Railcards users to face additional checks when buying tickets

[swt_passenger]

Is there an existing database (consolidated or distributed) to verify railcard details against ? If so, how quickly are newly purchased railcards added to it ?

No. It’s been posted many times that there is no centrally accessible record.

 

[35B]

We're headed for the RailUK Standard Minority here.

If we're saying that the tradeoff is that people who:

• Are turning 16 or 60 within 3 months (the 16-25 and 16-17 overlap in age validity so the transition between these doesn't count, you can overlap them if you want)
• AND want to buy a ticket for travel after they turn 16/60 that far in advance
• AND that ticket is eligible for a discount
• AND that discount would be significant (bearing in mind that Advances purchased that far in advance tend to be very cheap - many Northern ones even for long distances under a fiver for instance)

...lose out by more than £8.75, but a load of fraud is stopped and costly mistakes are wiped out? I think we are?

In that case I remain in support. That is a tiny niche of people.

Well, as it's happened with both my kids, and I've been caught by this when trying to organise group travel, it's not that small a minority. Not to mention that, if it is so trivial, it could easily be fixed by enabling pre-purchase.

 

[swt_passenger]

I agree the complete portfolio of different rail cards needs to be scrapped, its a right dogs breakfast of confusion and in certain age groups discrimination.

Just replace it with 1 single Railcard ...

1 card per person that crucially anyone and everyone can buy, if they wish, and it gives 1/3 off the fare being purchased.

… will they all include friends, family, children, accompanying helpers?
… will they all have a minimum fare?
… will they all have peak restrictions?

 

[Snow1964]

I agree the complete portfolio of different rail cards needs to be scrapped, its a right dogs breakfast of confusion and in certain age groups discrimination.

Just replace it with 1 single Railcard ...

1 card per person that crucially anyone and everyone can buy, if they wish, and it gives 1/3 off the fare being purchased.

Yes at moment, there is a very small subset that can't hold a railcard, basically between age 31 and 59

.... and even within that age group can hold disabled, veterans, gold card, family and friends, network railcard, job centre card etc.

Reality is could probably scrap all railcards, cut 25-30% off all fares, to nearly same as railcard price and would be revenue neutral

For clarity these are links to both official announcements, Government and ORR response (not going to quote them as already covered in this thread)

Delay Repay changes will make rail travel easier under Great British Railways

These changes allow passengers to claim Delay Repay compensation faster and the rail industry to invest in improvements across the UK.

www.gov.uk

ORR independent review of train operator revenue protection practices: government response

www.gov.uk

 

[blimmo]

FWIW I think booking offices are still supposed to ask for it.

I believe they are. When I recently used a ticket office to buy rangers for myself and a friend I was obviously unable to show my friend's Railcard so I had to claim both tickets were for me before I was sold them!

 

[AlterEgo]

Yes at moment, there is a very small subset that can't hold a railcard, basically between age 31 and 59

That is not a small subset of rail users. That is the core customer base.

 

[8ace]

This is going to be a right faff for me. I buy tickets for myself and my mates for away games, there are usually 4-8 of use - a combination of 16-25, 2T, Senior and Gold Card holders. Additionally some of us have more than one 2T railcards depending on who is going to a particular game. I appreciate this is probably an edge case but it feels I'll be being punished because of some fare-dodgers.

 

[WesternLancer]

Got a feeling it was 14 days - although logically it should have been the longest period of ticket validity.

Friend of mine about to become eligible for a railcard in a few weeks time - has bought a digital one on line and been sent it probably 2 weeks ahead of commencement. Not sure who sold it to them - so this is maybe still 'a thing'.

 

[Haywain]

has bought a digital one on line and been sent it

Sent? Is it a plastic railcard or a proper digital pone accessed through an app? The former are issued a little ahead of becoming valid to allow time for the Royal Mail to deliver them (although 14 days is optimistic for my address).

 

[WesternLancer]

We're headed for the RailUK Standard Minority here.

If we're saying that the tradeoff is that people who:

• Are turning 16 or 60 within 3 months (the 16-25 and 16-17 overlap in age validity so the transition between these doesn't count, you can overlap them if you want)
• AND want to buy a ticket for travel after they turn 16/60 that far in advance
• AND that ticket is eligible for a discount
• AND that discount would be significant (bearing in mind that Advances purchased that far in advance tend to be very cheap - many Northern ones even for long distances under a fiver for instance)

...lose out by more than £8.75, but a load of fraud is stopped and costly mistakes are wiped out? I think we are?

In that case I remain in support. That is a tiny niche of people.

I take this point which is well made in such cases .

But

are there not people who don't travel that regularly but might make a long trip for a holiday etc - they have a railcard - use it for a year a few times - more than save the value of the railcard. Railcard expires. They don't plan to travel until their next long trip - maybe some time later - but want to book ahead because said long trips cost a lot if you do not buy well in advance (which the industry constantly tell you to do) .
I've been in that situation myself

Aren't those people all going to loose out with weeks or months of Railcard.

I booked some v cheap tickets for 2 of use for a may bank holiday weekend away in Yorkshire some weeks ago - as soon as they opened for booking. I might not do any other rail travel for which I can use my railcard (I can only use a 2 Together due to my age and location outside NSE area and obv need two of us to be going). If my railcard had expired I would not be buying a new Railcard until that May bank holiday - I'm not on your bullet point list.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2026 ==

Sent? Is it a plastic railcard or a proper digital pone accessed through an app? The former are issued a little ahead of becoming valid to allow time for the Royal Mail to deliver them (although 14 days is optimistic for my address).

by 'sent' I mean electronically so the latter - downloaded it presumably.

 

[Bletchleyite]

are there not people who don't travel that regularly but might make a long trip for a holiday etc - they have a railcard - use it for a year a few times - more than save the value of the railcard. Railcard expires. They don't plan to travel until their next long trip - maybe some time later - but want to book ahead because said long trips cost a lot if you do not buy well in advance (which the industry constantly tell you to do) .
I've been in that situation myself

Aren't those people all going to loose out with weeks or months of Railcard.

Yes, they will lose out, by about £8.75 worth of validity (very few tickets can be purchased more than 3 months ahead).

This I consider acceptable collateral damage given the considerable benefits of this (and given that it's not even a new policy, it's just not been enforced by some channels for a while now). Though I do think post-dating Railcards is a good solution as I've said, then nobody at all loses out apart from a few seconds typing in a Railcard number.

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes, they will lose out, by about £8.75 worth of validity (very few tickets can be purchased more than 3 months ahead).

This I consider acceptable collateral damage given the considerable benefits of this (and given that it's not even a new policy, it's just not been enforced by some channels for a while now). Though I do think post-dating Railcards is a good solution as I've said, then nobody at all loses out apart from a few seconds typing in a Railcard number.

I sympathise with that argument - just that it's more people than your list implied then - which I agree your list is a pretty modest group in the venn diagram.

More widely - an overhaul of the whole railcard system is indeed needed - get rid of all the different ones - harmonise the discounts (yes even if some people getting 50% off lose out) - and then be a bit more commercially pro active to boost sales - eg things like 'all railcard holders get 50% off travel Monday to Friday throughout February' or some such to boost travel in low demand seasons etc - but that's a bit off topic

 

[reb0118]

Shows how much revenue protection have actually trained to do revenue protection if they aren't scanning [railcards]!

On our machines the scan does absolutely nothing, so there's no real point in scanning them.

 

[Tom]

Load of bumph advertising Trainline which is depressing. Even the CEO.of the Campaign for Better Transport name dropping them. Sigh!

My suspicion is that there's some sort of dealings going on as Trainline's "petition" and "campaign" for this only launched two months ago.

 

[Alex C.]

I may be missing something here but without auto renewal on railcards how does this prevent the forgotten expiry issue?

• I have a railcard valid until 25 April 2026
• I book a ticket now for 26 April 2026 with the discount
• Presumably the retailer will see it is current, they can only presume I am going to renew the railcard
• I mix up the dates and think it expires at the end of April and so travel without renewing

Maybe if you print the expiry date on the ticket? I am not saying it's not my responsibility to remember. My strong preference would be auto renewal of my railcard, paid by annual direct debit but as far as I can see we are still in the position of having to manually renew each year.

 

[35B]

Yes, they will lose out, by about £8.75 worth of validity (very few tickets can be purchased more than 3 months ahead).

This I consider acceptable collateral damage given the considerable benefits of this (and given that it's not even a new policy, it's just not been enforced by some channels for a while now). Though I do think post-dating Railcards is a good solution as I've said, then nobody at all loses out apart from a few seconds typing in a Railcard number.

You underestimate the role of friction in deterring custom - @8ace demonstrates this.

Railcards are a marketing tool - the focus here is back to fromt

 

[OscarH]

On our machines the scan does absolutely nothing, so there's no real point in scanning them.

It should at least confirm the names and that it's in date, so you have some confidence it's a real railcard. Anything written on the screen in text is entire worthless security wise

 

[sor]

On our machines the scan does absolutely nothing, so there's no real point in scanning them.

The machines GWR have (or at least had a few years ago) did seem to do something. I expressed surprise on the first time I saw a guard scan it and he showed me what it did. I can't remember if it simply decoded the barcode or whether it went off to the central database to confirm that it is not a counterfeit (as you'd hope), but it showed my railcard details.

 

[Snow1964]

I may be missing something here but without auto renewal on railcards how does this prevent the forgotten expiry issue?

• I have a railcard valid until 25 April 2026
• I book a ticket now for 26 April 2026 with the discount
• Presumably the retailer will see it is current, they can only presume I am going to renew the railcard
• I mix up the dates and think it expires at the end of April and so travel without renewing

Maybe if you print the expiry date on the ticket? I am not saying it's not my responsibility to remember. My strong preference would be auto renewal of my railcard, paid by annual direct debit but as far as I can see we are still in the position of having to manually renew each year.

Even if you set up auto renew, then how does the system know you haven't discontinued your payment card, or changed bank. It doesn't

Unless you prepay at time of buying ticket, there is no guarantee a railcard will auto renew, even if a flag is set up to say it would.

But there are going to be many like me, occasionally do longer journeys, buy advance tickets 2-3 months in advance, but if railcard expires, not renew it until just before it is next needed, as only make journeys every few weeks. My senior card runs out this month, but going on holiday early April (not using train) so why would I renew it, before I need it (I have tickets for journeys in May already).

 

[Haywain]

I expressed surprise on the first time I saw a guard scan it and he showed me what it did.

I was astonished when I saw a guard scan a Rail Staff Leisure Pass a few weeks ago. I guess it simply confirmed it was valid, but it wasn't my pass so I didn't feel it was appropriate to ask.

 

[Egg Centric]

So given that tickets are generally (with odd exceptions like the Cally) sold no more than 3 months in advance, and given that one becomes eligible for a Senior Railcard only once in one's lifetime, that's an extra £7.50 £8.75 sorry, they've gone up, any person who maintains an eligible Railcard valid at all times* is going to pay in their entire life (for 3 months of Senior validity) to comply with this policy?

That's true, but not everyone will maintain it at all times, so the cost will be more than £8.75. I can sometimes go 2 or 3 months without using my two together railcard, and I'm sure that's the case for many others. So worst case scenario in a ten year period where I may buy 7 railcards, I may now have to buy 10. Obviously not the end of the world but not a completely immaterial sum of money either, you can do a lot of things with £100 still.

 

[mmh]

Transport for Wales guards get a commission for scanned tickets - it's exceptionally rare to go more than a few stops without seeing a ticket check happen. I don't know if other TOCs also incentivise scanning.

 

[Class73Electro]

Transport for Wales guards get a commission for scanned tickets - it's exceptionally rare to go more than a few stops without seeing a ticket check happen. I don't know if other TOCs also incentivise scanning.

Very hit and miss in my experience. I have had a lot of trips (with multiple train journeys) with nothing, sometimes no sign of the guard. A lot of the time they don't always want to see my Railcard either

 

[edwin_m]

That [only allowing download with proof of railcard] sounds wildly customer unfriendly. "Give us money but in order to use the service you also have to give us even more money, and also your ticket is nonrefundable"

It is unfortunate to lose booking in advance, but it almost certainly will reduce fraud and protect innocent customers from letting their railcards expire.

I think it's preferable to forcing someone to buy a railcard weeks or months before they need it, just to be able to get a cheap Advance. If someone has a Railcard at time of purchase that is valid for the travel date then they could still validate it then and download immediately.

 

[styles]

I bought a bunch of railcard discounted tickets last year when I didn't have a railcard - I bought the tickets months in advance so didn't bother buying a railcard until the day before travelling, rather than waste nearly 3 months validity.

Will "advance railcards" be available online? Would any checking system (if one actually materialises - it feels unlikely to me) accept a railcard that isn't yet valid?

Railway ticketing is a complete shambles and as we all know attempts to "simplify" it or make it "fairer" are inevitably a shambles on top of the shambles and have the opposite effect.

This is going to be my bug bear if it's rolled out as you describe.

The best value fares are bought close to 12 weeks in advance on a lot of services, yet doing so when you don't need a railcard until the day of travel means losing 25% of your railcard validity.

This won't make things simpler, but it will make things more expensive.

 

[The exile]

You underestimate the role of friction in deterring custom - @8ace demonstrates this.

Railcards are a marketing tool - the focus here is back to fromt

In many ways it’s worse than merely back to front. The “negative vibe” caused by “I’ve got to pay for three months of a railcard I neither need nor want” is far more costly to the railway than that £8.75. Similarly - cutting rail fares by 25% and abolishing railcards would of course give a massive one-off publicity boost - but lose the psychological feeling of “getting a bargain” (even if that word applied to rail fares might leave a nasty taste in the mouth at the moment) That the railcard gives.
For online sales I would suggest that the “verification check” need be no more than entering the expiry date against the relevant railcard. It’s not going to stop deliberate fraud, but provides a “stop and think” moment. Having two overlapping age-cards (16-17 and 16-25) should be reviewed at the very least.

 

[Peter0124]

It would be amazing to prove railcards when buying, rather than showing on the train.

 

[AlterEgo]

It would be amazing to prove railcards when buying, rather than showing on the train.

This is how most subscriptions work, and all that needs to happen is to tie the ticket to a passenger name and have them show ID or a rail photocard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would be amazing to prove railcards when buying, rather than showing on the train.

It would be both, because otherwise you could buy tickets for other people using them. You could have it so it only has to be in date at purchase, not use, but I don't think that's proposed here.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2026 ==

all that needs to happen is to tie the ticket to a passenger name and have them show ID or a rail photocard.

You could even call that photo card a Railcard.



In all seriousness, the concept only works properly in countries with compulsory ID cards.

 

[AlterEgo]

You could even call that photo card a Railcard.



In all seriousness, the concept only works properly in countries with compulsory ID cards.

No it doesn't. Passenger specific tickets can be found in numerous places in the developed world.