Flexi Season tickets sow confusion for commuters

The new rail Flexi Season tickets that aim to help people commute part time don’t live up to their name.

Commuters at Brighton Station
The byzantine calculations behind the new flexible tickets will tie commuters up in knots
(Image credit: © Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

“Commute your way. Choose WFH [work-from-home] Wednesdays, choose face-to-face Fridays”, declares the National Rail website. The post-pandemic world will entail far more part-time commuting. On 28 June the government rolled out “Flexi Season” tickets, which are aimed at workers who travel two or three days each week. The new offering allows passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period between two named stations. Returns are valid until 4.29am the following day to accommodate those who need to stay late at work. The days travelled do not need to be selected in advance.

Tickets are paperless and are only available in England; some operators, such as London Underground and Grand Central, are not covered. The Department for Transport (DfT) says the tickets offer passengers “control over their commute, with potential savings of hundreds of pounds against daily and season tickets”.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.