Cheap student travel: The low-down

Until the wonders of Star Trek become a reality, and we can all teleport to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, travel is a fact of life. And not only is it time-consuming, it’s very expensive. The last thing you need to be doing as a student is pouring all your money into the pockets of National Rail. For this reason, we take you through some lesser known travel bargain tips. To Railcards and beyond!

Train Travel

Railcards

First things first: Get yourself a Young Person’s Railcard. The savvy amongst you may have already got a five year card for free when you signed up to a student bank account. For everyone else, it’s only £20 a year, and gives you a third of most journeys. You can therefore save money even if you’re doing one expensive journey a year.

This is Very Important: Keep the form you get with the card. Forms have a habit of disappearing. It’s easy to become overcome with enthusiasm for sorting out files, which usually involves throwing all official looking pieces of paper away, but make sure this piece of paper is spared. Mainly because if you lose your railcard, this will allow you to get a new one for free.

If you’re using your railcard to book tickets online, check the cheapest saver fares without your railcard as well. Curiously enough, sometimes when you use your railcard, the very cheapest fares tend to be unavailable.

Booking Ahead

The sooner you book, the less you pay. Even if it’s the night before, you can still get a reduction. The rail companies set their prices every 12 weeks, and the best deals go quickly, so the further ahead you plan, the better. If possible, at the beginning of term, work out when you’ll be going home again in the holidays and book straight away. This will also avoid finding all the trains booked up around Christmas time and similar nightmares.

Booking Online - Four tips:

1. When you use the National Rail website, there is an option under ‘Journey Search Results’ that says ‘Search by the “Fastest” ’. You can change this to “Cheapest”.

2. Compare which is cheaper: buying a return ticket to your destination, or buying two single tickets.

3. Check for any promotions on the National Rail website. There is a link to a page that has them listed.

4. If you book your tickets on the National Rail or the Trainline sites, you usually get charged for insurance and a credit-card fee (with the Trainline site, it’s 2%). If you book through the rail company’s website however, you have the option of selecting whether you want the insurance option and you might even be offered a saving. For example if you book a single ticket on a GNER train on the GNER website, you can save 10%.

Multiple tickets

This is a very sly trick, and one that is perfectly within your rights to do: instead of paying for one complete journey from A to B, break down your route into a series of mini-journeys and pay for a series of tickets. This can work out considerably cheaper and you can stay on the same train for the whole trip. Go to the Transport Direct journey planner website and work out where you go through, or simply call National Rail Enquiries. As long as you have tickets to cover each part of your trip, this method is valid, and is particularly worth trying on return journeys with many changes e.g. London to Penzance.

Peak Times

You are always charged more for travelling at peak times. These are usually before 9am and between 5pm-7pm. If you can’t avoid travelling in these times, work out if any stage of your journey is outside the peak hours, and if so buy two separate tickets (see above).