New rules for bus pass as not pensionable age

A question about : New rules for bus pass as not pensionable age

Morning

As a person who will now get my pension at 66, and not later this year when I reach 60, I have accepted the decisions made by government.
However, it also affects me getting a bus pass which will now be the same age.

Does anyone know how I can get more economical fares on the buses, as I don't qualify for the 'older persons' pass, and whilst I use buses, it is not a regular basis, so a weekly or monthly pass doesn't work either! I live in West Sussex.

I get really cross about this, as I don't want to drive everywhere, I could book tickets in advance, like you can with the train, but can't seem to find out how and where, or even if, I can!

Anyone any ideas? Many thanks

Best answers:

• Some operators offer discounted fares for cards with 10 or 20 trips bought in advance. In Brighton for instance there are these
  https://www.buses.co.uk/page.aspx?pageid=464
  You need to look at the website of whoever operates buses where you are.
• Move to Scotland
• National Express do a over sixties card.
  I think you get a 30% discount
• The issue of free bus passes is yet another political hot potato in the age of austerity, and I strongly suspect that the best you can hope for is one of the above-mentioned undated pre-paid deals covering 10 or 20 trips or so. Probably, the only thing you have in your favour is that you pay the same whenever you travel without having to pay a higher price for peak-time travel (but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some bus companies do in fact charge more during the commuter times). Bus passes are mostly not valid until after 9.30am.
  I think I was in one of the last groups of males who were eligible for a free bus pass at the age of 60, even though my retirement age at the time was 65. At first, I didn’t use it much, but now that I no longer drive, I have become aware of the cash value of my free bus pass. There are very few weeks when I don’t save at least a tenner, and the figure can easily rise to more than Ј30 in a week. If I had to pay, I would use the buses much less, and would probably consider becoming a car-owner again.
  When the age of austerity kicked in after 2008, I was working as a driver for one of the minor bus companies which are paid by the local authorities to provide bus services on the routes which the big operators are not interested in because they are not profitable. The writing was on the wall for the bus companies which depended upon council-contracted routes and services, and I reluctantly returned to truck-driving for the last couple of years of my working life. As it happens, I think the cuts to council-contracted bus services were less draconian than originally feared.
  During the time that I was employed as a bus driver, it was rare for me to collect more than a very few pounds a day in cash - nearly every passenger had a free bus pass, and many of them would use the same bus route several times in a day. On the other hand, it was not at all unusual on some routes to do a complete return trip without picking up a single passenger.
  I have no idea how the economics of all this free bus travel stacks up, but it certainly costs the taxpayer an awful lot of money.
  The debate continues about whether or not to make the free bus pass into a means-tested benefit. In my opinion, the real debate should be about how to keep bus services running, especially on routes which will never generate a profit. Anything which is likely to reduce the number of passengers is also likely to lead to a reduction in bus services, and vice versa - which I would guess is probably a classic ‘vicious circle’.
  But, on the other hand, many wealthy pensioners who live in the poshest bits of major cities are completely unashamed to use their free bus pass to pop into town in order to visit their favourite coffee shop or designer outlet etc because it is so much simpler than trying to find somewhere to park the car.
  If we are to have free bus passes at all, then I’m not convinced that their availability should be based upon age - it seems to me that free bus passes should be made available to people who have a genuine need to use the buses, and who genuinely cannot afford the cost.