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Lad sat a couple of seats in front of me the other morning who had bought a child ticket online. He hadnt even activated it & seemed to be playing stupid when approached. The guard asked why when he is obviously older than 15 hed done it. He said he didnt know & appeared to get upset when the guard told him it was fraud. He made him buy another full price adult ticket & said your stupidity has just wasted that £4 you've originaly spent & could have ended a police matter.
What would booking office staff say if I (very obviously middle aged) asked to buy a child ticket (only)? Would it make a difference if advance purchase or fir potential immediate use. It’s something I am presumably entitled to buy but clearly not entitled to travel on.
Has anybody here tried writing directly to those who administer the railcard schemes and their T&Cs to get them to ban ticket office staff from being able to ask to see the railcard when a purchase is made?
While that policy is in place there's not much to be gained in criticising those who are acting in accordance with the rules.
You make a valid point, however there are 450 posts in this thread as I write, and I've only just seen it. It's interesting and I could say much from personal experience as a passenger, but if it takes, say, 15 seconds to read a comment (on average, some are much longer than others), that's getting on for 2 hours of solid reading, without going back to check you've understood it all properly, plus remembering everything that's been said, and before answering your partner's requests to do things, children etc etc. Many people on these threads have other things in their lives going on around them. Just saying!
If you want to comment and don't get chance to study the whole thread, just offer an apology that you may have missed something that's already been said.
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Lad sat a couple of seats in front of me the other morning who had bought a child ticket online. He hadnt even activated it & seemed to be playing stupid when approached. The guard asked why when he is obviously older than 15 hed done it. He said he didnt know & appeared to get upset when the guard told him it was fraud. He made him buy another full price adult ticket & said your stupidity has just wasted that £4 you've originaly spent & could have ended a police matter.
Yes, maybe funny, and maybe "we all" used to, but now that most people on these threads are seeing the problems it causes from the other side, how much is funny, and how much might we want to change people's behaviour?
On second thoughts maybe don't answer, there will NEVER be agreement on this . What might be concerning though, is how readily bare-faced lies come to our youngsters. Is this the same in Japan (for example) I wonder?
And I DON'T like buying on-line, but prefer to buy from a human being at my local ticket office, and will continue to do so as long as possible, and will encourage others to do the same.
And yes they do ask, politely, to see my Card.
If you are happy to go through that faff that is your choice but an increasing proportion of people are abandoning ticket offices. This thread (along with another in the fares section) gives some of the many reasons why your view is that of an ever decreasing minority
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What would booking office staff say if I (very obviously middle aged) asked to buy a child ticket (only)? Would it make a difference if advance purchase or fir potential immediate use. It’s something I am presumably entitled to buy but clearly not entitled to travel on.
It's a complete lottery. If any of them would like to answer this, I would be interested to hear the answer (and no, before anyone accuses me, that is not a "demand"!) but equally someone else in the job would come up with a different answer
The best approach if buying a ticket for a child is to avoid a potential argument at the ticket office; buy the child ticket online, obtain an e-ticket and that way the child can be given a physical copy and also have an electronic copy in case they lose it.
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Lad sat a couple of seats in front of me the other morning who had bought a child ticket online. He hadnt even activated it & seemed to be playing stupid when approached. The guard asked why when he is obviously older than 15 hed done it. He said he didnt know & appeared to get upset when the guard told him it was fraud. He made him buy another full price adult ticket & said your stupidity has just wasted that £4 you've originaly spent & could have ended a police matter.
Tickets that require activation are old hat and are being phased out; this technology causes problems and is best avoided. E-tickets don't have that problem. People lying about their age is nothing new. I've seen people blatantly over 15 be sold such tickets in person anyway.
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I have now changed my opinion ! Given that Railcard-discounted tickets can be bought online or from a machine without having the Railcard present, or even possessed at all, it does not make much sense refusing to sell tickets from a booking office without seeing it; Perhaps that is just a hangover from the days when most, if not all, tickets were bought that way ? I would suggest that when buying such tickets a clear instruction that the Railcard must be carried and shown when travelling would suffice, this could be a highlighted message online or at a machine, and/or a printed card issued along with the ticket.
Tickets that require activation are old hat and are being phased out; this technology causes problems and is best avoided. E-tickets don't have that problem. People lying about their age is nothing new. I've seen people blatantly over 15 be sold such tickets in person anyway.
Me too. I think it must be about how the U.K. railway bends over backwards to accommodate all kinds of customers. It provides ticket offices for those who don’t like technology and a range of online booking options for those who hate ticket offices.
. What might be concerning though, is how readily bare-faced lies come to our youngsters. Is this the same in Japan (for example) I wonder?
