Hello Dear Reader,
As promised, I am back to share the cheapest ways possible of getting from A - B. I'm going to use local examples and explain how I found the information so you can search, wherever you are.
Buses - Some people are entitled to free bus transport:
A. People who are blind or partially sighted
B. People who are profoundly or severely deaf
C. People who are without speech
D. People who have a disability, or have suffered an injury, which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on their ability to walk
E. People without arms, or who have long term loss of use of both arms
F. People who have a learning disability
G. People who would be refused a driving licence on medical grounds under Section 92 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (except on the grounds of persistent misuse of drugs or alcohol).
H - Also if you are in receipt of the state pension - this is no longer 60 ladies so get walking until you get it!
I know plenty of retired people and wished they would use the bus services more as it's there and available and FREE!
Bus Season Tickets - As a mature student, I didn't have a car and made regular trips to university on the bus. I bought season tickets for three months at a time. However, I could have saved money by buying an annual bus ticket. The longer the duration of the ticket, the greater the discount. Buying a ticket everyday is just throwing money away, get a season ticket. It's a big initial outlay but the savings are massive!
Bus Season Tickets - As a mature student, I didn't have a car and made regular trips to university on the bus. I bought season tickets for three months at a time. However, I could have saved money by buying an annual bus ticket. The longer the duration of the ticket, the greater the discount. Buying a ticket everyday is just throwing money away, get a season ticket. It's a big initial outlay but the savings are massive!
Free School Transport - this is available IF your nearest school is more than 2 miles away if the child is under 8 years or less than 3 miles away if your child is over 8. This only applies for the nearest school, if you choose to send your child else where then you will have to pay for them to get there.
Student Bus passes - Most college students and university students can be concessionary bus passes which will allow them almost unrestricted transport within a certain area. A major bus company across the UK is First Bus and you can follow the link to find information on student bus passes.
National Bus Travel - Bus tickets can be bought at their cheapest 12 weeks in advance, anyone who wants cheap travel for Christmas have missed that opportunity. The cheapest way to travel is major city to major city e.g Plymouth to London. Also, if you travel by Megabus and are prepared to travel at night and buy your ticket months in advance - you can travel for Plymouth to London and back again the next night for £14! Take your own food and drink and you'll be able to have a day. There is a way to have a trip away on a Megabus for free and that's to save your Tesco Clubcard points. You can double your clubcard vouchers by exchanging them for Megabus vouchers. (£5 of clubcard vouchers will buy you £10 worth of Megabus)
Other bus operator offer discounts to youth, retired, disabled, groups, families and allow you to purchase a discount card which is very much worth buying if you make frequent journeys, for example, a family going to visit grandparents each school holiday. Stage Coach buses offer further discounts for frequent users, the more you travel, then the greater the discount as they offer loyalty discounts.
Trains - If you want to travel at the lowest prices then you will need to book your train ticket 12 weeks in advance. You will need to be quick as the special offers are few and far between and get snapped up quickly by savvy travellers. You can currently buy train tickets up to 3rd of January so get those bought now if you intend visiting anyone in the New Year. The train operators offer Season tickets and 'Railcards'which can be used by a variety of users. All offer 30% discounts off the ticket price and offer greater discounts for railcard users who buy railcards valid for three years. If you are intending to travel by rail then make sure you check out the most up to date offers which can be found on Money Saving Expert and if you subscribe to the Trainline's ticket alert emails, which will let you know of the best offers available to you.
Planes - I don't travel by plane so this is all from research.
- Buy in advance - the closer you get to the flight you want to take, the more it will cost.
- Shop around for the same flight. Use as many price comparison sites as you can be bothered to trawl. Here are the ones recommended by Money Saving Expert Skyscanner, Travel Supermarket, Kayak, Momondo.
- Consider a package deal - you can sometimes get a full holiday for less than the standard flight price - book but don't stay and just fly. Seems implausible to me but a common practice from my research.
Ferries - Those of us who use ferries to get to mainland Europe, usually use the nearest port. We use Plymouth to get to Brittany. It's often cheaper for us to get a package deal with accommodation and the ferry crossing than it is for us just to have a ferry crossing. There are ferry price comparison sites where you can sign up to get the latest deals: aferry, myferrylink, directferries and travel supermarket. I find reasonable (they are certainly never cheap) ferry deals by signing up to the local ferry company who send me offers by email.
I intend to travel more once we have downsized and further reduced our mortgage and I'll be taking my own advice and will be looking for cheap travel deals.
Over to you. I was grateful for the wealth of information shared by American readers for American readers. I can only write about money saving ideas for travel in the Uk and from the UK. If you have any money saving ideas to help readers where ever you are in the world. Tell the rest of us the cheapest ways to get around your country.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxxxxxx