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GWR Flexi Season Pass

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BRI-PAD_2xweek

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8 Jul 2021
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Bristol
Hi Im confused by new Flexi season tickets.

From September I will be commuting into the office 2xweek: between Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington.

I have a 26-30 Rail card and could travel off-peak.

Is there any real saving getting a flexi season ticket...? Admin wise i can see the case, but if i book advance tickets ahead isnt it always going to be cheaper?
 
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CyrusWuff

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20 May 2013
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If you can travel Off-Peak, it's almost certain a Flexi-Season won't save you anything. especially if you can book an Advance in at least one direction. The target market is rather niche, especially on long-distance flows, and they're almost invariably worse than the Carnet products they've replaced.

Using Bristol - Paddington as an example:

The Anytime Return is £230.00 (£151.80 with a Railcard discount).
If you can leave Temple Meads at 08:30 or later, and return from Paddington after 18:36, you can bring that down to the Off-Peak Return fare of £86.80 (£57.25 with Railcard).
Meanwhile, the former Carnet (10 Returns valid for 3 months) would have been £2070.00 with no Railcard discounts.
The Flexi-Season is £980.90 for 8 days in 28 (so £122.61 a day). No Railcard discount there either.
A Weekly Season is £352.00, for a nominal £70.40 a day (assuming 5 days of use).
A Monthly Season is £1226.20, for a nominal £55.74 a day (assuming 22 days of use, which is the figure used when calculating "void day" refunds under the old Passenger's Charter scheme).
An Annual Season is £12772.00, for a nominal £49.12 a day (assuming 260 days of use, as above).

With Advances, I've just looked for Monday 6th September and there's an £18.15 Advance on the 0800 from Bristol (arrives Paddington 0928) and a £13.45 Advance on the 1902 back (arrives Temple Meads 2035), making a total of just £31.60 Return with your Railcard. Though obviously you'd be restricted to travelling on those specific trains unless you paid extra to change the ticket.
 
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BRI-PAD_2xweek

New Member
Joined
8 Jul 2021
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2
Location
Bristol
Thank you so much! This was my exact thinking! I couldn't see the benefit of the flexi-season at all... if i was going to get season ticket for this route, I might as well just get a monthly season ticket and go in every day and not worry about the fuss.
 

swt_passenger

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7 Apr 2010
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30,677
Flexible seasons just don’t really work on such a route, because the 7 day season is already so much cheaper than 2 anytime returns. This isn’t at all unusual.
 

30907

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30 Sep 2012
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16,983
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Airedale
Flexible seasons just don’t really work on such a route, because the 7 day season is already so much cheaper than 2 anytime returns. This isn’t at all unusual.
To be fair, it represents a significant saving over the monthly if you only do the 8 days and travel peak
 
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