Merseyrail/Travel ticketing policy

[Bletchleyite]

The Day Saver at just five pence below a Saveaway is one thing, but only issuing Saveaways on a paid-for card is as much a 'scam' as far as I'm concerned.

It's £1 ever.

Not worrying about £0.05 is not profligate. Your time isn't even worth the cost of thinking whether to spend £0.05.

 

[Willie Bee]

I understand the Saveaway ticket normally costs £6 (for all zones) plus a £1 'booking fee' but am I correct in thinking this £1 fee is dropped if bought as a paper ticket from a ticket office?

Is this any ticket office in Liverpool, or just certain ones ?

What about buying on a bus .. is this possible, as it would avoid me having to walk from our hotel to the nearest station just to buy a ticket.

 

[prod_pep]

It's £1 ever.

Not worrying about £0.05 is not profligate. Your time isn't even worth the cost of thinking whether to spend £0.05.

No, you're worrying about £1.05, not 5 pence if you're only using it the once. Then you're left with a card you might use some day in the future - or might not - and of course it's another £1 if you lose it.

It's completely different for someone like me as a local who uses Saveaway tickets often.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I understand the Saveaway ticket normally costs £6 (for all zones) plus a £1 'booking fee' but am I correct in thinking this £1 fee is dropped if bought as a paper ticket from a ticket office?

It is not a "booking fee". It is a one off £1 fee for a Metro Card if you don't already have one, you have to pay it only once unless you lose it.

It can indeed be purchased as a traditional paper ticket from a Northern booking office, and *maybe* their TVMs.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Oct 2023 ==

No, you're worrying about £1.05, not 5 pence if you're only using it the once. Then you're left with a card you might use some day in the future - or might not - and of course it's another £1 if you lose it.

It's completely different for someone like me as a local who uses Saveaway tickets often.

Liverpool's such a compact city that few occasional users will be using these, other than once a year for the races where £1 is a pittance compared to what they'll spend overall (and some of those people will just have through tickets to Aintree). People basically don't use Merseyrail for journeys within the city centre, that's an enthusiast thing to do, it's all walkable within about 10-15 minutes.

I can understand an objection to £7 for Oyster, though, but £1? Really? People whose budget is so tight they can't stand £1 won't be going on city breaks.

 

[Djgr]

I understand the Saveaway ticket normally costs £6 (for all zones) plus a £1 'booking fee' but am I correct in thinking this £1 fee is dropped if bought as a paper ticket from a ticket office?

Is this any ticket office in Liverpool, or just certain ones ?

What about buying on a bus .. is this possible, as it would avoid me having to walk from our hotel to the nearest station just to buy a ticket.

It's not a booking fee because it is a one off charge and not a charge for every time you buy a Saveaway.

The vast majority of people who use Saveaways will use the card multiple times and so the effective charge for the card is pennies per use.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Oct 2023 ==

I had a nice day out today with a MerseyRail Family Ticket. Two Senior Railcard holders and one child, and at £13 it still beat the price of individual tickets which would have been 2x Anytime Day Returns Southport to Port Sunlight, and one child Daysaver. And to think I only found out this ticket existed when I was scrolling through a Northern TVM to see if it could sell MerseyTravel Saveaways. And not once did anyone actually look at the ticket. I also had the enjoyment of my first trips on class 777 in both directions between Liverpool and Port

If I were a day-tripper to Merseyside who only intended to use the Northern and Wirral Lines of Merseyrail, I'd do exactly the same and make a nice wee saving. Any incredulity at this comes across as 'I'm profligate about small sums of money - and so should you be'. No, thanks, I'll take a £1.05 saving all day and be spared yet another card that hardly sees any use.

It doesn't matter a jot that the Saveaway is a 'better product' if you're only using Merseyrail. As for the 'insurance' of alternative travel, things hardly ever go so wrong on Merseyrail that you'd need any.

The Day Saver at just five pence below a Saveaway is one thing, but only issuing Saveaways on a paid-for card is as much a 'scam' as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure that being tight with your money is seen as such a virtue in Liverpool. I'm not sure 5p and profligate often appear in the same sentence.

 

[prod_pep]

Liverpool's such a compact city that few occasional users will be using these, other than once a year for the races where £1 is a pittance compared to what they'll spend overall (and some of those people will just have through tickets to Aintree). People basically don't use Merseyrail for journeys within the city centre, that's an enthusiast thing to do, it's all walkable within about 10-15 minutes.

I can understand an objection to £7 for Oyster, though, but £1? Really? People whose budget is so tight they can't stand £1 won't be going on city breaks.

Occasional users do buy day tickets for Merseyrail and very often; they're a big part of the market for these tickets. There are so many touristic places to explore across the network, and not just in Liverpool.

I must confess a dislike for this bemusement at anyone having the gall to object to the Saveaway's limitation to a paid-for card. Yes, plenty of people given the chance to save a quid will do so and just because they have a few to spare doesn't mean they'll throw it away on something they neither want nor need. It's not a question of budget, it's a question of frugality. It simply makes no sense for a Merseyrail day-tripper to pay £1.05 extra for a superfluous product on an unwanted, paid-for card.

I'm not sure that being tight with your money is seen as such a virtue in Liverpool. I'm not sure 5p and profligate often appear in the same sentence.

What nonsense. Again, it is £1.05 extra - not 5 pence - for a one-off use and choosing to save that for yourself has nothing whatever to do with being 'tight'.

I try to take a healthily thrifty approach to all areas of life and the savings soon amass. That is not the same thing as being tight, at all.

 

[urbophile]

I understand the Saveaway ticket normally costs £6 (for all zones) plus a £1 'booking fee' but am I correct in thinking this £1 fee is dropped if bought as a paper ticket from a ticket office?

Is this any ticket office in Liverpool, or just certain ones ?

What about buying on a bus .. is this possible, as it would avoid me having to walk from our hotel to the nearest station just to buy a ticket.

I believe non-Merseyrail (ie Lime Street mainline or other Northern stations) sell them in card form. You used to be able to buy them from most corner shops. Can you still? (And I can't think why hotels don't sell them, if indeed they don't)

 

[prod_pep]

You used to be able to buy them from most corner shops. Can you still?

You can. Generally any PayPoint store in the region sells them. You'll still need a Metrocard or will have to buy one, and I'm not sure what stock levels are like these days. My local Co-Op used to have a supply of them when they were still free.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Is this any ticket office in Liverpool, or just certain ones ?

Only the Northern-operated ticket offices will sell you a Saveaway on paper. The Merseyrail-operated offices sell it on smart card. It’s the smart card that costs the £1, and if you already have the smart card you don’t need to pay the £1.

It's £1 ever.

If you’re a semi-regular visitor to Liverpool it’s not such a massive issue, but if you’re not it is a bit more of one.

This is definitely a “me problem”, but I don’t routinely carry smart cards in my wallet that I don’t use all the time. And so I forget to pick up the smart card when I go across for the weekend. I’ve got a stack of T&W POP cards for this reason, if anyone wants one!

It did make me laugh that the
time I’d finally decided to get a Saveaway on a smart card, as I needed the bus, that Merseyrail’s systems were down and they couldn’t actually sell me the ticket at all. Which is another issue with the Saveaway only being available on smart card.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I know times are hard. I know a lot of people don't have much money. But 5p, really? Surely even the hardest up can run to 5p if they are already buying a day ticket anyway?
As for the £1, if you're local it's a very worthwhile investment. If you're an occasional visitor it probably is too. If you're just a one-off visitor you probably shouldn't be out for the day if you can't afford £1. Or, buy it on a paper ticket outside of Liverpool.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If you're just a one-off visitor you probably shouldn't be out for the day if you can't afford £1.

It’s not really “can’t afford”, but I’m not going to spend £7 on a Saveaway + smart card when I’m only using Merseyrail and can get a Merseyrail day saver for £5.95.

 

[Willie Bee]

If you're just a one-off visitor you probably shouldn't be out for the day if you can't afford £1.

My wife and I went to Glasgow a few months ago and applied for two of their orange Subway Smart Cards, which were posted to us totally free of charge. We added credit to them when we arrived in Glasgow, although could have done this online too.

It's as if Glasgow is trying to encourage tourism

We are heading to Manchester very soon and they even have a couple of free bus routes .. another plan to 'encourage tourism' .. maybe

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you’re a semi-regular visitor to Liverpool it’s not such a massive issue, but if you’re not it is a bit more of one.

I think we're heading into one of those "RUK Standard Minority" situations of "people who live very near Liverpool but go there very rarely". Because people who live further away are going to be paying a goodly sum for their fare and probably accommodation, and thus £1 pales into insignificance.

 

[kieron]

It is not a "booking fee". It is a one off £1 fee for a Metro Card if you don't already have one, you have to pay it only once unless you lose it.

Or unless Merseytravel deactivate your card because they don't think you use it often enough.

It doesn't really affect me, though. If (as it says on the Merseytravel web site) Saveaways can only be bought in Merseyside, I'm usually already on a train when I enter Merseyside, so I'm unlikely ever to have chance to buy a Saveaway when it would still be useful for me. Daysavers are, at least, available from any station on the network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or unless Merseytravel deactivate your card because they don't think you use it often enough.

Is there evidence of that? TfL never deactivate Oysters.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2023 ==

It doesn't really affect me, though. If (as it says on the Merseytravel web site) Saveaways can only be bought in Merseyside, I'm usually already on a train when I enter Merseyside, so I'm unlikely ever to have chance to buy a Saveaway when it would still be useful for me. Daysavers are, at least, available from any station on the network.

While that may allow you a tight (sub "legal") connection, there are no cases where you can enter the Merseyrail electric network without changing at a station where they would be sold, so this is a very niche requirement. Thus the Daysaver provides no real advantage in that regard.

 

[Trainbike46]

Is there evidence of that? TfL never deactivate Oysters.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2023 ==



While that may allow you a tight (sub "legal") connection, there are no cases where you can enter the Merseyrail electric network without changing at a station where they would be sold, so this is a very niche requirement. Thus the Daysaver provides no real advantage in that regard.

plus, couldn't you start selling saveaways on paper tickets across the network instead of daysavers if you wanted to - apparently northern ticket offices already sell them anyway