Pricing Complaint

Today I had the morning off - moderately long story for another time - meaning I went in halfway through the day, as you'd expect for someone who was only working in the afternoon.

This meant I got an off-peak ticket, which reminded me to resurrect an overdue rant on train ticket pricing. Now, while we all know that train pricing is outrageous and excessive, I hadn't noticed how much they sneakily chipped away at the 'cost-efficient' tickets.

As I've been theoretically purchasing a car since mid-January when Chrissi started her job - busy weekends and cars that simply weren't that good so far meaning no success, hopefully better luck this weekend - however, at that point I'd received a refund on my season ticket as I wasn't using it while driving. I didn't want to get a longer ticket, as I didn't think I'd get the best use out of it. Instead I've been getting weeklies and dailies. At least, I would have done if I hadn't done the maths.

You see, a weekly ticket from Surbiton to Godalming costs £67.40 - but a daily return costs only £13.70 by comparison. I recall the days when a weekly ticket used to be about 75-80% of the cost of the equivalent five returns. However, if you add up the cost of the five returns, that comes to £67.50 - meaning the weekly ticket gives you a net saving of a huge 10p.

Today I got an off-peak return for only £11.90 and as a result saved myself a huge £1.70 over the course of the week compared to the weekly ticket I sensibly didn't buy instead. Madness.