How to save money on train fares

Five top tips for saving money on ever-expensive train fares

Save money on train and travel fares

Southern, Thameslink, South-Western and, in fact, most train operators on commuter trains in and out of London have achieved something pretty special the past couple of years.

They have been able to run an ever-depleted service, with more lateness and cancellations than before, and still put the price of tickets up for the hapless commuters relying on them.

Today, for example, we have heard Thameslink excuses of: "signalling problems" and the driver has also blamed the underground strike. Which is a new one one me.

The other day, it was simply Southern's industrial action; a few days ago it was lack of stock... The list of daily excuses must be running short. I wonder if management at Govia, which owns Thameslink and Southern, just use an eight-ball every day to conjure up an excuse for their shoddy service.

"Can you afford to keep giving £342.80 away to TFL - especially considering the service you are getting from your train provider?"

The icing - a bitter, sugarless, hard-as-nails sulphuric icing - on this cake for commuters was the fare hike this January.

A monthly travel card from Zone 5 (where houses once used to be affordable) into Zone 1 (Central London) now costs £215.90. It was approximately £212.00 last year; that's a £46.80 annual price hike for those buying each month. This might not seem much, but when the service has been little short of Dante's fourth circle of Hell, even a £3.90 per month price hike is akin to a kick in the infernal regions.

So here are some tips to help minimise the pain and maximise your gain.

1) Time it right
Essentially, before the start of the new year 2018, find out on what day the train fares will rise. Start saving up now to enable you to buy your annual season ticket before the fares rise.

For example, in 2017 the fares went up on 2nd January; I bought on 1 January on the old prices and paid £2208.00 for my 2017 season ticket on the old prices. Had I waited until 2nd January when the travel fares rose, I would have had to pay £2248 - a saving of £46.

2) Buy annually not monthly
It always makes sense to buy annually - you essentially pay 10 months' worth of travel instead of 12 so it makes absolute financial sense to buy annually instead of buying monthly.

It might seem like a lot more money upfront but the savings are phenomenal. Let's break this down. An annual Zone 1 to Zone 5 travelcard in 2017 costs £2248 a year, which divided by 12 (the number of months) equates to a cost of £187.33 a month.

However, if you buy monthly, you will have to pay the 2017 monthly cost of £215.90. By paying monthly you end up giving Transport For London £2590.80. That's an extra £342.80 that you could use. That's a long weekend away in Paris.

Can you afford to keep giving £342.80 away to TFL - especially considering the service you are getting from your train provider?

3) Workplace travel loans
If you cannot save up c.£200 a month for a year to put aside towards your annual season ticket, and do not have the readies, ask your workplace for a year's travel loan. You basically make the savings outlined above on your train/tube fares, and the money comes out of your pay packet each month automatically. It's worth it for the savings.

I used our household account - transferred the money into my own account, then set up a Standing Order to repay it over the course of 18 months.

Overcrowded, underground, Wombling free?

4) Work out and walk out
One of the best forms of exercise is to walk - and in London, stations are so close to each other it might make sense for people living on the edges of certain zone boundaries to consider walking to or taking the bus to the next zone.

For example, I could walk to a Zone 4 station (or take the bus, as there are no zones for London buses) each morning, and walk home from it each night. It would take me 20 minutes to walk. However I am a mixture of lazy and romantic - lazy because I will make excuses for not getting up 20 minutes earlier, and romantic because I get to travel into and home from work with Mr Mermaid.

However, if I were not lazy or romantic, I would be saving myself a whopping £356 a year on my annual ticket. I might actually do that next year (and will encourage Herr Mermaid to consider this with me as a means of getting fit and having £360 or so more in our pockets each year).

Incidentally, one year (2010), I was not only made redundant but I did not claim any benefits while searching for work - so when I found a new job (basically my old one from 2006 back again at £8,000 less than I had been earning in 2010), I was flat broke. I ended up walking to London Bridge and back again for two weeks in a row until I got my first pay cheque. That was seven miles there and back from London Bridge to Streatham. Approximately two hours each way. I was fit as anything but unless it's summertime and you don't have any other responsibilities, as I now have, I would advocate not doing this!

5) Name it and claim it!
I feel hypocritical saying this because I only claimed once and never used the ticket, but I have started to do so this year each time the train is delayed more than 15 minutes. Which as we are using both Thameslink and Southern Rail (owned by Govia - pronounced 'Go-F-ya' in less polite circles), is quite often.

Mr Mermaid has been brilliant at this and has managed to claim back about £220 (approximately 10 per cent the cost of his annual travelcard price) for the past couple of years.

Heck, we let Govia get away with it day in, day out, by merely moaning on Twitter and never making them pay out. Hit them where it hurts - their pay cheques. Claim it back.

How much can I claim?

This depends. According to National Rail Enquiries, you can claim back 100% for the cost of a cancelled train if you end up not travelling as a result.

Each train company sets its own level of compensation, as set down by the company's Passenger's Charter. But usually the compensation level can be guesstimated by the following:

• Single ticket, or return ticket if both legs are delayed – 50% of the price paid
• Return ticket with delay on outward or return journey – 50% of the price paid for the relevant part of the journey
• Season Ticket – details of arrangements for Season Ticket holders are set out in each Train Company’s Passenger’s Charter.

It's so much easier now to claim back than even two years ago, when many rail operators only accepted forms by post (which were laborious). Now you can do it online simply by scanning in your Ticket, your Receipt, and by taking careful note of how late the train has come in.

Southern and Thameslink now refund for a delay of 15 minutes - which on our average daily commuter trains so far means that they owe us for 6 delayed trains out of a total of 18 so far - 1/3 of all the trains in and out so far this year have been delayed over 15 minutes. Three of these were delayed over 40 minutes. Only four were actually on time. The rest were a few minutes out. 

If you consider how many times a week you take trains - 10 times a week in my case, there and back again - and extrapolate this into, say 11 months of commuting into work (assuming a month's holiday), then that's approximately 440 trains a year (assuming just four weeks each month for 11 months). 

Given current conditions, I can expect one-third of these 440 trains to be delayed more than 15 minutes. So I can claim back on 146 trains. Thameslink's passenger charter says I can claim back on an annual season ticket 1/464 x total ticket price. (This charter is subject to change). So approximately £4.75 for a 100% delayed journey or c. £2.40 for a 50% delayed journey.

Say all my refunds are about £2.40 on 146 trains - I could expect approximately £347.00 in refunds over the course of 2017, unless Govia suddenly improves its service standards, which we all very much doubt.

If everyone who was delayed made claims - to which everyone is entitled - Govia would have to start improving its service. I am ashamed it has taken me so long to get this sorted - and I have only committed to doing this because Mr Mermaid has helped me, and I have seen the financial benefits of him having been conscientious enough to do this over the years. 

Have you got any more tips? Please share them in the comments below!

Southern Rail causes house price drop

Southern Rail's complete and utter inability to put its house in order has caused house prices to slow down across the network, research by online estate agent, eMoov.co.uk has proved.

The research has found that house price growth across the Southern Rail network has increased at a slower rate than England as a whole; all the while this network covers some of the most popular areas to live for commuters into London.

This means we Greater Londoners and Home Counties commuters are essentially paying over-the-odds for property near a train line that isn't going to help us get to work on time.

Commuters looking for missing Southern Rail trains

A year ago this month Southern Rail was voted in the top three worst rail providers by commuters. It's hardly a surprise.

Even two years ago when London Bridge was undergoing repairs, Southern trains were delayed getting into the station. Sometimes they didn't leave the station.

On more than one occasion, I remained sitting on a train to go home, waiting for 10, 15 minutes before we were told there was no available driver and therefore the train was cancelled. (Next one in an hour's time). Sometimes they had locked the doors with us on a train that was going nowhere. Such fun!

Since then Southern Rail and its fatcat owner Govia has undoubtedly become Britain’s most hated, with commuters unlucky enough to have to rely on their service becoming subject to more than nine months of commuting chaos since the strike action really kicked in.

Why are they striking?
I can't blame the Southern drivers for striking. There are meant to be three drivers available to cover each shift. One to drive, one to be on call and one to be on a day off/holiday. This means if driver A is sick, driver B can take over. 

However Southern Rail's nasty, greedy little bosses decided to run this on a shoestring and reduce available driver cover. I've got several driver friends who have been on annual leave and called up and asked if they can cover for someone. One of my friends was in SPAIN and received a phone call asking them to cut their holiday short and come to work.

Meanwhile, overtime pay has been cut. So drivers have had to be working extra shifts with no money. Add to this Southern Rail now wants to make drivers responsible for doing the job of a train/platform guard and watch the doors.

Instead of putting extra carriages and hiring more staff (they've pledged just 100 staff for more than 2,400 trains a day on the network), they want drivers on 40% (900) of their trains to do a double job.

Essentially, instead of the driver concentrating on the signals ahead and getting the train ready to leave the station, he or she also now has to make sure doors and yellow lines are clear. 

How can a driver look at the signal ahead AND look at the monitors to check people are not standing in front of a yellow line? This is a HUGE health and safety issue. 

They are right to strike. It's really annoying and making it a misery for all of us, but when you consider the seriousness of this, it's understandable.

And no, you don't get paid for strike days. You get that money deducted from your payslip. So they're not getting paid for striking.

Anyway, enough of the boldification of phrases. Apologies for getting all Moran-ish. No need for such sulky English prose.

House prices

But back to house prices. Some employers have already refused applicants using a Southern Rail service as the reality is that they will often arrive to work late. Thank goodness I have an understanding boss (who uses Southern herself).

But not only are commuters’ professional lives being impacted, it would seem property prices along Southern Rail commuter lines are also suffering.

It might look idyllic but there's little joy for people living near a Southern Rail train line

Using data from Zoopla, eMoov collected the average price paid and value change surrounding each station across all nine of the Southern Rail network lines. 

The research looked at the price growth over the last 12 months, as well as the last six, comparing each line on Southern Rail and the network as a whole, to price growth across England during the same time periods.

The research by eMoov shows that house prices across England have increased by 7.6 per cent  in the last year. But for those living across the Southern Rail network, property price growth reached just 6.5 per cent in the same period.

More notable is the difference in growth in the last six months alone. Across England, homeowners enjoyed an average increase of 3 per cent in property values. But those unfortunate enough to live on the Southern Rail network saw the average property price growth fall by more than half, increasing by just 1.4 per cent overall.

But the salt in the wound is the cost of the property itself. With an average price of £447,539 across the Southern Rail network, homeowners are paying far above the national average of £222,300 (according to data from the Halifax), only for its potential to be blighted by an external factor such as an inadequate train operator.

I've seen this affect two properties on the Southern Rail route already. Here's a salutary tale. Last year, my friend in Sutton put her house on the market at £420,000. 

Despite Sutton being one of the most popular places over the past year or so, the house has dropped in price twice - and is now at £380,000. That's a £40,000 drop in the past few weeks as people put commuting time and ease higher and higher up their list of priorities.

Russell Quirk, the founder and chief executive of eMoov, said: "This research really highlights the impact external factors can have on a property’s value in the market. Often, the close proximity of good commuter links into London, in particular, can help increase the asking price of a property.

"In this instance, strike action, poor service, cancelled trains and long delays have had the reverse effect to property prices on the Southern Rail network. It is worrying to think that something outside of your control can not only be detrimental to your work life but can also spill over into your personal life as well.

"Southern Rail staff must forgive UK homeowners for remaining unsympathetic to their cause when their selfish actions are inadvertently depreciating the most expensive asset they are ever likely to own."

When I wrote a news story about this earlier today, it got a lot of traction on Twitter. As one person commented: 'How about Southern Rail compensate people for the loss of house price growth?'

Indeed.