Flexi Season FAQ

A Flexi Season ticket provides customers with 8 days of travel in 28 days - any time between two named stations.

The 8 days of travel doesn’t need to be specified in advance, giving part-time commuters more flexibility to travel when they want and need.

The Flexi Season ticket will offer a minimum of 20% discount on an equivalent Monthly Season ticket, offering savings for commuters travelling during peak times, 2-3 days a week.

Flexi Season tickets will be available as either a Smartcard or Barcode ticket, check with your train operator to see what they offer. If you don’t have a Smartcard then please allow plenty of time to get one before you travel - they can take up to 5 days to arrive by post. Find out more about Smartcards here.

You will need to activate a day pass within your ticket before you travel.

Season tickets are available in First Class and Child options, while Flexi Season tickets comes in standard class only as it is aimed at commuters travelling during peak-times, Monday to Friday, 2-3 days a week. 

Yes, unless it is for a specified operator or route. If it is this will be stated at time of purchase.

You can purchase a Flexi Season ticket on your chosen retailer’s website or mobile app, or you can register for one at some ticket offices. Flexi Season tickets will be available as either a Smartcard or Barcode ticket – check with your train operator to see what they offer.

Smartcard - If you have a Smartcard, you can buy your Flexi Season ticket online and add it to your Smartcard when you get to the station by ‘touching in’ on the yellow reader on the gate, platform validator, or in some cases the self-service ticket machine. You can also collect it via the National Rail Smartcard app. Make sure you do this before you travel.

If you don’t have a Smartcard then please allow plenty of time to get one before you travel - they can take up to 5 days to arrive by post.

Barcode – You can buy a Flexi Season ticket as a Barcode ticket (where available) via your retailer’s website or app. This will either be delivered as a pdf document attached to an email, which can be stored in your phone wallet, or it will be delivered to your app and stored there. 

No, but Flexi Season tickets can be used for travel during peak and off-peak periods. Flexi tickets are aimed at commuters making the same journey 2 –3 times a week during peak times.

Railcard discounts are not available, except for 16-17 Saver and Jobcentre Plus Travel Discount Card.

If you don’t make all of your journeys within 28 days, your passes will no longer be valid to use.  You can request a refund for the remaining passes before the expiry date from the retailer you purchased your ticket from. The refund will be calculated from the difference between the price you paid for the Flexi Season and the cost of an Anytime return ticket for each day you have used. An administration fee of no more than £10 will apply.

If you lose or forget your Smartcard or Flexi Season ticket you will need to purchase a new ticket in order to make your journey. Contact the retailer of your Flexi Season for more information.

If you have a Flexi ticket downloaded onto your phone via a Smartcard app, you can download the app on to a new device and still access your account, including your tickets.

With a Flexi Season ticket you can make unlimited journeys between your named start and end stations. You can also break, start or end your journey at any station on your permitted route. Your day pass will be valid from the time you activate it until 04:29 the next morning.

Once you’ve purchased your Flexi Season ticket you will need to activate your day pass on the day you intend to travel by ‘touching in’ on the yellow reader on the gate, on the platform validator, or in some cases the self-service ticket machine. You can also activate it via the National Rail Smartcard app.

You need to activate your day pass before you board your train. Instructions on how to activate a day worth of travel can be found on your retailer’s website.

In most cases you can use any operator between your start and end stations.

If your Flexi Season ticket is only valid on one operator but you wish to travel with a different one, then you will need to buy a new ticket for your journey.

If your Flexi Season ticket is restricted to a particular to route you can change the route it covers and pay the difference in fare.

No. However, commuters using services provided by Transport for Wales (TfW) or Scotrail may be able to use either TfW’s Multi Flex or Scotrail’s Flexipass to commute flexibly. Any Flexi Season ticket with an origin or destination of Liverpool cannot be used for onward journeys on the Merseyrail network and are valid to and from Liverpool Lime Street station only.

A Flexi Season ticket is a form of Season Ticket and comparing a Flexi Season ticket with the equivalent Monthly Season ticket, the minimum discount will be 20%.

A refund is calculated from the difference between the price you paid for the Flexi Season and the cost of an Anytime return ticket for each day you have used, minus an administration fee of no more than £10. If you only have one or two journeys left on your Flexi Season you may find that no refund is available.

You must apply for a refund from your retailer before the end of the 28-validity period. The refund will be calculated based on the price of an Anytime return ticket for the journey your Flexi Season is valid for, the number of travel days used within the ticket's validity minus the administration fee.

Customers can apply to see if they’re eligible for Delay Repay in times of disruption. If a customer activates a day's worth of travel and chooses not to travel at the last minute in the event of train delays, they should apply for Delay Repay. You can find information on delay repay here.

The cost of a Flexi Season varies but will ultimately be cheaper for most customers who travel during peak-times at least twice a week. You can find which ticket option is best for you here.

You can’t exchange a Flexi Season so, if you’ve already been using your Flexi ticket, our recommendation would be to use up your eight journeys and purchase a Season Ticket once you’ve used all your journeys. Alternatively, you can request a refund less the admin fee and purchase a Season ticket.

16-17 Saver and Job Centre Plus Travel Discount Card holders will be able to get 50% off their Flexi Season ticket but no other Railcard or group discounts will apply.

Railcards cannot be used to get discounts on Season or Flexi Season tickets as they are already heavily discounted tickets.

If you were sick and couldn’t use your Flexi Season ticket you must apply for a refund before the end of the 28-Day validity period. There must be a minimum of one unused journey left to refund and a £10 admin fee will apply. If you can provide evidence that you were not able to apply for a refund because of illness (such as a doctor’s note), we will still consider your refund application after the expiry date.

Yes. However, if you have a Flexi Season ticket on your Smartcard, we recommend you wait until after you've used all 8 days of travel on your active Flexi Season ticket before buying a new one.

If you need to buy another Flexi Season ticket before you've finished using your active ticket, please make sure the start date of your next Flexi Season ticket commences after the date you intend to use your last day of travel. This is to avoid starting your new ticket before you’ve used all 8 days of travel on your active ticket.

Currently any Flexi Season ticket with an origin or destination of Liverpool BR cannot be used for onward journeys on the Merseyrail network and are valid to and from Liverpool Lime Street station only.

No. Journeys within the London Zonal Fare Area are not available on a Flexi Season ticket. You can use Pay as you go on Oyster or Contactless for onward connections on Transport for London services.

Pay as you go on Oyster or Contactless already offer convenient flexible fares for London Underground and National Rail journeys wholly within the London Zonal Fare Area, which is why Flexi Season tickets aren’t available on these routes. Passengers in London already have an advanced customer offer with Oyster and contactless, providing a fully integrated service across all transport modes with daily and weekly price caps for part-time commuters.

We used research to ensure that Flexi Season tickets would be available on the vast majority of routes used by commuters. Thanks for letting us know that you would like a Flexi Season ticket on your route. We appreciate your interest and will consider this as we develop these products further in future.