Get back on track by beating hefty train fare hikes
BELEAGUERED rail passengers in Scotland are once again shouldering the brunt of Britain’s fare hikes – and now it is time to fight back.
Peak time fares rose 3.6 per cent in January – even though average salaries were down 1.6 per cent on the year before.
The wage-busting fare rise was above the UK average of 3.4 per cent and represented the steepest increase in five years.
And since only 40 per cent of all rail fares are nationally regulated, some train operators such as Transpennine Express – whose routes include Edinburgh and Glasgow to Manchester – have stung travellers with even higher increases of 4.6 per cent. At ScotRail, which gets 85 per cent of its revenue from regulated fares, the average rise was 3.2 per cent.
So, what can you do to beat the hikes? Follow our guide to stop your hard-earned cash lining the pockets of train companies.
BEWARE OF NEEDLESS BOOKING FEES
When buying tickets online, avoid paying unnecessary booking fees. Tickets bought via popular booking sites such as Trainline and Raileasy are often no cheaper than buying direct from the train operator and you can be hit with hefty admin fees to boot.
Trainline charges a booking fee of up to £1.50 per transaction unless you book on their app on the day of travel.
Raileasy is even more expensive, levying a booking fee of £2.50 and a credit card fee of 4.5 per cent of the total transaction, which is capped at £5. Redspottedhanky, another booking website, charges £1.
But if you visit the official site run by the train operator there are no booking or card fees.
CrossCountry Trains has gone one step further by scrapping the standard £10 admin fee when amending Advance Purchase tickets and creating an easy way of exchanging your tickets.
Trainline, which spends around £5million on advertising, claims that the fees go towards ‘improving our products and services’ including technology that identifies cheap future tickets.
Raileasy says on its website that it earns ‘a small commission on each of the train tickets purchased through us’, and out of this has to give 90p to the train company. SAVE MONEY BY SPLITTING TICKETS
Before buying your ticket find out if you can save money via a socalled split ticketing website such as Trainsplit.
A quirk in the ticket pricing system means that it can often be cheaper to buy two tickets for one journey rather than only one direct ticket.
Often it turns out you won’t even need to change trains, you’ll just pass through the destination on the first ticket.
For example, if you are travelling between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, separate tickets from Waverley to Haymarket and then Haymarket to Aberdeen can cut a third off even the cheapest single fare – and almost 50 per cent off the standard fare, slashing it from £32.50 to £16.57.
However, this trick won’t work on all routes and is unlikely to yield many savings on routes within Scotland.
But if you are crossing the Border and can be flexible, the gains can be substantial.
Take the route from Edinburgh to Cardiff, for example, where booking even at three weeks’ notice is liable to cost you £94.40 – or £181.60 if you pick the wrong trains.
If you opt for a split ticketing fare you may pay only £69 for the fastest train.
Travelling from Glasgow to Bristol will normally set you back a minimum £99, but a split ticket option could bring that down almost £40 to £59.20.
Aberdeen to Birmingham could be as low as £55.94 with split tickets, against £84.20 for a nonsplit ticket fare.
Split ticketing sites should only charge you a proportion of the saving you make in fees (no more than £1).
But be careful – multiple tickets can’t be easily changed without incurring fees, possibly cancelling out your original saving. LOOK FOR SINGLES IN ADVANCE
For return journeys, it can be cheaper to buy two singles if you can commit to certain trains.
A Glasgow to Birmingham offpeak return would cost £133.90, but two advance singles could cost £89, or £79.64 with split ticketing.
The rail network’s Advance fares are unregulated but still the cheapest option available. However, they are never on offer to peak-time passengers commuting on Scotland’s busiest route between Glasgow and Edinburgh, who now pay £24.90 to travel before 9.15am. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The ‘anytime return’ between Inverness and Aberdeen is £54.60, but by planning ahead, you should typically be able to grab two single tickets for £33.20 (a few days ahead) or £17.80 (three weeks ahead). For a Glasgow to Dundee peak day return, the cost would be £40.60 a few days in advance, or £24.70 three weeks ahead, compared with the standard anytime fare of £45.50.
You can also currently buy a peaktime fare on the Glasgow-Edinburgh line via Airdrie for just £13 – almost half the normal peak fare.
But this is only temporary. ScotRail rushed in the discount to lure travellers away from its main intercity route via Falkirk, which has been hit by a train carriage crisis. Manufacturing delays mean a new Japanese-designed fleet won’t be in service until next month at the earliest.