A CANNY commuter saves £360 a day on his return train journey to and from work.
Kieran Maguire purchases nine separate separate tickets to travel between West Sussex to Merseyside – but he says it’s more than worth the extra hassle.
The 60-year-old was horrified when he discovered his return trip from Haywards Heath to Liverpool Lime Street would cost £441.20.
The lecturer makes the 520-mile journey once or twice a week to teach accounting and finance at the University of Liverpool, so was keen to find an alternative.
He worked out that if he split his three hour and 48 minute train route into multiple tickets – instead of buying them all in one go – he could save loads.
So now he buys nine separate tickets – five to Liverpool and four home – for just £81.70.
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The hack – known as split ticketing – saves him a staggering £359.50 every time he travels, and he has been using it for more than three years.
Kieran changes trains three times on the way up north and four times on his return home.
He said: “I am an old man and I have got a senior railcard and it saves me around £350 a journey as opposed to a standard return ticket.
“There are some very good split ticketing websites that you can now use and that is fine for someone like me who knows their way around the train system.
“I am a regular commuter but if you are a tourist or don’t usually travel the price will come as a shock.”
Kieran said he is “frustrated” by the situation and recent strikes have added stress to his already-testing journey.
“Today I had to get to London to catch a train at 6.38am as I couldn’t catch the train 40 minutes later as it was very expensive to then join the train at Crewe,” he added.
The tickets he purchases for his journey from Sussex to Liverpool are:
Haywards Heath to Gatwick Airport: £5.20
Gatwick Airport to London Blackfriars: £12.90
London Blackfriars via the tube to London Euston to Crewe: £14.65
Crewe to Liverpool Lime Street: £12.45
And on the way home:
Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe: £12.45
Crewe to London Euston: £8.55
London Euston to Croydon: £6.45
Croydon to Gatwick Airport: £3.85
Gatwick Airport to Haywards Heath: £5.20
“It is supposed to be a network and the nature of a network is that they are joined up but this is the opposite of a network as this causes you to take a disjointed way to work.
“The strikes have added additional stress to travel.
“I think there has got to be greater emphasis on the greater need of passengers.
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“From a business point of view it creates that level of uncertainty and people will drive which is not good for you and good for the environment.
“Commuters want a fair price and a reliable system.”
Split ticketing is a simple train ticket hack that could save you hundreds of pounds on UK rail fares.
It is when your journey is broken down into two or more parts with separate tickets for each section, rather than just one ticket from departure point to destination.
For example, if you wanted to travel from London to Manchester, you might get a ticket from London to Stoke-on-Trent, and a second from Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester.
Stopping at an intermediary station often significantly lessens the overall cost – but not always, so do your homework.
It’s all above board and legal, as long as the train you are on stops at the station you are buying a ticket to.
You also don’t always even have to change trains, or event get off and on again.
It is possible to do this all yourself, but there are now dedicated websites to help.
These include moneysavingexpert.com, splitticketing.co.uk, TrainSplit.com, and TicketySplit.
