Discounts And Cheaper Train Fares

Rail fares vary considerably, even for the same journey. Buying tickets at the station just before you travel is usually the most expensive option. You can often cut the cost of your fares significantly by trying some of the techniques below. It is often easiest to compare fares online using services such as nationalrail.co.uk, thetrainline.com or raileasy.co.uk, even if you then decide to buy your tickets by phone or at the station.

Railcards

Railcards are available for a number of different types of people. They typically offer discounts of up to 1/3 from full-price rail fares. If you spend more than £72 per year on rail travel, it is probably worth getting one of the following cards if you qualify. All of these can be bought through the www.railcard.co.uk or at staffed stations.

Young Persons’ Railcard – available to people aged between 16 and 25, or full time students. Gives 1/3 off rail fares. Costs £24 for a year.
Senior Railcard – available to people aged 60 and over. Gives 1/3 off rail fares. Costs £24 for the year.
Family and Friends Railcard – Gives 1/3 off adult fares and up to 60% off child fares when at least one child is travelling with the cardholder. Up to 4 adults and 4 children can travel together on one card, but the crucial thing is that there must be at least one child in the party to qualify. Costs £24 for the year.
Disabled Persons Railcard - Available to disabled people meeting qualifying criteria, including visual and hearing disabilities and epilepsy. (See the disabled persons railcard website for a full list of qualifying disabilities). Gives 1/3 off most rail fares for you and an adult companion. Costs £18 for one year or £46 for 3 years.
Forces Railcard – Available to serving members of the regular armed forces, their spouses and dependent children. Gives 1/3 off rail travel. Costs £15 for one year. See the Naval Families Federation website for more information and to apply.

Buy in advance

Rail tickets are released around 12 weeks before the date of travel, and this is usually the cheapest time to buy them. However, some advance fares are available right up to the date of travel so it is always worth checking before you leave for the station.

Travel off peak

Train fares tend to be most expensive before about 9.30am (and between 4.30 and 6.30pm for trains leaving London). Try to travel after this time if possible as savings can be very significant. If you are making a longer journey and have to start before 9.30, it is often worth checking to see if two tickets are cheaper than one – see the ‘Split ticket’ option below.

Check both single and return fares

In some circumstances, 2 single tickets (one in each direction) can be cheaper than a return fare. It is always worth having a look to compare – very easy if you are looking online.

Conversely, sometimes a return ticket can be cheaper than a single. If you only want to travel one way, it is still worth looking at the return fare and throwing away the unused portion if necessary.

Split tickets

This is more complicated to explain, but if you have the time and inclination to do some research, it can yield significant savings.

Rail journeys between major urban centres tend to be more expensive than those starting or ending in smaller rural towns. So if you are travelling a longer distance to a major city (e.g. London or Birmingham), it may be cheaper to buy two sets of tickets, ‘splitting’ them at an interim smaller station along the route. You do not need to change trains or get off the train at the interim station at all, so as regards the journey it is no different to having a single ticket.

For example, if you were travelling from Taunton to Birmingham and back, you could get a normal return ticket from Taunton to Birmingham. OR you could get two return tickets – one return from Taunton to Cheltenham and another return from Cheltenham to Birmingham. Between them, those two tickets cover the entire length of journey you wish to make, but the second option is often significantly cheaper than the first.

The savings can be particularly noticeable if you need to depart during Peak Time (before 9.30am) as it may turn out that, using the split ticket option, only the first of the two tickets is charged at Peak rate, the other is Off-Peak (if it is after 9.30 by the time you reach your interim station).

Special tickets and special offers

There are a number of special tickets and offers available across the Somerset rail network which may help you make additional savings.

Group travel - There are savings for groups of more than 10 people on most train services and for groups of 3 or 4 adults on selected First Great Western and South West Trains services using their GroupSave tickets.
Season tickets - Weekly, monthly and yearly season tickets are available for many journeys and can be cheaper if you are making the same journey regularly. See the National Rail Season Tickets page for more information and a calculator to find out when a season ticket could be of benefit.
PlusBus - A discount price 'bus pass' that you buy with your train ticket. It gives you unlimited bus travel around town, at the start, the finish, or both ends of your train journey. Within Somerset, PlusBus is available in Bridgwater and Taunton, but it is available in another 240 towns across the UK that you might be travelling to. See the National Rail PlusBus [.pdf 4.0MB] for a map of participating towns.
Ranger, Rover and other special tickets and special offers - There are a number of special offers sometimes available for travel on specific routes and during specific times. See the National Rail Special Offers page for a list of current offers in Somerset.

Discounts for business travel and bulk bookings

There are a number of rail booking services that employers can subscribe to that offer discounts off standard train fares for business travel. Agents of these services organise and book rail tickets for employees and bill them directly to a company account, saving on time as well as fares. For companies booking a large volume of rail travel each year, there is also the option to have an on-site ticket printing machine.