Commuters from Huntingdon and St Neots stand to save thousands of pounds by not travelling to London during the coronavirus work from home period and the savings could be even higher for workers whose bosses tell them not to come in.

Personal finance experts at Bankrate, part of Uswitch, have calculated the savings for those who did not travel during the 20 week period between March and the beginning of August.

They said Huntingdon commuters would have saved £2,802 on weekly season tickets and £2,152 on a monthly ticket. At St Neots the savings were £2,684 and £2,061.60 for the same tickets.

A spokesman for Bankrate said: “Despite the UK government changing the work from home guidance at the beginning of August, more than 20 of the UK’s largest companies have said that the majority of their employees will continue to work from home and will do so for the ‘foreseeable future’.”

They said that with many workers staying at home they wanted to find out how much money was being saved by passengers who were cutting their rail commute.

“By analysing the cost of weekly and monthly season ticket fares from Huntingdon to London, the experts at Bankrate have calculated that rail commuters have saved up to £2,802 over the 20 week work from home period,” the spokesman said.

Bankrate investigated savings for rail users at 29 commuter towns. Local passengers travelling from Peterborough could have saved £3,468 on weekly season tickets and £2,663.60 on monthly tickets. For passengers from Sandy the savings would be £2,486 and £1,909.60.

Annual season ticket holders should be able to get refunds for the period when they were unable to travel.

However, regular rail commuters are unlikely to be too cheerful about savings made during the work from home period since they face likely rises when they start travelling again.

Bankrate has calculated that with a potential 1.6 per cent increase coming into effect in January, Huntingdon passengers would have to pay £142.34 for a weekly ticket (up by £2.24), £546.61 for a monthly (up by £8.61) and £5,693.66 for an annual (up by £89.66). In St Neots the figures are £136.35 (up by £1.99), £523.65 (up by £8.25) and £5,453.89 (up by £85.89).

Further information is available at www.bankrate.com/uk/mortgages/commuter-savings/ .