Flexi season tickets - damp squib?

[mattster]

Flexi season tickets have been announced: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times...alculator.aspx

20% off for a 66.6% reduction in usage (2 days a week) seems disappointing.

[Paddy]

When I was working mainly from home and commuting just a few days in the week I arranged to arrive at the office after 10:30 thus facilitating the use of a rail-card or APEX tickets. BTW. The disabled persons rail-card is the most flexible and most useful as it can be used prior to 9am. You can get disabled persons rail-card if you have hearing issues and most people over 55 will have some sort of hearing issue.

If you have a non-British passport, there are are number of cheap holiday rail tickets that are much cheaper than season tickets.

You can also buy a Gold Season Ticket and get further discounts. All you need to do is to find two stations very close together and buy an annual season ticket for about £50 or so then you have the following benefits.

1/3 off:

• Standard and First Class Anytime and Off-Peak tickets for the cardholder and up to three adults travelling with them
• Off-Peak Day Travelcard Zones 1-6
• Oyster Off-Peak pay as you go single fares and the pay as you go daily price cap for journeys on National Rail, London Underground and Docklands Light Railway services. The Annual Gold Card discount will need to be set on an Oyster card. You can ask staff at London Underground, London Overground, TfL Rail and some National Rail stations in the London area to set the discount for you.
• Anytime Day Travelcards when bought as part of your ticket to London from outside London Zones 1-9 (subject to time restrictions and a £17 minimum fare)
• PlusBus Day tickets in the Network Railcard area

PLUS:

• Up to 60% off Child fares for up to four children aged between 5 and 15 years (subject to a £1 minimum fare)
• Children aged under 5 years travel free of charge
• Additional one year Railcard for a nominated person (including yourself)* for only £10
• Discounts on journeys to the Isle of Wight using Wightlink, Red Funnel and HoverTravel (when purchased as part of through journey including National Rail)

[mattster]

The gold card thing is interesting, Paddy - will have to run the numbers on that if I ever end up needing it. No doubt they will put a stop to it if it becomes widely used and abused, though.

The pricing on "flexible" seasons is such that it is just about worthwhile if you are actually going 2 days every week, but any less (or more) and it soon becomes pointless. Far from flexible. Much better IMO would be a wider rollout of the carnet tickets that are already offered by some networks. This is just a pack of tickets (at some discount) that can be used as and when required.

[mookiemoo]

Gold card only works in the old network southeast region - its not national

[ladymuck]

The gold card thing is interesting, Paddy - will have to run the numbers on that if I ever end up needing it. No doubt they will put a stop to it if it becomes widely used and abused, though.

The pricing on "flexible" seasons is such that it is just about worthwhile if you are actually going 2 days every week, but any less (or more) and it soon becomes pointless. Far from flexible. Much better IMO would be a wider rollout of the carnet tickets that are already offered by some networks. This is just a pack of tickets (at some discount) that can be used as and when required.

A carnet is a good idea for ad hoc travel. It shouldn't be difficult to make that work with an app which keeps track of the number of tickets used and enables purchase of another pack. Those that prefer a paper ticket could get them from ticket machines.

[mattster]

A carnet is a good idea for ad hoc travel. It shouldn't be difficult to make that work with an app which keeps track of the number of tickets used and enables purchase of another pack. Those that prefer a paper ticket could get them from ticket machines.

Carnet tickets with a proper discount would be good. Unfortunately the only network I knew of who was doing them (SW) was only offering 5% discount, and has now withdrawn them - to be replaced by the new flexi tickets. Rail costs are a joke now, transport really needs to be seen as a public service and not a profit making opportunity IMO. It's no wonder people want to WFH. From where I live now - not that I would do it from here, but people do - its more than £5k net (£8k gross?) a year, plus incidental costs of being outside the home five days a week (I reckon at least another 500 a month once coffees and a few beers are taken into account).

[AtW]

Buy a WFH Season ticket and save 100%

[DonaldJTrump]

A carnet is a good idea for ad hoc travel. It shouldn't be difficult to make that work with an app which keeps track of the number of tickets used and enables purchase of another pack. Those that prefer a paper ticket could get them from ticket machines.

You mean like an Oyster card?

[ladymuck]

You mean like an Oyster card?

Some areas/franchises do have something similar to Oyster but a nationwide card that could calculate the best fare for the myriad of routes from A to B could be a bit of a challenge.