30.
That’s because the London to Doncaster leg is billed at rush hour rates, but once we reach Doncaster at 9:44am, the second — now separate — ticket can be charged at off-peak rates.
Even though you have two separate tickets, you don’t have to get off the train at Doncaster. The only rule is that the train must call at Doncaster — or at each station where your ticket stops and starts from.
For example, for that particular trip to Doncaster, splitting the fare at Retford would have given us an even cheaper trip, but because that train doesn’t stop there, just passes straight through it, we can’t split the fare at that station.
If it doesn’t stop there, you can’t split it there.
It’s worth noting that split fares don’t always save money, but when they do, the cost saving on the train tickets is worth the effort to find them.
One caveat — if you do split tickets and buy tickets that need specifically timed trains, always include some flexibility in your planning, just in case one of your trains is delayed.
However, split ticketing is undeniably the best way to save big time on specific trips.
Discount RailCards (see below) can also be used with split ticketing — so the savings can be even greater.
Another tip is that although they charge a booking fee, Trainline now highlights where Split Tickets will save you money, and that makes finding split tickets much less hassle.
Booking early
Network Rail typically releases Advance tickets to the train companies 12 weeks in advance, and those go on sale shortly afterwards.
As these are limited, and you’re planning sufficiently far in advance, then make a note of when the tickets will be released, and try to book them to get the best saving.
Network Rail maintains a page listing the release dates for each batch of tickets, which is here.
You can also sign up for Trainline’s cheap ticket alert service, and they also offer a prediction tool on their mobile app that tries to work out when prices are likely to go up as tickets become scarce on a specific trip.
Discount Rail Cards
Railcards offer one-third off journeys on the National Rail network.
If you buy an annual season ticket (see above), then you would usually get a free Gold Card as part of the package, offering 1/3 off most rail fares across much of Southern England.
If not, you can buy a Railcard for just £30, and get the same 1/3 off rail fare discount. If you expect to spend at least £90 on train fares in a year, then you’ll save money.
For people aged between 16-25. Tip, if you’re 25, you can buy a 3-year Railcard and keep the discount savings until you’re nearly 28.
Weirdly for its name, the card can also be used by anyone aged 26 and over, if they are in full-time education.
If you’re aged 26-30, offers 1/3 discount on “some” fares. Also very limited availability.
For two named adults on one ticket.
Covers the South-East of England for 1/3 off rail fares, no age or name restrictions, so ideal for Londoners.
Up to four adults and four children aged between 5-15 can travel together on one card – and you don’t have to be be related.
Senior Railcards are available for any persons over 60 years of age.
If you have a disability that makes travelling by train difficult you might qualify for the Disabled Persons Railcard, which offers 1/3 off for you and a friend/carer.
Roamer Tickets
A bit like the unlimited travel on London zones, these let you travel around an area for a single ticket price and stop off at multiple stations.
Three consecutive days of unlimited Off-Peak train travel on Southeastern services in a selected area of Kent for £45 per adult, plus up to 4 children at £5 per child.
A DaySave ticket gives you unlimited Off-Peak travel on all Southern services on the date shown. It’s only available online, and costs £22 for an adult.
When booking online, just select the ‘other tickets‘ tab on the booking engine.
This off-peak 3-day deal covers most of the lines out of Paddington to places such as Banbury, Oxford, Guildford, Redhill, and Basingstoke. Currently costs £57.50 per adult.
This allows you to travel along the Great Western Main Line from London Paddington to Reading and beyond as far as Tilehurst for £23.50.
I cannot seem to find out how to book this online, so you need to buy at a ticket office.
Weekend only deals
Travel outwards on Fridays after 9.30am or anytime Saturdays, returning on Sat or Sun Stop off at any station on your way home only.
Children’s Tickets
Some of the rail companies offer cheap tickets for children when accompanied by an adult.
Up to four children can travel for £2, when an adult ticket is purchased, or download a form if you want to use your own travelcard.
Book an adult off-peak ticket and up to four children can travel for £2 each.
Up to four children can travel for £2 each, and travelcards can be used by the adults.
Up to four children for £2 on off-peak trips. Can be booked online if buying adult tickets, or if using your travelcard for your own trip, buy the children’s tickets at the station.
Buy one valid adult ticket on Southeastern services and take up to four children with you for £1 each.
Book an adult off-peak ticket and up to four children can travel for £2 each.
Often but irregular travel
If you travel to a location regularly, but not often enough to buy a season ticket — such as regular weekend visits to family — then some railways let you buy a batch of tickets in advance.
Buy 10 tickets for the cost of 9, and the tickets will be valid for 3 months. Only available from London Marylebone ticket office.
Buy a book of 5 or 10 tickets for a discount of 10% on the price. Valid for 3 months.
Buy a book of 5 or 10 tickets for a discount of 10% on the price. Valid for 3 months.
And finally for London commuters…
Free weekend travel on Chiltern Railways
This is a great offer from Chiltern Railways that is available to anyone who buys a monthly or annual travelcard that costs at least £150 per month or £1,500 per year.
That’s because Chiltern Railways offer free travel at weekends and on Bank Holidays across their entire rail network.
That’s weekend trips to Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon or even up to Birmingham for free.
I’ve checked with them and if you own an Oyster Card you don’t necessarily need to reguarly use Chiltern Railways stations to take advantage of the offer, but you do need to buy the annual ticket from their ticket offices, and keep their paper record card with your Oyster Card when travelling at weekends.
I used this offer myself just before the pandemic (did you wonder why I was visiting the Chilterns a lot in early 2020?), and apart from the occasional problem at the ticket gates at Marylebone station where a member of staff didn’t accept an Oyster card instead of a paper ticket, but others let me through, it worked really well.
Details here
If I’ve missed any tips, let me know below:
You can buy GWR rover tickets online – on gwr.com click “Buy Season tickets” and then “rovers” in the top bar. You need to buy far enough in advance to allow time for the post.
Don’t forget Veterans railcards too, 1/3 off across the entire UK network
Small error on the 16-25 railcard. For the three year card you have up until the week before you turn 24 to buy it.
https://www.16-25railcard.co.uk/help/faqs/eligibility/#:~:text=How%20old%20do%20I%20have,your%2024th%20birthday%20to%20apply.
trainsplit.com is a really useful tool for ticket splitting. Also you don’t need to leave extra time on a split ticket – as long as you have left the required time to make a connection (ie the connection is shown on national rail enquiries) then your second advanced ticket will be honoured if the earlier train was delayed. (This is the same rule if, for example, you have a season ticket for part of your journey). The issue is that you will only be refunded for the part of the journey where the delay tool place, and you might have trouble using your split tickets if you have to take an alternative route instead.
Worth saying the Annual Gold Card only applies in south east Network Railcard area. Weirdly Gold Cards apply to fares after 0930 weekdays whereas Network Railcards apply to fares after 1000 (apart from certain stations).
Oh and the minimum £13 fare on Network Railcards also doesn’t apply to Gold Cards.
Ahem about whether Oyster seasons tickets can still be bought from Chiltern:
As of 20 December 2019, Chiltern Railways will no longer be offering Oyster Season tickets from our booking offices. Oyster Card Season tickets remain valid on Chiltern Railways services. Passengers can still buy Travelcards from Chiltern website or booking offices, but these will not be issued on Oyster Cards. Passengers wishing to purchase Oyster Card Season tickets may purchase these directly from Transport for London.
Don’t forget that for younger travellers the 16/17 Saver Card gives 50% off. Not sure why there is an overlap with the 16-25 railcard which gives 1/3rd off, why not have the 16-25 railcard start from age 18?
In some niche cases, it is worth considering what I would call a “Beyond and back” split. There is where an advance ticket is available to a nearby station beyond the one you want, but not to the station you want (because advance is not offered on some service patterns e.g. slower trains), and you get a second ticket (usually cheap local anytime) back to where you intended. Or vice versa. This is a particular long running issue with GEML.
You have to change at the station beyond, as most cheap tickets don’t allow break of journey (some allow it on a return leg only), so no stopping short (if even possible).
Example: LST-SUY (normal change MKT) by doing LST-COL (advance), then COL-SUY (via MKT). And vice versa. WItham is another station on GEML where this can work.
Most train ticket splitting sites won’t find a “beyond and back” split, need to do this manually (and allow time for interchanges).
Also on GEML, for LST-NRW: when engineering works are happening, ticketing sites may only display/quote a “via Cambridge/Ely” routing which is can be significantly more expensive (generally no Advance available). If you can tolerate replacement bus, a “via COL” will force the potentially cheaper routing if it wasn’t automatically displayed.
With the new fares, what is the cheapest Gold Card eligible travelcard? up the rop right corner of the Network Southeast map or down towards Exeter, or somewhere else. Someone doing a lot of off peak train travel in London or elsewhere in the Gold Card area could make this work (the lack of a minimum fare windsout vs. Network Card for £30)
Also some operator specific/regional rail cards can be a better deal than the national railcards or Network Railcard. e.g. Greater Anglia “Club 50” (20% discount off peak on the network booked online, no minimum fare)
Since GWR scrapped their “part-time” season tickets last year, it’s almost certain that the cheapest Annual season that qualifies for a Gold Card will be Hatton – Lapworth, at £184 a year.
A detail, but in the “Booking early” section the references to Network Rail (i.e. the rail infrastructure people) should be to National Rail (i.e the train operators). Network Rail has no involvement with ticketing.
It’s confusing!
It just goes to show what a minefield rail ticketing has become. Really useful article and I wish I would qualify for a Railcard as a single 50 something, in employment, and traveling alone. Living in London I would want to travel to the further extremes of the rail network. Not just in London. I rely on ‘splitting’ fare sites to find the best fare for me.
It’s worth noting the the Annual Gold Card can be loaded onto your Oyster and this gives you 1/3 off journeys outside your TravelCard’s zones – e.g. if you have a zone 2 and 3 card, and travel by train or tube into zone 1, you get 1/3 off the excess fare – off peak only.
Split ticketing can work well with season tickets because there is no requirement for the train to call at the intermediate station. Section 14.3 of NCoT refers.