Special Offers Discussion

[MrJeeves]

There will always be some unpopular routes and unpopular times that will sell very little even if on sale.

Cynical people might say tickets may be purposefully put on routes which sell very little to reduce the revenue loss for the railway as part of the promotion, especially in a period where operators are being forced to reduce subsidy.

 

[alistairlees]

Rail Sale revenues are so trivial that it's all a fuss about nothing really.

Last year according to RDG rail sale revenues were £9m. In the last year ticket revenues for GB were about £12bn. If you assume that ticket sales are evenly spread throughout the day (they asre not!) then the GB Rail Sale is the equivalent of about 6.5 hours of normal ticket sales. It's 1/1,333.

 

[MrJeeves]

Rail Sale revenues are so trivial that it's all a fuss about nothing really.

Last year according to RDG rail sale revenues were £9m. In the last year ticket revenues for GB were about £12bn. If you assume that ticket sales are evenly spread throughout the day (they asre not!) then the GB Rail Sale is the equivalent of about 6.5 hours of normal ticket sales. It's 1/1,333.

But is the revenue so trivial because all the tickets go on trains most people don't want?

Surely there's a reason they didn't keep GBRS+Railcards after all.

 

[Haywain]

But is the revenue so trivial because all the tickets go on trains most people don't want?

Isn't that where we should be encouraging more people to travel?

 

[williamn]

When does the sale end - it just says 12 January everywhere. Does that mean 23.59 on 11th Jan or 23.59 on 12th?

 

[alistairlees]

The latter

 

[xotGD]

Well I've piled back in and bought a load more £1.10 tickets to and from Leeds. As long as I use more than half of them I've saved money.

 

[Mikey C]

Bought tickets for 5 trips. Two I would probably have done anyway, two I'm definitely only doing because of the cheap tickets.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Bought four day trips. I might have done one regardless of the sale or not bothered at all. The other three I might wish I had done by road.

What I did think about was doing a long trip somewhere just to get a nice long ride on a train, with the missus. But she was not interested, yet - Oh what deadline !

 

[Amaranthe]

Scotrail currently have an offer of a return journey anywhere in Scotland for a flat fare of £20.

Booking is open until January 31st and you can book for outward travel up to March 31st and return journey must be completed within 1 month of outward travel.

Travel anywhere in Scotland by train for just £25 return with ScotRail

Explore Scotland for less with our fantastic offer and travel between June 27 and July 19, 2026

www.aberdeenlive.news

Travel anywhere in Scotland by train for just £20 return with ScotRail​

Explore Scotland for less with our fantastic offer and travel between January 9 and March 31, 2026​

We’ve teamed up with ScotRail to give readers the chance to travel anywhere in Scotland by train for just £20 return! With this great offer you can travel between January 9 and March 31, 2026.

Whether it’s a scenic day out, or a weekend getaway, ScotRail’s £20 Flat Fare makes it easier than ever to explore the beauty of Scotland by train and make great savings.

Just look at some of the savings* - travel return between:

• Aberdeen and Glasgow - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £57.00
• Glasgow and Inverness - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £54.20
• Edinburgh and Aberdeen - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £48.70
• Glasgow and Aviemore - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £47.30
• Dundee and Edinburgh - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £16.30
• Edinburgh and Ayr - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £16.10
• Glasgow and North Berwick - Flat Fare £20.00, saving £13.00

HOW TO BOOK​

CLICK HERE to book your tickets by Saturday January 31 2026. Follow the simple steps below to get this great offer:

• Enter your ‘from’ and ‘to’ destinations
• Select Return or Open Return
• Selecting a Return means you will choose a specific date and time for both your outward and return journeys.
• Selecting Open Return means you will only choose a date and time for your outward journey. Your return ticket will be valid for one month from your date of outward travel.
• Choose the date of your outward journey. This can be any date between Friday, January 9 and Tuesday, March 31 2026. Your return date must be within one month from the date of outward travel
• Select the number of adult tickets you require (maximum of 2 per transaction) and select ‘Find cheap tickets’.
• Child tickets are not available with this offer. However, Kids for a Quid tickets can be purchased in station or on train. This means up to four children aged 5-15 can travel for just £1 return each with every paying adult.
• The promotional code will be automatically applied to the search results
• Select your preferred train times and click 'Continue'. For some routes, you'll be able to specify your seating preference on the next page before you 'Continue to delivery options'
• You can choose to have your tickets issued as mTickets (straight to your mobile), or collect from a Ticket Vending Machine at any ScotRail station

Terms and Conditions: £20 offer is available for return standard class travel valid on all ScotRail and TransPennine Express services across Scotland. The offer is valid for travel between Friday, January 9 and Tuesday, March 31, 2026. You can book the offer between Friday, January 9 and Saturday, January 31, 2026 only. Return ticket is valid for up to one month from the date of outward travel. Travel permitted after 9.15am Monday to Friday and all day on weekends. Maximum 2 tickets per transaction. Tickets purchased online can be issued as mTickets or collected from a TVM (Ticket Vending Machine). Customers purchasing via ticket office or telephone no 0344 811 0141 must quote “NEWSPAPER PROMO”. Tickets booked via telephone will be posted and a fee will apply. Seat reservations are not required but are advised for longer distance journeys. Kids for a Quid tickets can be used in conjunction with this offer. Railcards and further discounts are not available in conjunction with this offer. Upgrades to First Class are not available. No refunds or changes to travel plans are permitted. Journeys cannot be broken, except for connections.

Booking Link: https://www.buytickets.scotrail.co.uk/?ukVoucherInput=P8UCPL&referrer=MKT

 

[signed]

Booking is open until January 31st and you can book for outward travel up to March 31st and return journey must be completed within 1 month of outward travel.

BOJ prohibited in addtion

 

[Amaranthe]

BOJ prohibited in addtion

Yes that seems an odd restriction given it is essentially an open return.

 

[styles]

Scotrail currently have an offer of a return journey anywhere in Scotland for a flat fare of £20.

Booking is open until January 31st and you can book for outward travel up to March 31st and return journey must be completed within 1 month of outward travel.

Travel anywhere in Scotland by train for just £25 return with ScotRail

Explore Scotland for less with our fantastic offer and travel between June 27 and July 19, 2026

www.aberdeenlive.news

Booking Link: https://www.buytickets.scotrail.co.uk/?ukVoucherInput=P8UCPL&referrer=MKT

For anyone wondering, if you don't use that specific booking link, you can enter voucher code P8UCPL on the normal scotrail journey planners and app.

If you select specific trains, it can mess things up because it's the annoying Trainline journey planner. If this happens, scroll down and 'Flat Fare Promo' should be an option.

Mine started at £20, then I selected the specific trains because I wanted seat reservations, and it changed from £20 to this:


(image shows selected price as £86, and kindly suggests switching to an Anytime Return for cheaper at £69.20)

Scroll down and select Flat Fare Promo again:


(image shows specific fare options for selection, including the promo fare).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Jan 2026 ==

Then for some unknown reason, on a completely different journey I'm planning, it correctly suggested the £20 promo fare?



I hate this journey planner. It also messes up with offering 1x off peak single + 1x anytime single instead of an anytime or off peak return, since ScotRail harmonised the anytime/off peak fares and restrictions.

 

[Tetragon213]

Quite a disappointing sale this year. Couldn't find a single decent fare that wasn'y at unreasonable hours, and this was over a wide variety of routes.

Here's to hoping next year's sale goes better...

 

[1D54]

Same here. I searched and searched for my favourite departure points such as Leicester, Nuneaton, New Street and Stafford and came up with nothing, the fact rail cards were of no use softened it slightly but disappointed all the same as i had rather stupidly planned days out with times etc.

 

[peri]

Any news of a Northern newspaper day ranger offer?

 

[kkong]

BOJ prohibited in addtion

Completely unenforced, and indeed tickets for their Club 50 flat fare promo which also states "BoJ prohibited" opens and allows re-entry at ticket gates in my experience.

The 8F restriction code which these tickets use specifically says "no restrictions".

 

[185143]

BOJ prohibited in addtion

Take something like an Ayr-Wick return. Are they seriously going to say you can't stop in 'Spoons in Glasgow for a couple on your way over to Queen Street? Nope.

Similarly in Inverness. That's obviously a very long journey even from Glasgow. Are the staff at Inverness going to say "no, you can't break your journey to go for food/drinks. But you'll have to exit the gateline as we aren't going to advertise the Wick train just yet." Of course not.

Largely unenforceable.

 

[signed]

Take something like an Ayr-Wick return. Are they seriously going to say you can't stop in 'Spoons in Glasgow for a couple on your way over to Queen Street? Nope.

Similarly in Inverness. That's obviously a very long journey even from Glasgow. Are the staff at Inverness going to say "no, you can't break your journey to go for food/drinks. But you'll have to exit the gateline as we aren't going to advertise the Wick train just yet." Of course not.

Largely unenforceable.

Oh, I fully agree

 

[185143]

Oh, I fully agree

In my experience ScotRail staff, further North especially so, will happily accept anything reasonable.

I remember back in 2016 when Lamington Viaduct collapsed. I was travelling from Wigan to Wick on a TPE advance to Edinburgh then a loophole 65p Tweedbank-Wick Anytime Day Single with a railcard. I got written permission from Virgin to use one of their diverted services to Glasgow which was no problem. Arriving at Queen Street I decided to put my Wigan-Edinburgh TPE advance into the barrier to avoid drawing attention to my other ticket and it opened!

Boarding the train to Perth I went to the guard explaining I'd been disrupted by the WCML issues and was waved on before I'd even finished my sentence.

 

[signed]

In my experience ScotRail staff, further North especially so, will happily accept anything reasonable.

I don't even know how that is enforcable, the booking engine, as @kkong says, shows it's a 8F (no restriction on BOJ)

Is there something encodable in the ticket that overrides 8F? And the ticket code shown (SFF) doesn't exist in NRE

 

[hexagon789]

Well that's us booked two trips under the £20 ScotRail flat fare promo. As you can get them right from your local station, it's a good deal over even an Anytime Day Single + Advance in each direction and I like the flexibility to use any train, especially for coming back.

 

[ThrowAway10101]

Bought nothing this time unfortunately as i was only looking to go to euston and there were no reasonably early tickets on sale.

 

[cumbrianbill]

Completely unenforced, and indeed tickets for their Club 50 flat fare promo which also states "BoJ prohibited" opens and allows re-entry at ticket gates in my experience.

The 8F restriction code which these tickets use specifically says "no restrictions".

No issues exiting the gate line at Aberdeen on Keith to Dundee open return. Scanner at Dundee wasn't happy though.

 

[kkong]

No issues exiting the gate line at Aberdeen on Keith to Dundee open return. Scanner at Dundee wasn't happy though.

The gates at ScotRail stations are a hotch-potch of poorly programmed systems.

Some gates will allow a surprising range of tickets through, while others will reject the most ordinary tickets (e.g. plain Advance tickets at the station of origin).

However, I don't think I've yet encountered a situation where I've not been allowed to proceed through the gates on presentation of the ticket to a human.

 

[cumbrianbill]

The gates at ScotRail stations are a hotch-potch of poorly programmed systems.

Some gates will allow a surprising range of tickets through, while others will reject the most ordinary tickets (e.g. plain Advance tickets at the station of origin).

However, I don't think I've yet encountered a situation where I've not been allowed to proceed through the gates on presentation of the ticket to a human.

It seems that there's a 9.15 am restriction, so the barrier was right, and the staff member wrong. Oops.

 

[EYFanatic]

Any news of a Northern newspaper day ranger offer?

I was thinking that myself - normally one about this time of year

 

[Gonzoiku]

Completely unenforced, and indeed tickets for their Club 50 flat fare promo which also states "BoJ prohibited" opens and allows re-entry at ticket gates in my experience.

The 8F restriction code which these tickets use specifically says "no restrictions".

Gate line scanners at both Perth and Inverness refused the £20 ticket. Staff response "Flat fare ticket? On you go!"

So fine opportunity to enforce the restriction but not attempted. It might have been a Glasgow-Wick ticket, but was in fact Perth-Inverness, but it wasn't looked at and I still have it.

YMMV but it would surprise me.

GZ

 

[A S Leib]

Until 26 January, there's up to 50% off of CrossCountry advance tickets for travel from 27 January to 25 March. First class tickets are included; it doesn't combine with railcards; up to eighteen tickets can be bought per transaction but no limit per passenger.

 

[Adam Williams]

Until 26 January, there's up to 50% off of CrossCountry advance tickets for travel from 27 January to 25 March. First class tickets are included; it doesn't combine with railcards; up to eighteen tickets can be bought per transaction but no limit per passenger.

Where has this been announced?