Season ticket bought at Farringdon

[Hatter71]

First post here so please be gentle!

At the end of December I bought an annual season ticket From Farringdon station for my commute which is Leagrave to Farringdon. The ticket I recieved was Leagrave throught to London TLINK and cost £3224.00 which is what i expected.

I have tried using this ticket at St Pancrass overground on a couple of occasssions and the gates reject it.

It works at Farringdon station Ok so i know the ticket itself is not faulty so I asked at the ticket office and he said that it wont work there because they use different gates with different codes but it is valid.

He said he could cancel the ticket for me with a £10 admin fee and do a refund based on pro-rate of the daily rate and I could buy a new ticket once i receieved the refund.

My question is this. Why should I have to cancel the ticket at a cost to me when it says that it is for between Leagrave and London Thameslink and they sold it to me on that basis? And if I did cancel it I would now have to pay the increased fare!

It does not matter too much to me at present as I get on at Leagrave which does not have barriers and get off at faringdon where it works. However Leagrave are putting barriers in during the Spring and im worried i will have this problem every day then.

They managed to take my 3 grand + off me without any problems but apparently they cant give me a ticket that will work at the barriers without it having to be cancelled and me then having to buy it at Leagrave once i recieve the refund, costing me a couple of hundred quid in the process.

Does this sound right to you seasoned comuters or am i been led up the garden path?

Thanks in advance.

 

[b0b]

If you are only occasionally using it via St Pancras, I would just leave things alone - I'm guessing the gate at St Pancras does not understand a "London Thameslink" ticket.

I can't see why that would affect the ticket's acceptance at Leagrave once they get a gateline.

 

[bb21]

Why do you want to cancel it? As you have been advised, it is perfectly valid at St Pancras. IIRC some gatelines are programmed to reject all tickets not having the station itself as either the origin or destination. Another ticket is not guaranteed to work the gates.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If the writing on the ticket fades beyond recognition then you can have it replaced for free. Unless you find it such a hassle going through the manual gate it would not be worth getting a refund and buying a new ticket for the exact same reasons you mentioned.

 

[Hatter71]

Cheers lads,

So as far as you are concerned its nothing to worry about.

I have to admit i find it all very confusing with the different companies running the trains and the different advice you get from people which is why i have registered on this forum.

The inference I got from the bloke when i queried it was it would not work at St Pancrass as a different company run those gates and they have different codes.

I did not know that when i bought it, I would have got it from Leagrave if I had known as tickets bought there seem to work all along the route.

I guess it dont really matter, its just the first time I have spent such a huge amount of money in one go on a train ticket. As long as I show the ticket at the gates if i cant get it to work, then the staff will open them for me.

Thanks again

 

[Greenback]

Welcome to the forum, you will be able to get a lot of excellent information here, particularly in this section!

A season ticket is valid to board and alith at the stations named on the ticket and any intermediate ones. In this case, that includes St Pancras, regardless of whether the ticke topens the gates for you or you have to ask a member of staff to do it! I doubt it's worth £10 to avoid this 'hassle', assuming that the new ticket would work the gates at St Pancras and Farringdon!

 

[LexyBoy]

If you are only occasionally using it via St Pancras, I would just leave things alone - I'm guessing the gate at St Pancras does not understand a "London Thameslink" ticket.

I can't see why that would affect the ticket's acceptance at Leagrave once they get a gateline.

Since you know the ticket is valid, I'd certainly not worry. Whether or not a ticket is accepted by the barriers in no way affects its validity. Barriers often reject valid tickets, and accept invalid ones.

Maybe St Pancras barriers are more picky to enforce the 'no passing through Farringdon on a London Terminals ticket.

 

[swt_passenger]

Maybe St Pancras barriers are more picky to enforce the 'no passing through Farringdon on a London Terminals ticket.

They don't have to be extra picky, it's simply the default situation, that a season from A to C via B doesn't work the barriers at B, (although it is valid) unless the barriers at B are specifically given extra information to allow it.

The problem could occur at any barriered station between Farringdon and Leagrave, unless they have added the extra data manually.

It's almost certainly nothing to do with the ticket.

 

[LexyBoy]

They don't have to be extra picky, it's simply the default situation, that a season from A to C via B doesn't work the barriers at B, (although it is valid) unless the barriers at B are specifically given extra information to allow it.

The problem could occur at any barriered station between Farringdon and Leagrave, unless they have added the extra data manually.

It's almost certainly nothing to do with the ticket.

Aha, that makes sense. I was wondering whether barriers somehow look up the validity. I'm pretty sure I've used a London-Oxford season in the barriers at Reading successfully, but maybe this is because it's common so it's programmed in manually.

 

[Daniel]

He said he could cancel the ticket for me with a £10 admin fee and do a refund based on pro-rate of the daily rate and I could buy a new ticket once i receieved the refund.

Er, what?? I am correct in thinking that you were just asking for the same ticket you had before, but just re-printed in the hope that it worked, yes? You weren't asking for a change of validity?
If you were asking for a change of validity, the ticket would need to be refunded and a new one sold, which is what the clerk obviously tried to do with you. When doing this you'd loose the £10 admin fee, and, IIRC, effectively two of twelve months as, (correct me if I'm wrong), the last two months are effectively free, compared to buying monthlies for a year).

However, if you were just asking for a re-issue of the same ticket, it is a free exchange, the same as if the card's magnetic strip had been wiped and wasn't working in any of the barriers.

If you were simply trying to get a re-issue there, you had the potential to loose a fair amount of money through being given the wrong information...

 

[googolplex]

Tickets from north of London on the Thameslink route are typically issued to "London Thameslink" rather than "London Terminals", so a ticket from Bedford or further south to St Pancras would be issued to London Terminals.
Last time I travelled on a ticket with the destination "London Thameslink" I got through the barriers at St Pancras fine, both the ones on the EMT level platforms and the FCC ones. Admittedly it was about a year ago with an Off-Peak return, however I wouldn't have thought they'd have changed the configuration of the barrier to reject tickets to "London Thameslink"

 

[richardderby]

tickets issued at Farringdon (as at Kentish Town) are issued by London Underground as they operate the ticket offices. The ticket is a LU rail season and will most likely only work the gates at Farringdon due to coding issues. You are fine to use kings cross but you will need to 'seek assistance' :cry:

 

[barrykas]

tickets issued at Farringdon (as at Kentish Town) are issued by London Underground as they operate the ticket offices. The ticket is a LU rail season and will most likely only work the gates at Farringdon due to coding issues. You are fine to use kings cross but you will need to 'seek assistance' :cry:

Just to add to this, as Farringdon is an LU ticket office, the usual "solution" of getting an Encode Exchange isn't available to the OP either, as National Rail ticket offices can't replace tickets issued at LU stations, and vice versa.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Er, what?? I am correct in thinking that you were just asking for the same ticket you had before, but just re-printed in the hope that it worked, yes? You weren't asking for a change of validity?....

....However, if you were just asking for a re-issue of the same ticket, it is a free exchange, the same as if the card's magnetic strip had been wiped and wasn't working in any of the barriers.

If you were simply trying to get a re-issue there, you had the potential to loose a fair amount of money through being given the wrong information...

The new ticket would be encoded the same way as the old one, the LUL office can't change that, and National Rail stations can't encode exchange LUL tickets.

 

[Daniel]

The new ticket would be encoded the same way as the old one, the LUL office can't change that, and National Rail stations can't encode exchange LUL tickets.

I'm aware, I'm pointing out that if the OP was trying to get simply a re-print, there is a free option available, as opposed to the refund (pro-rata minus admin fee) and re-sell.

 

[b0b]

Admittedly it was about a year ago with an Off-Peak return, however I wouldn't have thought they'd have changed the configuration of the barrier to reject tickets to "London Thameslink"

I was wondering if they might have, to catch people using FCC only London Thameslink tickets on EMT services, but from what I can tell they are not operator restricted so thats the end of that theory.

 

[Max]

I was wondering if they might have, to catch people using FCC only London Thameslink tickets on EMT services, but from what I can tell they are not operator restricted so thats the end of that theory.

They can't be as FCC services do sometimes use the EMT platforms.

 

[paul1609]

I wouldn't bet on it. St Pancras South Eastern Barriers are set to reject any non "+ HS" tickets. So for instance a Ashford Int to Hull route "any permitted" ticket which is valid on HS1 will be rejected "seek assistance", allegedly this is so staff can check on a couple of legal "scams". unfortunately my informant wouldnt tell me what they are!

 

[Hatter71]

The new ticket would be encoded the same way as the old one, the LUL office can't change that, and National Rail stations can't encode exchange LUL tickets.

Thanks for the replies evryone.

I think the reply from hairyhandedfool has answered the question and explains why the ticket office fella said I would have to cancel the ticket and buy it at Leagrave if I wanterd it to work gates at the National rail run stations. It just irks me that when I buy tickets at Leagrave they will work in the Farringdon gates but it dont work the other way round.

I tried the ticket at St Albans yesterday and got error code 132.

I know its not that big a deal but it does seem to me that once the barriers are put up at Leagrave that i am going to have to seek assistance everyday.

As long as i dont get the third degree everyday )and from the replies on here it seems i wont) then its not a problem.

Thanks again