Apologies if there's already a thread on this, but following on from the long-running thread on present day special offers at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/special-offers-discussion.42163/ I thought it would be nice to have a thread on BR era special offers (or past special offers from the privatised era).
Here are a few that I can remember:
In the early 1980s there was some kind of offer for free rail tickets for accompanied children where you had to collect tokens from Kellogg's cereal packets. I was a kid then, and I'm fairly sure that my parents and I made use of that offer.
I believe that there was some kind of special offer in the late 1970s or early '80s where you had to collect tokens on Persil packets. I think we may have used that offer too.
Pretty much all through the 1980s BR used to offer senior citizens special cheap fares every November. We lived in London, and in 1980 when I was 5 we used that offer to take my gran to Edinburgh to visit a long-lost relative who she hadn't seen since she was 17. I've a feeling that with that offer in those days you could get a Cheap Day Return to anywhere in the country for something like £5, or if you wanted to stay at least one night you simply bought two of them for £10.
I also seem to recall that at least one year (about 1986ish I think) there was some kind of cheap ticket offer for Young Persons Railcard holders in January and/or February.
For a few years in the early 1990s there was a two-for-one offer every autumn in conjunction with Boots the Chemist. I think you had to collect a voucher from any branch of Boots (or maybe they handed them out to everyone at the checkout), and that allowed you to buy two tickets for the price of one to anywhere in the country (or at least anywhere served by InterCity trains).
Then there were the Network Days on Network SouthEast. At least for the first few years of NSE (1986-90ish) there were a few of these Network Days each year where you could get a special day ticket for something like £3 per adult and £2 per child giving unlimited travel throughout the NSE area: possibly THE most generous rail travel giveaway in British railway history (see also this thread on Network Days: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/network-day-in-the-80s-and-of-finding-overnight-trains.224086/).
Here are a few that I can remember:
In the early 1980s there was some kind of offer for free rail tickets for accompanied children where you had to collect tokens from Kellogg's cereal packets. I was a kid then, and I'm fairly sure that my parents and I made use of that offer.
I believe that there was some kind of special offer in the late 1970s or early '80s where you had to collect tokens on Persil packets. I think we may have used that offer too.
Pretty much all through the 1980s BR used to offer senior citizens special cheap fares every November. We lived in London, and in 1980 when I was 5 we used that offer to take my gran to Edinburgh to visit a long-lost relative who she hadn't seen since she was 17. I've a feeling that with that offer in those days you could get a Cheap Day Return to anywhere in the country for something like £5, or if you wanted to stay at least one night you simply bought two of them for £10.
I also seem to recall that at least one year (about 1986ish I think) there was some kind of cheap ticket offer for Young Persons Railcard holders in January and/or February.
For a few years in the early 1990s there was a two-for-one offer every autumn in conjunction with Boots the Chemist. I think you had to collect a voucher from any branch of Boots (or maybe they handed them out to everyone at the checkout), and that allowed you to buy two tickets for the price of one to anywhere in the country (or at least anywhere served by InterCity trains).
Then there were the Network Days on Network SouthEast. At least for the first few years of NSE (1986-90ish) there were a few of these Network Days each year where you could get a special day ticket for something like £3 per adult and £2 per child giving unlimited travel throughout the NSE area: possibly THE most generous rail travel giveaway in British railway history (see also this thread on Network Days: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/network-day-in-the-80s-and-of-finding-overnight-trains.224086/).