Last updated: 26 October 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

I book nearly all my UK train travel in the TrainPal app. That came to 62 journeys in the last three months, and it has put me on the Platinum tier.

Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate and referral links, which are paid links. If you click one and buy or sign up, I earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. Brands don't choose what I feature or what I say about them.

This is not financial advice. I write here as a TrainPal customer, and TrainPal can change its tiers, points and cashback at any time.

New to TrainPal?

The current welcome offer for new users, and how to claim it, is always up to date on my TrainPal referral page.

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How TrainPal's four tiers work, and what PalPoints are worth

TrainPal membership tiers run from Silver to Gold, Platinum and Diamond. You move up by spending on train and coach tickets in the app, and each tier earns more PalPoints and more cashback. Diamond needs £2,000 of bookings in a year. The points are worth less than the big numbers suggest, though, because a voucher only takes 1% or 2% off one journey.

More on TrainPal? My TrainPal guides hub collects my full review, my TrainPal vs Trainline comparison and the current welcome offer.

TrainPal membership tiers at a glance

Every TrainPal account starts on Silver, the first of the four TrainPal membership tiers. After that, your tier depends on how many status points you have earned in the past year. You get 10 status points for every £1 you spend on eligible bookings, so each threshold is easy to turn into pounds.

I checked every tier and benefit in the TrainPal app on 26 October 2026.

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How TrainPal status points work

Status points only decide where you sit in the TrainPal membership tiers. You can't spend them, and they are separate from the PalPoints you swap for vouchers. TrainPal gives 10 status points for every £1 you spend on train and coach bookings made in the app. Flights and hotels booked through TrainPal don't count.

Three rules reduce the status points you earn. To begin with, TrainPal works out the points on the final amount you pay. So every Railcard, TrainPal Card or promo code you stack on a booking also shrinks the status points it earns. Next, a booking you cancel or change through TrainPal earns none at all. Finally, completed bookings take a while to appear in your progress, so the bar can lag behind your trips.

Once you cross a threshold, the upgrade happens automatically. Your tier then lasts for up to a year from the day you last moved up. At that point, TrainPal reassesses you on the status points from the past twelve months. In practice, that means keeping Platinum takes another £500 of bookings in the year before your reassessment date.

My own status points have already gone down once. On 8 October I had 14,930 status points, and by 26 October it had dropped to 13,920, even though I had booked more trips. My best guess is that older bookings fell out of the twelve-month window, while my newest ones were still waiting to be counted.

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Tier 01

Silver: where every account starts

Silver needs no status points, so you get it the moment you register. It earns 10 PalPoints for every £1 you spend. Its cashback is a one-off: 0.1% back on your second booking, as long as that booking comes to £20 or more. On a £30 ticket, that is 3p.

The useful parts of Silver are the ones every tier shares. The app charges no booking fees on UK and European train tickets, except tickets in Spain. Express Refund pays a refund back in under a minute, according to TrainPal, instead of the usual wait of 20 hours or more. You also get 100 PalPoints on your birthday each year.

Tier 02

Gold: £85 of bookings

Gold arrives at 850 status points, which is £85 of bookings. The PalPoints rate rises to 15 per £1, and the cashback becomes 0.1% on every booking rather than just the second one.

Gold also adds a UK rail cabin upgrade voucher, worth 10% off an upgrade, once a year. What that saves depends on the upgrade price TrainPal offers for your train. Gold is also where VIP email support starts, which TrainPal describes as quick-response email support.

Tier 03

Platinum: £500 of bookings

Platinum is where I am now. It starts at 5,000 status points, or £500 of bookings in a year. The PalPoints rate goes up to 20 per £1, and the cashback triples to 0.3% on every booking.

Platinum adds two more benefits. The first is one refund on a flexible UK or European ticket with no refund fee. TrainPal's own refund fee table charges up to £4.99 per ticket, so that one refund saves you up to £4.99. The second is a bigger yearly upgrade voucher, at 25% off.

Tier 04

Diamond: £2,000 of bookings

Diamond is the top of the TrainPal membership tiers, and it needs 20,000 status points, which is £2,000 of eligible bookings in a year. I am £608 short of it. It earns 25 PalPoints for every £1 and pays 0.5% cashback on every booking.

On top of Platinum's benefits, Diamond gives you two fee-free refunds instead of one. It also raises the upgrade voucher to 40% off and extends it to Italian rail. If you buy a one-year Railcard through TrainPal, Diamond also includes a one-time free upgrade to Railcard Plus.

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How TrainPal PalPoints work

PalPoints are the points you actually spend. Every booking earns them at your tier's rate, from 10 per £1 on Silver up to 25 on Diamond. New points show as pending for a while, with an estimated date, before they land in your balance.

You then swap PalPoints for a discount voucher on a single journey. 750 PalPoints buys a 1% voucher and 1,500 buys a 2% voucher. My PalPoints history shows two 1,500-point redemptions, on 29 September and 2 October. Even after those, I still have 20,645 points in the bank.

What TrainPal PalPoints are actually worth

A voucher takes a percentage off one journey, so its value depends on the fare you use it on. For example, a 2% voucher saves £2 on a £100 return but only 60p on a £30 single. The table below shows how much you need to spend on each tier to earn one 2% voucher, and what it saves on a £100 fare.

Those returns only hold if you save every voucher for a £100 fare. On cheaper tickets, the return falls with the fare. So hold your vouchers back for your most expensive booking of the month.

Cashback in your PalWallet

The cashback from your tier goes into your PalWallet, which is the balance inside the TrainPal app. You can then put it towards future tickets. The rates are small. At 0.3% on Platinum, £100 of bookings earns 30p, and even Diamond's 0.5% earns 50p.

Even so, the balance builds up alongside referral rewards and promotions. On one of my bookings, I paid £16.36 of a £41.67 fare from my PalWallet. My TrainPal review walks through that booking, including the Railcard and TrainPal Card discounts stacked on the same ticket.

It's overly complex with tier points, PalPoints, cashback and tiers.

Stiv, on TrainPal’s rewards

Is it worth chasing a higher TrainPal membership tier?

Take someone who spends £100 a month on trains, which is £1,200 a year. That passes Gold after the first month and Platinum after the fifth. However, they never reach Diamond, because Diamond needs £2,000.

On Platinum, each £100 of bookings earns 2,000 PalPoints. If every voucher goes on a £100 fare, those points are worth about £2.67. Add 30p of cashback and the total comes to roughly £2.97 back for every £100 spent. On Diamond, the same £100 would return about £3.83. On Silver, it would be about £1.33.

So moving up a tier is worth roughly 70p to 90p for every £100 you spend. That is a nice extra if the spending was going to happen anyway. On the other hand, it is never a reason to book a train you didn't need. In my case, Diamond would add about 86p for every £100 I spend after reaching it. Booking £608 of extra trips to get there would cost far more than it pays back.

The fee-free refunds are the benefit with real money attached. If you often book flexible tickets and cancel some of them, Platinum and Diamond each save up to £4.99 per refund. For everyone else, a Railcard and the TrainPal Card save far more per ticket than any tier. My Railcard discount guide covers which Railcard fits, and my TrainPal vs Trainline comparison shows how those savings compare with the other big app.

The catches with TrainPal membership tiers and PalPoints

The complexity. TrainPal runs status points, PalPoints, PalWallet cashback and four tiers all at once, and it's hard to know how any of it works. It feels like TrainPal has gamified this too, like the Spin to Win games elsewhere in the app, which kind of sucks. Even the names, Silver to Diamond, sound like a set of Pokémon badges. You only find out what the rewards are worth by doing the maths yourself.

The unknown PalPoints expiry. There is an Expired tab in your PalPoints history, which suggests they can lapse. However, I couldn't find a written expiry rule in the app, and none of mine have expired. Until TrainPal publishes one, I would redeem points regularly rather than save them up.

The yearly reassessment. Your tier only lasts a year from your last upgrade. A quiet year, for example after a change of job, will drop you back down at the next reassessment.

The discount penalty on status points. TrainPal bases status points on what you pay after discounts. As a result, the cheaper you make each ticket, the slower you climb.

FAQs

What are the TrainPal membership tiers?

There are four TrainPal membership tiers: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. Silver is the starting tier. Gold needs 850 status points, Platinum 5,000 and Diamond 20,000. You earn 10 status points for every £1 spent on train and coach bookings in the TrainPal app, so the thresholds work out at £85, £500 and £2,000 a year.

How do I get TrainPal Diamond?

You need 20,000 status points within a year, which means £2,000 of eligible train and coach bookings in the TrainPal app. The points count the final amount you pay, so discounts reduce them. Flights and hotels don't count, and cancelled or changed bookings earn none.

Do TrainPal tiers reset?

Yes. Your tier lasts for up to a year from the day you last upgraded. After that, TrainPal reassesses you using the status points you earned over the past year, so you can drop down if you travel less.

Is TrainPal Platinum worth it?

It is worth having if you already spend £500 a year on trains, because you earn 20 PalPoints per £1, 0.3% cashback and one fee-free refund. By my maths, it isn't worth booking extra journeys just to reach it. Every extra tier adds well under £1 in value for every £100 you spend.

Do PalPoints expire?

The app has an Expired tab in your PalPoints history, so points can lapse. However, I couldn't find a written expiry rule in the app on 26 October 2026, and none of my own points have expired. So redeem them regularly rather than letting them build up.

What are TrainPal PalPoints worth?

750 PalPoints buys a 1% voucher on one journey, and 1,500 buys a 2% voucher. On a £100 fare, a 2% voucher saves £2. Depending on your tier, you need to spend between £60 and £150 to earn 1,500 points.

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TrainPal can change its membership tiers, points, vouchers and cashback rates without notice, so check the membership screen in your own app before you rely on any figure here. This article is not financial advice and takes no account of your circumstances.

This article contains affiliate and referral links, which are paid links. If you click one and buy or sign up, I earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. Brands don't choose what I feature or what I say about them.

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