13 falsehoods people might believe about transport tickets

At work this week, my colleague MJP was doing a discovery on transport ticketing, and it got me thinking about how the concept of the ‘best value ticket’ for a transport journey is really hard to define.

Lots of the assumptions you might think are true about transport tickets, that might look like handy shortcuts when trying to show someone the cheapest possible ticket for their journey, aren’t always true. So I figured I’d write one of those posts like Falsehoods programmers believe about names, addresses, time, phone numbers, etc. I’m not sure if anyone actually believes any of these things, but here come 13 falsehoods about transport tickets.

1. Tickets from A-B-C don’t cost less than tickets from B-C.

Plenty of counterexamples. On the London Underground with an Oyster card, a journey from Caledonian Road & Barnsbury to Heathrow Terminal 5, changing trains at Highbury & Islington, costs £1.50 off-peak. Travelling from Highbury & Islington to Heathrow Terminal 5 costs £2.80 off-peak. In the aviation world, they call this hidden-city ticketing, and there are sites out there to help you find examples.

2. Tickets from A-B and B-C don’t cost less than tickets from A-B-C.

In the UK, this phenomenon has become known as split ticketing, and there are whole sites dedicated to helping people find a split ticket option. An example split ticket given by the Independent is a journey from London to Bristol, where splitting a ticket at Didcot Parkway could save £40.

3. Tickets from A-B and B-C don’t cost less than tickets from A-C.

A variation on the above, but this one requires people to travel through another location. A ticket from Birmingham to London along with a ticket from London to Cambridge can be cheaper than a ticket from Birmingham to Cambridge.

4. Tickets from A-B and B-A-C don’t cost less than tickets from A-C.

If it didn’t seem strange that it’s cheaper to travel via another out-of-the-way location, it might seem strange that it’s cheaper to travel to another location and start your journey from there, and pass back through your origin on the way to your destination.

As an example, a business class flight from London to New York with British Airways on a random date I searched cost £3,135. Brussels to New York, via London, business class, on the same transatlantic flights, would cost just £1,390. Adding in London-Brussels return flights adds just another £76. So London-Brussels-London-New York is half the price of London-New York. Weird, eh?

5. A ticket for n+1 people is never cheaper than a ticket for n people.

Often true, but not always. A single adult travelling in the UK with a Family and Friends railcard on a ticket costing £10 will pay the full £10, because they can’t use the railcard for travelling alone. If they bring along a child, the total price drops to around £8.50, since the railcard can now be used.

6. A single ticket doesn’t cost more than a return ticket.

Long-haul airline tickets are the most common counterexample to this. London-Los Angeles one-way on a random date runs £1,687. Book a return ticket and this drops to £351.

7. A return ticket doesn’t cost more than two single tickets.

This is very often not the case for UK rail tickets, where advance tickets are only sold as single tickets. Not very obvious, though, because the journey planners are pretty good at showing you the cheapest fare. Other examples include flights within Europe on low cost airlines.

8. Tickets for one service never cost more than tickets for that service and another service

If you’re 11–15 years old and visit London, the daily cap for using bus services is £2.25. The daily cap for using any TfL services, including bus and Tube, in zones 1–3 is £1.50. More travel, less money.

9. Amending a ticket is never more expensive than purchasing a new one

Many times you’re better off scrapping the ticket and starting again, where the change fee is more than the price of the ticket.

10. A season/period ticket is never cheaper than a return ticket

If you’re taking a long and complex route across Europe, especially at short notice, or if you’re young or old, an InterRail pass may well be cheaper than buying a return ticket. Even journeys as short as London-Berlin by rail can fall into this category. Similarly, an 8-day BritRail pass at £133 will be cheaper than a return ticket Penzance-Wick (and many more besides!)

11. A 7-day season ticket is never more expensive than 10 single tickets

A single bus fare in London is £1.50. Take two journeys a day and it costs £15 a week. The weekly bus pass is £21.20. To be fair, TfL did a lot of advertising to remind people of this.

12. Loyalty schemes never give back more benefit than what you pay for the ticket

Some people have certainly considered this to be false— the phenomenon of mileage running, most common in the USA, involves people flying purely to earn frequent flyer miles and benefit from the perks that come with that status.

13. Tickets from A-B-C can’t be used to travel B-C

If you turn up in Amsterdam expecting to use your Edinburgh-Amsterdam-Tokyo flight, without having flown from Edinburgh first, expect to be turned away. But there are some exceptions to this, such as in Italy, thanks to some interesting court rulings.

Remember that we are in the middle of a climate emergency and some of the options above are pretty irresponsible from that point of view. Check out the train options 🚄, they’re always more fun, or stay at home and read about tickets instead…

Most of the above relate to either strange concessionary tickets, historical quirks, or commercial reasons. Let me know if you think of any more!

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