• Bunce
  • Posts
  • How I got 100% off my train travel

How I got 100% off my train travel

The Railcard discount was NOT enough for me

March 13, 2025

Hello, you glorious beasts. 

This week in Bunce: 

But enough idle talk—to business. 

Let me tell you… 

How I got 100% off my train travel

In 2023, I found a way to get 100% off my long-distance train travel between London and Carlisle. All because the trains were delayed.

I deserved nothing less. UK rail prices are the highest in Europe, but roughly 40% of trains are late.  

Even after I bought a railcard, split my ticket and got off at cheaper stations, I was forking out close to £100 six times a year for the luxury of travelling 8 hours on a journey that should take 4. 

Then it hit me: train companies reimburse customers for every delayed train. 

Avanti West Coast offers customers: 

  • 15 minutes — 25% off

  • 30 minutes — 50% off

  • 1 hour + — 100% off

For. Every. Delay. 

I wouldn’t pay a penny if I could predict when trains would be disrupted.

The question was then, how could I predict whether a train would be delayed? 

Let me introduce you to my… 

Train Delay Prediction Paradigm (TDPP)

There are three essential ingredients to the TDPP: 

  1. Strike action

Strike action leads to staff shortages. This means fewer drivers, staff, and maintenance workers. RMT has to notify the public two weeks before they plan to strike. There is usually a knock-on effect lasting several days, before and after. 

  1. Planned engineering works 

This is the icing on the cake, particularly if there’s strike action. Trains are sometimes deliberately delayed to allow the engineers to do their work. You can monitor these online in real time. 

  1. Extreme weather

For a bonus ball, combine planned engineering works and strike action with winter weather—your train will be delayed, no question about it, e.g., trains are usually delayed when it snows. 

Certain stations are more likely to experience delays too. National Rail now publishes the data in real time, the madmen. 

Add spice by considering the impact of the Christmas holidays, football games, and peak travel times. 

I started monitoring these risks. 

✅ I chose specific days when I knew there would be strikes, using the RMT’s website to select the right days. 

✅ I tried to align strike-affected days with planned engineering works along the London-Glasgow route. 

✅ I checked for floods, snow, and all manners of ill weather. And tried to align my travel with peak festive season times. 

The magic happens when these factors all come together.

I.E f the baseline chance of delay is 10%, engineering works add 25%, strikes add 35%, and bad weather adds 20%, then when all these problems happen, there's a 90% chance your train will be delayed.

The results

With some anxiety, I booked my eye-wateringly expensive tickets. 

The journeys were delayed every time.

Oh yes. I paid those parasitic Avanti vampires zero, zilch, nada, nothing—I rode for free.

All I had to do after was take a photo of my ticket, fill out an online form, and send it to Avanti.

Sure, there were some pretty brutal ‘all-dayers’.

But I’d use them as an opportunity to get a load of work done, free from distractions.

It was fun—I felt like I was winning.

And it was better than the alternatives:

  • Hiding in the toilet from the ticket inspector 

  • Feigning deafness when he came

  • Speaking passionately in Italian until someone took pity on me

  • Crying

  • Taking the ticket inspector aside and quietly but forcefully insinuating that I worked for Intelligence and the fate of England was in his hands.

Et cetera. 

Only the TDPP would allow me to carry on my family name with honour.

Final thoughts

My advice: 

  1. If you plan to do this, use it to get serious work done. 

  2. Only do it for journeys of 3+ hours.

  3. Pack a sandwich (or 4)

The system is shoddy—if you’re smart, you can make it pay for its mistakes. 

Well, well, well: what do we have here? 

RMT just informed the public of planned strike action til May. 

I see planned engineering works all along the line. 

I predict disruption. 

So what are you waiting for, you glorious beasts?

Chinese government pays students to come home 

The Chinese government pays UK-based Chinese uni students money if they return to China.

One student was allegedly offered between £5,000-£6,000 to return home. 

They offer several other well-documented incentives: 

  • Simplified startup registration

  • Tax breaks

  • Reduced costs for floor space

  • Startup investment

  • Better education for children

  • Easier access to hukou (public services).

No surprises, then, that increasing numbers of Chinese students are flocking home to the People’s Republic. 

Time to learn Mandarin, you madmen. 

The UK’s cheapest cities revealed

Aberdeen is the cheapest city in the UK, according to the property company Zoopla. 

The average house costs only £119,350. Compare that to London’s least expensive borough, Havering, with its median house price of £306,480. 

What a joke. 

Closely following are:

  • Liverpool (£130,800)

  • Glasgow (£152,270)

  • Sheffield (£156,990)

  • Newcastle (£150,360). 

You know what that means: we head north!

Someone took it a bit too seriously.....