Annual season tickets

If you can pay for all your train travel for a year, you’ll save even more in the long run.

With an annual season ticket you pay for 40 weeks and get 12 weeks free: that’s a saving of 23% over the cost of a weekly season ticket.

You can buy annual season tickets online or from your local ticket office. If you’re buying online, your ticket must start within two weeks of the date you buy it.

Annual Gold Card

When you buy an annual season ticket you may automatically qualify for a Gold Card, which you can use to get:

• 1/3 off many fares, including Anytime and Off-Peak tickets and Travelcards for yourself and up to three adults for travel after 9.30am weekdays and any time at weekends and on public holidays
• 60% off child fares – for up to 4 children
• a one-year railcard for £10

To qualify for a Gold Card, both your origin and destination stations on your season ticket must be within the Gold Card area.

Find out more about applying for an Annual Gold Card.

Monthly season tickets

Buy monthly for flexibility and savings.

This is a good way of saving money while spreading your travel costs over time – for example, you can renew your ticket after you get paid each month.

You can buy your monthly season ticket online or from a ticket office. If you’ve registered online or you use the key smartcard, you can also use ticket machines.

If the start date is a Saturday, Sunday or Monday (or Tuesday after a Bank Holiday) you can buy your ticket from noon on the previous Friday. If the start date is any other day you can buy your ticket after noon of the previous day.

If you are renewing your monthly season ticket, where there is no break between tickets, you can buy your ticket up to seven days in advance.

Weekly season tickets

The flexible option – a weekly season

Why pay every day, if a weekly ticket will cost you less overall?

Weekly season tickets are usually cheaper than five separate day returns, and weekends are included too.

You can buy a new weekly season ticket online and collect it from a Southern station vending machine the same day – or simply buy it at a ticket machine or ticket office. If you want it to start on a Monday (or Tuesday after a Bank Holiday) you can buy it from 06:00 the previous Sunday.

You can renew a weekly season ticket from noon on Friday to start the following Sunday or Monday (or Tuesday after a Bank Holiday). If the start day is any other day you can buy your ticket after noon the previous day.

Buying your season ticket

There are a few things to remember when you buy or renew your season ticket online:

• Your season ticket must start within two weeks of the date you buy it
• Monthly and annual season tickets are sent by post, so allow five working days for delivery
• You can collect a weekly season ticket at the station, so it can start the next day

You’ll need a valid Photocard when you buy or collect your season ticket at the station.

Looking after your season ticket

If you’ve got a paper Season ticket it has a magnetic strip containing information that allows you to use automatic ticket barriers at the stations.

To avoid wiping the information on your ticket you need to keep it away from other magnetic items such as bank cards, oyster cards and phones.

If your ticket no longer opens the barriers you can have your monthly or longer season ticket re-issued at any of our Ticket Offices.

A good option is to use our key smartcard for your season ticket. Here the information is held within plastic and metal technology that is highly secure and doesn’t need a magnetic strip, so your Season ticket works the barriers time after time. Find out more about the key