Gold Card Upgrade

[TonyR]

I have a Gold Card and travelled for years using the £5 First Class upgrade issued by SWT with minimal trouble getting the upgrade at the start, or if the office was closed, on the train. However I am now travelling a lot on FCC and most of their ticket office staff don't have a clue how to issue one (and therefore can't) and they have removed the option to issue one from the portable ticket machines carried by staff on the trains. If I leave from an unmanned station I can't buy one on the train period.

So can I sit in First Class without an upgrade supplement ticket or do I have to forego a benefit of the Gold Card because of FCC's system limitations? I am getting tired of arguments in front of other passengers with ticket inspectors who think I shouldn't be sat there but cannot accept the £5 I am willing to pay because they cannot issue the supplement ticket. And I have given up asking at the ticket office because I know I will usually be standing there for 5 or 10 minutes while they fiddle around and then conclude they don't know how to issue one.

 

[alastair]

I do so agree with you,I had an "IOW" Gold Card for many years but eventually swapped it for a normal Network railcard mainly because my travelling patterns had changed,but the total ignorance of many staff as to the £5 upgrade became annoying. Even on SWT many confused it with the SWT weekend upgrade which can only be bought onboard. On one occasion at Reading 2 different staff at the ticket office denied its existence. Shame,as travelling FC on an HST up to Worcester with free snacks was a cracking bargain!

I think the Gold Card benefits and the whole Network Card thing are products which only exist as a hangover from Network SE days and I am sure many TOC's would love to ditch them but dare not for fear of bad publicity. With the £5 upgrade presumably they are hoping it will quietly fade away,which it probably will if no-one knows how to sell it!

It would be great if some of the railway staff who post here could say where the instructions for issue of £5 upgrades are and why so many seem to know nothing of them.

 

[island]

The ticket is located in the supplements screen on most TISs (don't know about Tribute though). It is, as you say, unable to be sold from Avantix Mobile. The Manual says someone wanting the upgrade should be sold a change of ticket type excess with a price override to £5, which should then be endorsed by hand "1st class upgrade".

I am not sure which ticket inspectors you have been seeing regularly on FCC as its trains do not have guards.

 

[Be3G]

Generally speaking we've not had any trouble getting hold of the gold card 1st upgrade. I recall a SWT train guard was going to sell us their weekend first ticket, but we asked for the gold card one instead – he replied that it'd be the same price anyway, I pointed out that the advantage of the gold card one is its all-day validity, he said “quite right” and happily issued the ticket. I don't recall him hand-writing anything on it though.

The only ‘problem’ we've had was trying to buy one from (I think) one of the Canterbury stations; the clerk vaguely knew what we were talking about but wasn't quite sure how to issue it or what the price was. He didn't fob us off though; he found a copy of the manual though and sorted us out within a few minutes.

Either way, it's definitely a very handy perk of being an annual season ticket holder!

 

[Tibbs]

Though coming back to the original question, given that the Gold Card Upgrade is indisputably in existance for off peak & Weekend travel, I guess the non-confrontational way of dealing with this would be to buy the new ticket and then claim it back, and the more risky (from a confrontation point of view) version would be to refuse a new ticket, and challenge any forthcoming penalty charge / out of court settlement offer / threat of court proceedings?

 

[barrykas]

The ticket is located in the supplements screen on most TISs (don't know about Tribute though). It is, as you say, unable to be sold from Avantix Mobile. The Manual says someone wanting the upgrade should be sold a change of ticket type excess with a price override to £5, which should then be endorsed by hand "1st class upgrade".

It always used to be available through the Supplements screen on Avantix as well. Supplement types of NFA for the Adult one and NFC for Child, and having just checked with one of our Revenue team it's still showing on their Avantix machines at present.

Logically, however, even if it wasn't still there, I would've thought the obvious excess type would be a Change of Class?

 

[TonyR]

It always used to be available through the Supplements screen on Avantix as well. Supplement types of NFA for the Adult one and NFC for Child, and having just checked with one of our Revenue team it's still showing on their Avantix machines at present.

Logically, however, even if it wasn't still there, I would've thought the obvious excess type would be a Change of Class?

It used to be available on Avantix and I used to tell the ticket inspectors to use the Supplements-NFA code having got one to explain what to ask for to avoid the troubles but on FCC at least it has definitely been removed and FCC have confirmed it has.

Generally speaking we've not had any trouble getting hold of the gold card 1st upgrade. I recall a SWT train guard was going to sell us their weekend first ticket, but we asked for the gold card one instead – he replied that it'd be the same price anyway, I pointed out that the advantage of the gold card one is its all-day validity, he said “quite right” and happily issued the ticket. I don't recall him hand-writing anything on it though.

The only ‘problem’ we've had was trying to buy one from (I think) one of the Canterbury stations; the clerk vaguely knew what we were talking about but wasn't quite sure how to issue it or what the price was. He didn't fob us off though; he found a copy of the manual though and sorted us out within a few minutes.

Either way, it's definitely a very handy perk of being an annual season ticket holder!

Generally I've not had a problem with SWT either. Only with FCC.

I am not sure which ticket inspectors you have been seeing regularly on FCC as its trains do not have guards.

I think they're called Revenue Protection Officers on FCC. BICBW.