Train Tickets
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Train Tickets
Quick question for those with a ds or ds travelling by train. Do you buy weekly or monthly tickets or termly tickets ? Which works out more cost effective if they have the occasional rugby on a Saturday ? I have checked the South Eastern website and cannot see anything specifically for school children. Have I missed something ?
Re: Train Tickets
South Eastern don't do anything specifically for school children but you can buy child season tickets. Don't forget that you will also need a photo card to buy a season ticket (just remember to take a photo with you when you buy your first ticket). The south Eastern child photo cards usually last for 2 years.
We have found buying a termly (6 terms a year) ticket works best (and cheapest) for us as it covers weekends and if we need to get to school in holidays we are happy to give a lift or buy a daily ticket as this happens rarely for us. We buy the ticket in advance the day before term starts. I think you can do this in the afternoons of the day before or anytime if the day before is a Sunday (I can never remember the exact rules).
There is only one occasion (school broke up on a Tuesday) where if would have been cheaper to buy a ticket that expired on the Friday before and two buy two singles for the Monday and Tuesday. We decided it wasn't worth the hassle of queuing for the tickets and maybe missing the train as the difference in price was minimal.
You can compare prices of tickets with different dates using the online purchase season tickets options on the website. As this is really for buying tickets online it only lets you do this for start dates within the next 3 weeks. However if you 'adjust' the term dates so you are still inputting 6ish weeks e.g. starting on a Wednesday (if that's when school starts) and finishing on a Friday 6 weeks later you can work out the costs - care this will be wrong when prices change in January.
To cover a school term the price is likely to be made up of a monthly ticket, a weekly one and a few days to cover the period.
We have found buying a termly (6 terms a year) ticket works best (and cheapest) for us as it covers weekends and if we need to get to school in holidays we are happy to give a lift or buy a daily ticket as this happens rarely for us. We buy the ticket in advance the day before term starts. I think you can do this in the afternoons of the day before or anytime if the day before is a Sunday (I can never remember the exact rules).
There is only one occasion (school broke up on a Tuesday) where if would have been cheaper to buy a ticket that expired on the Friday before and two buy two singles for the Monday and Tuesday. We decided it wasn't worth the hassle of queuing for the tickets and maybe missing the train as the difference in price was minimal.
You can compare prices of tickets with different dates using the online purchase season tickets options on the website. As this is really for buying tickets online it only lets you do this for start dates within the next 3 weeks. However if you 'adjust' the term dates so you are still inputting 6ish weeks e.g. starting on a Wednesday (if that's when school starts) and finishing on a Friday 6 weeks later you can work out the costs - care this will be wrong when prices change in January.
To cover a school term the price is likely to be made up of a monthly ticket, a weekly one and a few days to cover the period.
Re: Train Tickets
+1. Great advice. Buying the season ticket on a Sunday is fine. For a season ticket, the minimum required is one month. Now, do consider how careful your son is. If he lost it, you would need to pay £10 for the replacement and it used to be that you could only get a replacement once a year. I think they've increased this to two refunds.
Salsa
Salsa
Re: Train Tickets
Does your dc have to travel by train? The Kent Young Persons Travel Pass is considerably cheaper than most trains and covers all weekday buses in Kent. For the whole 2017/2018 academic year it is £280 whereas if I bought my DS a season ticket from Sevenoaks to Tunbridge Wells if would be £380 just for September to December.
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad !