As part of the announcements surrounding Great British Railways, long-awaited plans for Flexible Season Tickets were also announced. We’ve been campaigning around this area and, much to our relief, these follow a carnet-based system where passengers buy a bundle of discounted return tickets to use within a defined period. Conceptually, this allows for people who only need to travel a few times a week to do so without suffering the full brunt of daily return pricing.
Under the current plans, passengers will be able to buy a block of 8 anytime day return tickets to use within 28 days (4 weeks). There is no restriction on how often these can be bought, just that they must be used within 28 days. Therefore, a passenger who travels 3 days a week would be able to buy another block of tickets part way through their 3rd week of traveling. There will be no paper option for these tickets, however, and thus passengers must use a smartcard such as Southeastern’s Key. They will be available for purchase online, in-app and at most ticket offices from 21 June 2021 for travel starting from 28 June 2021.
Although Flexible Season Tickets have great potential to be useful to existing part-time workers and those who are looking to adopt a hybrid working pattern split between home and an office, they do have some drawbacks. For example, the validity of the tickets is rather restrictive for someone who travels only travels 2 days a week – all is well if they consistently travel 2 days a week, but if they take any holiday or fall unwell and are not travelling then the tickets will likely expire before they can be used. This makes them a risky proposition for anyone looking to travel 2 days a week. We are disappointed that Flexible Season Tickets have been launched as a “8 days of travel within a 28-day period”, rather than something more flexible such as a “10 days of travel within a 2-month period”, as we had campaigned for.
A further limitation is what journeys they can be used on. Unlike regular season tickets, and indeed daily tickets, no travelcard-inclusive option is available. For those that need to take the Underground onwards within London, this means that they need to weigh up the additional cost of paying a daily fare on the Underground on top of their Flexible Season Ticket – something which may ultimately make it even more expensive. Additionally, Flexible Season Tickets do not convey other benefits such as travel at no extra cost on weekends, or the free Gold Card that is available with annual season tickets.
Although Flexible Season Tickets will be a national offering available from all train operators, it was originally currently unclear if they could be used on journeys that span multiple operators. For example, someone travelling from Paddock Wood to Redhill would travel on a Southeastern service to Tonbridge, and then change on to a Southern service to Redhill. Thankfully, there does not appear to be a limitation here the fares are available on journeys that involve multiple operators.
Alongside all these drawbacks, there is one final consideration which could mean Flexible Season Tickets fail to meet the needs of passengers – their pricing. If Flexible Season Tickets do not offer an enticing discount over daily tickets or existing season tickets, they will likely see little adoption – especially given the problems discussed above. Although Southeastern has recently suggested that there will be a “minimum” 20% discount on “some routes” compared to current season ticket prices, actual pricing revealed on 21 June paints a different story.
With the pricing on our route offering a 12.5% discount over the price of an anytime ticket, we can calculate the “per day” costs as follows for someone travelling between Tonbridge and London Terminals on Southeastern services:
| Ticket | Days of Travel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| Anytime Return | £33.70 | £33.70 | £33.70 | £33.70 | £33.70 |
| Off-Peak Day Return | £19.00 | £19.00 | £19.00 | £19.00 | £19.00 |
| Flexible Season | £59.00 | £29.50 | £29.50 | £29.50 | £29.50 |
| Weekly Season | £115.10 | £57.55 | £38.37 | £28.78 | £23.02 |
| Annual Season | £88.54 | £44.27 | £29.51 | £22.13 | £17.71 |
As can be seen, Flexible Season Tickets would appear to be the cheapest option for someone who travels 2 or 3 days a week. For someone travelling 4 or 5 days a week it becomes more cost-effective to buy a weekly season ticket. However, if they are able to afford the significant upfront cost of an annual season ticket or are able to get an interest-free season ticket loan from their employer, it becomes the cheapest. For travelling one day per week, the 28-day validity period means that 4 tickets would be wasted – making Flexible Season Tickets a rather expensive choice! Of note is that the equivalent daily price of an annual season ticket works out just one penny more than using a Flexible Season Ticket, and conveys additional benefits as mentioned previously!
There is one consistent winner in terms of cost savings, however, and that is the cost of an Off-Peak Day Return. For those who are able to shift their hours slightly, travelling off-peak can have a significant saving even when travelling multiple days per week. The off-peak restrictions are rather generous on our routes compared to elsewhere in the country, with morning restrictions easing shortly after 9AM and no evening restrictions.
We previously estimated that Flexible Season Tickets would also make financial sense for someone who travelled 4 days per week and used weekly season tickets now. Unfortunately, the level of discount was lower than we had lead to believe, and nationally it seems that many routes have suffered even stingier discounts! For us, the discount amounts to a “buy 7, get one free” deal with a number of drawbacks. Although we’re glad to see some form of flexible ticketing finally launch, it is of limited use to most of our members. We’ll continue to campaign for better fares for our members – namely a better discount and a longer validity period!
Notes on the calculation of prices – The daily “cost” of a flexible season has been taken from Southeastern’s website, except in the case of 1 day of travel where this is doubled at the end – as a block of 8 tickets must be bought, but only 4 could be used within the 28 day validity period.
Monthly season tickets are omitted, as a monthly season ticket is very close to 4 times the cost of a weekly season ticket (3.84x) and thus a very similar cost per day. Annual season tickets are calculated by multiplying the per-day equivalent price of a weekly season ticket by 40 and then dividing by 52, as an annual season ticket is priced as 40 times the cost of a weekly but covers 52 weeks of travel (i.e. 12 weeks “free” compared to a weekly season ticket).
Updated on 22/06/2021 to include confirmed pricing details now that Flexible Season Tickets have launched.
2 thoughts on “Flexible Season Tickets are coming – but will they flop?”
A very useful article. The issue of cross-TOC travel is very relevant, especially in our local area where there is a lot of interchange between SouthEastern abs Southern services. Hopefully the roll-out of GBR will create the options for through travel on a flexible ticket
No point in me getting one. I work 5 days a week. And a daily ticket is cheaper than a season ticket.
And I Use 2 rail companies.