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Most expensive ticket you've bought or sold

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quarella

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Most expensive potential mistake I made was with a teacher taking a group from one of the stations on the Severn Beach line to Bath. Something like 8 adults and 56 children and he wanted them as normal individual fares. He came to the booking office fairly late one evening wanting them for the following day. I rattled them through APTIS. He paid by credit card. I look down at the pile on the turntable as I am about to spin it and realise I had omitted to change the date. Refund to card. Issue them all again with the correct date and a long session of non issues and summoned to the supervisors' office the following day.
 
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Deerfold

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I wonder if many people have a season ticket for two journeys a week. I find AP tickets far cheaper but I do have to have a spreadsheet to keep track of them all!

I have a season ticket which I use for 1 or 2 return journeys a week. I used APs for 3 years (generally buying them the day they came out) but now pay extra for the flexibility.
 

Tetchytyke

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I've just got a cheque from my employer for £4100 for my annual season to work. It's a rip off, no doubt about it, but it's still £25 a week cheaper than buying the "anytime" tickets I'd have to get otherwise.
 

hangus78

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Unfortunately didn't sell it personally but last summer we sold an Annual Newark North gate to KGX. A snip at £8740!
 

Deerfold

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Unfortunately didn't sell it personally but last summer we sold an Annual Newark North gate to KGX. A snip at £8740!

Newark Stations to London Terminals surely?

I know someone who used to get the monthly version of that ticket. There seem to be a few people with annual Leeds - London tickets (Currently £13,303 in STD).
 

Flamingo

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Most expensive potential mistake I made was with a teacher taking a group from one of the stations on the Severn Beach line to Bath. Something like 8 adults and 56 children and he wanted them as normal individual fares. He came to the booking office fairly late one evening wanting them for the following day. I rattled them through APTIS. He paid by credit card. I look down at the pile on the turntable as I am about to spin it and realise I had omitted to change the date. Refund to card. Issue them all again with the correct date and a long session of non issues and summoned to the supervisors' office the following day.

I did similar once, one Saturday morning I sold a tube ticket for the Sunday, forgot to change the date back, and went on my way. I spent the last 15 minutes before Pad frantically running through the full train desperately trying to find everybody else I had sold travel cards to, I had to re-issue about six or seven (and I'm not sure I got them all)! No interview without coffee, though.
 
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plastictaffy

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Unfortunately, Maps has stopped.
A couple of months ago I went through the 0525 Lowestoft - Ipswich. First table I come to, two Lowestoft - Exeter St David's warrants, one Lowestoft - Paignton warrant. Just over £547. :D
Lucky git. That's about what I take in two days!!

Best tickets I've sold - NMP-7day all zones 1st class, £225. Also had 25 Hungarians with six children on a saturday morning get on at Apsley, all wanting one day travelcards. Of course, it was easier to print them all a ticket than explain, over the language barrier that 1 ticket could be used for 4 people, and I did the lot as GroupSaves. It eventually spat out 31 tickets by the time I'd got to Harrow. Total came to about 190 quid, I think.

I've also had a school trip return from Woburn Sands to Bletchley, just to take the kids on a train. Total fare was only about 80 notes, sadly.
Most I've taken in a day?? 889.40 on an early shift. Anyone taken more than that as a Guard??
 

Deerfold

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What's the highest you've had in cash?

Due to a problem with my bank card I popped £3,320 in twenties on the desk at Kings Cross last month.
 

Leylandlad

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That's normal for north-west to London - e.g. Preston/Euston is £84.80 vs £332.00. It's often cheaper to travel off-peak and stay overnight.

In 2003 it was £185 for a peak return Preston to Euston. That was the most expensive individual ticket I paid (claimed back from work :lol:)

To put it in perspective, the wife went to Madrid from Liverpool same day on business as well, booked 2 days before, cost £137 on Easyjet. :roll:

Allowing for inflation, went on a 7 day all line rover 1st class with my father in 1983...
Cost then was £170 and £85 for me.
 
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TheEdge

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I've also had a school trip return from Woburn Sands to Bletchley, just to take the kids on a train. Total fare was only about 80 notes, sadly.
Most I've taken in a day?? 889.40 on an early shift. Anyone taken more than that as a Guard??

I've taken just over £2,000 once, £1800-1900 on a few occasions but a decent Monday or Tuesday morning I can clear £1000 fairly easily. On my first day out I took over £1,600.

Ah Weekly Seasons and Peak returns to London from the rich commuters of Suffolk and Norfolk. :D
 

westv

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I have a season ticket which I use for 1 or 2 return journeys a week. I used APs for 3 years (generally buying them the day they came out) but now pay extra for the flexibility.

Fortunately I can get away without flexibility so saving around £11k a year.
 

Kite159

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£70 for an anytime return to London U12, claimed it back via work (although I could have saved £10 by getting 2 singles with the return leg with a NSE discount)
 

Deerfold

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In 2003 it was £185 for a peak return Preston to Euston. That was the most expensive individual ticket I paid (claimed back from work :lol:)

To put it in perspective, the wife went to Madrid from Liverpool same day on business as well, booked 2 days before, cost £137 on Easyjet. :roll:

Though you're effectively compared a rail ticket valid on a variety of trains in each direction with an advance plane ticket only valid on one plane each way.

She was presumably lucky in that the flights she wanted wasn't too expensive. I'm flying with easyjet this weekend but not coming back the same way - I've paid £39 but the price two days ahead is £232 single.

If I was going from Leeds-London in three days (so it's a peak day) an anytime return is £249 but advance tickets are still available for £44.30 both ways.
 

tractakid

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Most expensive ticket I have bought? £23.45 for an Advance from Milton Keynes to Edinburgh. The itinerary involved a 4 and a bit hour wait in Wolverhampton from 2 till 6am.
 

hassaanhc

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Both with YP discount:
£25.50 for a London Terminals-Portsmouth Stations "Off-Peak Return"
£25.10 for a London Euston-Manchester Piccadilly "First Advance" (well two of them to make a "return" :P )

If we count Oyster PAYG I've topped up £20 or so in one go

Meanwhile my uni gave every Year 0 and 1 student a £500 grant to help with costs, which can only be used in the uni shop. It also does Oyster topups. so I used it for my 18+ Photocard... :D
£143.30 for a Zones 1-5 Monthly, before which it was
£120.60 for a Zones 1-4 Monthly, and before that
£98.70 for a Zones 1-3 Monthly (this one should have been 1-4 but I decided to be stingy :oops:)
 

al.currie93

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Mine would be a sum of £3148 for a year season from Dorking to London Zones 1 to 6... covers a WHOPPING distance of 20 miles...
 

trentside

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The most expensive ticket I've bought would be an Edinburgh to Lincoln SSR, which was around £63 Y-P when I got it a few years back. I'd never normally do long distance on anything other than an Advance ticket, but I'd been taken ill and decided I'd rather go home than continue on.

As for tickets sold, I can only recall selling a couple of annual seasons during my time in the booking office - one was around £800 and the other around £2k so nothing like some of the figures on here. You'd sometimes find people combining longer length season tickets with a car parking ticket for the same duration, which would push up the total transaction value.
 

Deerfold

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Mine would be a sum of £3148 for a year season from Dorking to London Zones 1 to 6... covers a WHOPPING distance of 20 miles...

As the crow flies - to central London - but being able to travel to Zone 6 means you could get twice as far as that.
 

TheKnightWho

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£93.55 Hexham to Petersfield Super Off-Peak return. Managed to claim it back as travel expenses, though.
 

harz99

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Back in the 1980s, long distance Seasons were seriously discounted in relation to the normal fare. The growth in long distance commuting in the late 1980s saw some hefty increases applied by Intercity to these journeys, so York - London will be less of a bargain now.

How right you are. I can't remember the exact two years, but back in the 80s again, an annual standard class season PBO-KGX went up from £770 to £880, a huge percentage rise at the time and something that happened for several years after.
 

al.currie93

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As the crow flies - to central London - but being able to travel to Zone 6 means you could get twice as far as that.

It is actually very useful because of the zones, and it can be used on London Buses and any other TfL vehicle, so I'm not too fussed about the price :)

But yeah, my average journey to work is about 20-25 miles, which is what it was bought for :P
 

Andrewlong

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Back in 1999 I commuted from Reading to Birmingham International 5 days per week. Cost for a 3 month season ticket was nearly 1k paid for by the company I then worked for.

In those days, Virgin ran mark 2 carriages with class 47 power. Nice big table, plenty of legroom - great for getting some work done! Unlike the voyagers which are so cramped in comparison.
 

34D

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A few years ago, I too had a Yorkshire to Greater London season. Bought as monthlies though.
 

infobleep

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I renew my season ticket online now but it's over 2k. Before that I would regularly hand over almost £400 a month to a ticket office for a monthly season, although always via my debit card.

I was once told it was cheaper to buy a anytime return ticket from Guildford to Portsmouth for all 365 days than an annual season ticket. Never mind the days you wouldn't travel due to holidays, which would make it even cheaper. Don't know if that's still the case.

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najaB

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I was once told it was cheaper to buy a anytime return ticket from Guildford to Portsmouth for all 365 days than an annual season ticket. Never mind the days you wouldn't travel due to holidays, which would make it even cheaper. Don't know if that's still the case.
Anytime return is £19.70, so at £4,188 the season ticket looks to be quite a bit cheaper.
 

infobleep

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Anytime return is £19.70, so at £4,188 the season ticket looks to be quite a bit cheaper.

It use to be around £16-17 about 4 years ago. Anyway I might be wrong on the annual part but buying 5 week day anytime returns is still cheaper than a weekly 7 day season ticket of you only travel for 5 days! Which is why I always bought my ticket daily than buying 7 day season tickets. But that was 4 years ago now when prices were cheaper.

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dcsprior

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When I first moved to my current job, it was as a secondment so my employer paid my travel. They'd sometimes buy 4 of the East-Coast "Scottish Executive" package returns at a time to cover a month of travel - they were £199 at the time, so this'd be a total of £796.

I've once seen another passenger buy a First Class Anytime Return from Edinburgh-Kings Cross on the train itself (the 0540). This was a couple of years ago, so not sure exactly how much it was, probably about £400.
 

kevconnor

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What's the highest you've had in cash?

Due to a problem with my bank card I popped £3,320 in twenties on the desk at Kings Cross last month.

With recent laws on money laundering does this not pop a red flag at a ticket office or is the process of ID required to apply for a season ticket sufficient to allow for this.
 
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