Last year, it was announced that the boundary of the area in which an Annual Gold Card Railcard was valid was to be extended into East Anglia as of 2 January this year. Good news, I thought, as someone who'd got some use out of their's in the days when I was still a Londoner.
That was, until I tried to get myself one, seeking to convert my existing season ticket into a Gold Card version. A very polite lady at Stowmarket station explained that I wasn't eligible for reasons that made some sense, even if I didn't like them much. Don't ask me to tell you what they were, but they were evidently credible enough for me not to pursue the matter further.
You can therefore imagine the mixture of pleasure and surprise I experienced when, in May, I renewed my season ticket and was given... an Annual Gold Card Railcard.
They are great, it must be said. Instead of paying £41 for a standard off-peak return to London, I pay £36.25 for the first-class equivalent, a saving of £4.75 on what I was paying, but a saving of £18.65 on the fare I'm now using.
This weekend, I'm on the edge of the New Forest, visiting an outpost of Ros's family and, this afternoon, we went to Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, by train and ferry from Brockenhurst, via Lymington Pier. For three of us, using just my railcard, the fare drops from £18.10 apiece to £11.95. Throw in the saving for my train fare from Waterloo (£51.60 down to £34.05), and I've saved £42.35 for myself, and another £12.30 for my fellow travellers. That equates to more than three weeks of my season ticket, and another week's worth every time that I go to London.
That was, until I tried to get myself one, seeking to convert my existing season ticket into a Gold Card version. A very polite lady at Stowmarket station explained that I wasn't eligible for reasons that made some sense, even if I didn't like them much. Don't ask me to tell you what they were, but they were evidently credible enough for me not to pursue the matter further.
You can therefore imagine the mixture of pleasure and surprise I experienced when, in May, I renewed my season ticket and was given... an Annual Gold Card Railcard.
They are great, it must be said. Instead of paying £41 for a standard off-peak return to London, I pay £36.25 for the first-class equivalent, a saving of £4.75 on what I was paying, but a saving of £18.65 on the fare I'm now using.
This weekend, I'm on the edge of the New Forest, visiting an outpost of Ros's family and, this afternoon, we went to Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, by train and ferry from Brockenhurst, via Lymington Pier. For three of us, using just my railcard, the fare drops from £18.10 apiece to £11.95. Throw in the saving for my train fare from Waterloo (£51.60 down to £34.05), and I've saved £42.35 for myself, and another £12.30 for my fellow travellers. That equates to more than three weeks of my season ticket, and another week's worth every time that I go to London.
That's got to be good.
Thank you, train operators...
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