Dont forget your bus passes

We cannot use ours in England or Wales, it would help if it were UK wide.

Ours works on local trains too giving us a big discount at £1.30 return for most trips.

It costs us to use the buses in Scotland but we do not pay on the trains

but a day pass on buses /trams in Edinburgh is good value

The oyster card we use when in London gives us great value,60p per journey

My Welsh bus pass would be more useful for scraping ice off the windscreen. I doubt that it has been used more than 4 times in 4 years. Once to go to Chester and once back. Twice to return from servicing garage (return to garage with OH).

If I go into Chester a 5 minute walk to stop, need to be 5 mins early, 40+ minutes for the 8 mile journey round the houses. So 50 mins. By car 10 mins to P&R, 5 mins wait and 5 mins journey = 20 mins + £2

It would be used on holiday but spend more time in England where I cannot use or in Scotland. When on site in Wales there is rarely a bus route to a major town that is convenient. 

Love the bus pass, fairly new to me but why the rush to go by car unless timing is an importance!

We have a service every 20 minutes from our village into Hull, I love the top deck and having a good nosey enroute, also take a trip into town for no other reason than a few hours of leisure. Only slightly limiting factor is it can't be used before 9.30am, but again I'm only just coming around from getting out of bed by then, drifting along slowly is now my aim.

As yet I have not tried using it as a reduction in any other forms but will bear it in mind.

why the rush to go by car unless timing is an importance!

To me time is important as the only reason for my going into Chester is normally for an appointment at a building society or bank to move money, take out a bond etc. I can time the P&R buses to arrive on time for my appointment. When the job is done timing is such that I am unlikely to wait more than 5 mins for P&R bus. I wish to spend as little time in town as possible. 

Or N. Ireland SteveL

I was perhaps lucky that I got my bus pass at sixty (ten years ago). Men only got them at 60 because of the European Court ruling told the UK they could not discriminate against men.

Well it's now us women who are being discriminated against...my other half gets his pension on his 65th birthday and his bus pass when he is 64 yrs 8 months.  

I am 9 months younger than him and I get my state pension and bus pass 6 weeks short of my 66th birthday. 

6 years of pension income stolen from me and now because the number of qualifying years for state pension have been changed I won't even receive the full amount unless I acquire another year by paying voluntary contributions.  Hubby is pointing me in the direction of the Job Centre. 😱

It was daft when women lived 5 years longer than fellas but got their pension 5 years earlier. 

Quite agree!  It should logically have been the other way around from the start.

"1940 - men age 65, women age 60
In 1940 pension age for women was cut to 60 to try to ensure for most couples that the married rate would be paid as soon as the husband reached 65.

1948 - retirement condition added
From 1948, men had to retire as well as reach 65 to claim the new Retirement Pension paid under the National Insurance scheme. If their wife was still under 60 when they reached 65 and retired they could now claim a dependant's addition for her."

More interesting facts/dates in a simple format here

Another reason not to forget your bus-pass:

I found that on the occasions when a shop wanted additional identification when using a credit card, my bus-pass (with it's nice bold picture, name, and expiry date) was much preferred to any other ID (even passport, although I prefer not to carry that).