Great Western Coffee Shop

The latest Performance Figures are stating that 32% discounts are currently available for many season ticket renewals. That is astonishing, and must be the highest discount available on the network for poor performance.

Mine has gone from ^1052 to ^883 - I am very pleased!

I should note that's the Newton Abbot to Exeter St Davids run.

I'm not sure I can afford a new annual ticket (mine is due December 8th and is nearly ^3000) so may lose any discounts that are due to me if I have to buy weekly or monthly ones... Mine is Maidenhead to London (all zones).. >:(

As long as you renew for within 28 days of expiry for the same period or shorter, you will still get the discount. Of course, this only applies for season tickets of 1 month and other - 7 day seasons aren't included in the discount scheme and you will have to claim a refund for each delayed journey.

If you are thinking of going for a shorter period, I would think about buying tickets monthly. As the monthly tickets is 3.84 times the price of a 7 day, it's much better value than a weekly ticket plus if you can work it right, you don't have to pay for the times when you're not travelling e.g. holidays, Xmas etc. There's no point going for anything longer than a month as up until about 10^ months, the prices are all proportional, e.g. a 2 months is twice the price of a 1 month. After 10^ months, all tickets are 40 times the 7DS ticket price. If you do go for monthly, I would buy a ticket on a Monday for 1 month and 3 days, therefore taking you to the Friday or Saturday 5 weeks later. You can then renew for another 1 month and 3 days starting on the following Monday.

Cheers,
TLM

TLM

That's a good point from TheLastMinute - it's a commonly held misconception that you can only get season tickets for 7 days, 1/3/6 months or a year, when in actual fact you can get any combination of months and days between 1 month and 1 year that you like.

I should add it is not 32% for the whole of FGW.  It ranges from 10% (for HSS services and a few others) to 32% for local Bristol area (and another area but I can't remember which).

Some of the 32% discounts I think only apply to annual tickets, with smaller discounts for shorter renewals, although I don't deal with tickets, so I really don't have a clue  ;D

Thanks for that information.. If I don't buy an annual ticket I will certainly wait until after Christmas to buy my first monthly ticket since that is within 28 days of my annual ticket expiring..

Meanwhile I'll just have to sit down and work out if the discount on the annual ticket (which would obviously be more than if I get it on a monthly) is more or less than the interest I'll have to pay by buying the annual ticket on my credit card and paying it off slowly over the year..

I hope that made sense.. I think it did.. I know what I meant!!  :)

Many employers offer season ticket loans to purchase annual tickets. Though my limited experience is that many employees don't take them, and continue to purchase monthly tickets themselves as they can't afford to buy an annual themselves.

Yes, I forgot to mention that.. My employer does just that.. I need to find out their rate of interest to make my calculations even more difficult...

When I first started work for them quite a few years ago now.. well ok.. 1987... they offered interest free loans which I used several times.. Sadly those interest free loans are no more..

Miserable lot. What's the point of offering a "benefit" of a loan if you're then going to charge interest on it? I believe HMRC allow an interest free loan so long as the payment is made direct to the transport operator, which is what makes the benefit attractive.

Yes, exactly what we used to have.. We'd have a cheque made payable direct to the train company.. In fact probably British Rail in those days!.. My company used to be a good place to work... But you're right.. The people in charge are a miserable lot these days!  ;)

Fortunately I get the interest free loan option, but I am surprised that smaller companies have to charge interest. Having had a brief Google I came up with the following links, not much in the way of advice for individual companies who may want to set up a scheme, info limited really to the fact that any loan up to ^5000 doesn^t need to be reported to HMRC.

There would also seem to be a discrepancy between support for loans for bus travel and other forms of public transport, though I don^t suppose Moir L would kick up too much of a fuss about it with Gordy.

www.tfw.org.uk/documents/TaxandTravelPlanMeasures13.12.07.doc

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/PAYE/stepbystep-loans.htm

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=999673

IIRC Mookiemoo may have something in an older thread regarding season ticket schemes and tax.