With the Government initiative getting us to Snack Out on Sunak – or whatever it’s called – many of the bus operators have contributed to the cause and have introduced special travel tickets to get you into town for a slap up, half price meal and back home again. this is a round up of the current special offers available across the operators.
Yellow Buses
This management owned operator is offering a special evening offer.
- 5 People
- Unlimited Travel after 5pm
- £5
This offer is available every weekday evening and is available on the bus.
morebus & Bluestar
Go-Ahead is offering a special deal on the Monday to Wednesday that Eat Out to Help Out runs for so that people can lunch or dinner across Bournemouth, Poole and Southampton.
This 2-for-1 is available after 11:30 across the three days and available on tickets when they are bought on board. The advertising T&C claims that the same persons travelling on the outbound ticket must also be the ones on the return, although I can not see how that will be policed.
Tickets purchased on The Key & clickit2ride are not valid for this offer.
First Southampton
It might not be a “COVID Special” ticket, but First in Southampton have launched a new capped ticket for daily use.
Tap & Cap sets a minimum fare of £2 for a single journey. Use it more than once and the maximum fare cap of £3 applies for the entire day. This apparently means that you will no longer need to tell the driver even where you are going, just Tap & Cap which would suggest that Central Station to City Centre is now a £2 Single (?)
This is a great innovation in the Southampton fare area. You are almost talking about a London level of simplicity and the £3 cap should in theory be automatically added.
Obviously if you are travelling more than three days a week, then there are better season tickets available.
Note: Although most of FirstGroup have now implemented Apple Express Pay – Only Southampton in our region is offering the Tap & Cap.
Stagecoach
There is nothing obvious for Stagecoach service, across any part of our region, that would suggest they are encouraging users back to buses.
This does not mean that they won’t, it just means that they are not right now.
If we hear anything, then we will update you!
Other Operators
Certainly, with the big three covered, there is nothing to say that the other operators are not doing something. The downside is that if they are then they are not advertising it.
We, of course, do not actually expect any kind of discount at any time. I suspect that many bus operators are doing everything they can to get money in the bank though, and ensure the wages and base costs are covered.