Title: An insider's guide to cheap rail tickets | Travel | The Guardian
Headings: An insider's guide to cheap tickets
Travel
An insider's guide to cheap tickets
Patrick Barkham
@patrick_barkham
Six journeys, six tricks
Tactics

Content: Even if you only make that trip three days a week, you will save more than £300 in a year. Angry of Kingston writes ...
How one passenger beat the system
I am a reasonable person. I pay our ridiculous taxes. I try not to mock when the government says inflation is 3% and we get gas and electricity rises of 15%. I attempt to keep my blood pressure under control when our prime minister is sunning himself in Florida as the Iraq he helped to create spirals out of control. But on Tuesday, faced with a 35% rise in the rail fare from Kingston (in south-west London) to central London, I'm afraid my customary sang-froid snapped. I was furious. I would have shouted at the poor clerk at Kingston station who had to pass on the absurd news - that a peak-time fare that used to be £6.80 was now going to cost me £9.20 - but he looked so sheepish and embarrassed by the rise that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I took a complaint form from him, intending to scrawl some abusive message, but in the end decided that would be childish and pointless. I rang the rail regulator instead.