Can't TfL POMs (Passenger Operated Machines-TfL speak for ticket machine) read (but not update) ITSO?
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Gold Record Card not received (LNER online)
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I believe (some) outboundary travelcards can be loaded to smartcard but not tickets with cross London validity. Because the TfL gates are too dumb to work out which gates the cross London tickets should open whereas travelcards are easy (all of them within the appropriate zones).
Gareth1990
Member
So you’re saying that Railcard holders will have to use a ticket office in future, no online or ticket machine sales? Ridiculous…
Or you could put a Railcard number? Like it works in Austria, France...?
This is the easiest way they have to curb railcard abuse, the issue obviously is that it would basically ring the end of transferrable tickets (but not fully, you could in theory set a railcard number then change it before travel), which would be very sad :/
Wallsendmag
Established Member
No that's not what I'm saying at all.
Well it will cause some issues. Like if I'm buying tickets for my family in one transaction so we can sit together, there's a two together railcard for my wife and I, 16-25 railcards for two young adults and a 26-30 railcard for the third.
Then there's how to buy an advance ticket before having the railcard and buying tickets for a period between outward and return where the railcard will expire in the middle. Will these not uncommon scenarios be catered for or is it just tough luck?
When I turned 60 I booked a trip to celebrate a couple of months beforehand. I couldn't have the railcard that early but if I waited the price would have been prohibitive.
France and Austria both allow railcards to defer start up to 3 months after purchase and the number is fully valid for bookings on or after the date.
If you are booking for other people more than once, you would save their railcard's number in your account at your retailer
No clue on this one however
That isn't the plan over here. Despite these issues being pointed out several times, the people imposing the change don't seem to grasp that it's something which needs sorting.
Though the current plan has a very easy workaround for people in the know, which I'm sure other people will figure out quite quickly.
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Getting back to Gold Cards.....
Having held a Hatton to Lapworth Gold Card for around 10 years my view is that it better issued as CCST issued at a station. That way you can check you're getting what you want and go elsewhere if there's a problem. If it season ticket is issued on a smartcard you end up having to carry:
Photocard
Smartcard holding the season ticket
Gold Record Card
in addition to my Oyster card plus KeyGo card.
Smartcards do work well for season tickets but when a season ticket is a defacto railcard it’s less clear. Maybe season tickets on phone apps are the way forward but I'm not sure we're there with that one yet. I'm also aware that some TOCs only issue season tickets to smartcards anyway.
First world problem, to be fair…
Having held a Hatton to Lapworth Gold Card for around 10 years my view is that it better issued as CCST issued at a station. That way you can check you're getting what you want and go elsewhere if there's a problem. If it season ticket is issued on a smartcard you end up having to carry:
Photocard
Smartcard holding the season ticket
Gold Record Card
in addition to my Oyster card plus KeyGo card.
Smartcards do work well for season tickets but when a season ticket is a defacto railcard it’s less clear. Maybe season tickets on phone apps are the way forward but I'm not sure we're there with that one yet. I'm also aware that some TOCs only issue season tickets to smartcards anyway.
First world problem, to be fair…
When I had a Gold Record Card, I simply travelled with only the record card when I needed its discount. Nothing said I also had to have the season ticket with me, provided I wasn't trying to actually use that ticket's validity for my journey.
The terms state...
...which seems quite clear to me
GTR also didn't require a photocard when using a smartcard, as the smartcard already had your name printed on it and they deemed that sufficient. I think this is the case for most TOCs (provided you have some kind of other ID), and the only exception to this I could find was for EMR.
Photocards with smartcard seasons seems incredibly stupid, given there is no record of a photocard number on either the smartcard or the record card. If you wanted to abuse such a season, you would just get multiple photocards with the same name and a different photo, surely?!
In any case, at least in my ticket wallet, I could put the Smartcard and Gold Record Card on top of each other in one section to avoid it being too inconvenient to carry both.
I seem to remember a thread from a couple of years ago about whether it was a requirement to carry the smartcard with the actual ticket as well as the Gold Record Card.
I was using a LNER smartcard which didn't have my name on it, hence the need to carry a photocard.
There's a story as to why I ended up with my Hatton to Lapworth season on a smartcard. I always used the (much missed) LNER Travel Centre at Stevenage to buy my Gold Card (never any issues getting it issued there - the staff were excellent). Sadly I had my ticket wallet stolen on the Paris Metro so when I got home I needed to sort out a replacement.
Unfortunately in the meantime the Travel Centre at Stevenage had closed down so I ended up at Kings Cross who initially wanted nothing to with it, saying it could only be done at Stevenage because my details wouldn't be in their system. A bit of a stand off ensued with me asking how it could be done at Stevenage as the LNER travel centre no longer existed. Eventually the member of staff relented and much to their surprise discovered that my details were on their system after all! The replacement season could only be fulfilled to a smartcard asLNER had stopped issuing seasons on CCST by then (that said, if it was still open, I suspect Nigel at the Stevenage Travel Centre would've found a 'workaround' to issue it to CCST
)The following year I got the GTR ticket office to sell me it on CCST!
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Haywain
Veteran Member
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They hadn't but a smartcard season would only be 'replaced' (a duplicate issued) to another smartcard.
Such 'workarounds' could cause immense amounts of trouble for other members of staff when a problem arose as a result.
I think the issue was that it was a CCST season (which was totally legit when purchased - no workarounds) but when it needed replacing it was smartcard fulfilment only, but the system wouldn't play ball. Several staff had a look and phone calls were made and eventually some sort of workaround was worked out.
Ironically, when I had my smartcard season reissued by GTR (for some reason, they thought this would fix it not working on a gateline?!) they could only reissue it to CCST and not back onto my smartcard.
They helpfully told me this after they had already reissued it, when I was just going along with it to see what they'd say when it didn't work!
Haywain
Veteran Member
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Given the approach taken by GTR to smartcard tickets, I couldn't comment. Other than to say that they were the root cause of my retirement from LNER.
This is exactly my experience ... one TOC-neutral smartcard to carry them all would seem like the natural solution for travellers (and probably better than on a phone app if tapping: I'd like to know I'm not using contactless credit card).
Although I managed to find another cost to the paper CCST recently as I stuffed it in my wallet to keep safe and then managed to lose my press card as it stuck to the ticket and fell out when getting the ticket in and out of my wallet to get through a barrier.
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A week on from activating the season ticket (and three weeks from buying it) and this hasn't arrived. I thought I'd done all I could and have emailed LNER again. Is there any way to find out if sent? Any expectations on backlog? I lost out on a discount already which is disappointing!
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It's a breach of contract to fail to send it, so I'd keep a record of the journeys where you've lost out on the discount (including receipts, booking confirmations and tickets) nd ask LNER to reimburse you for those journeys once you receive your Gold Record Card. They don't really have a defence against it; that's not to say they definitely won't reimburse you but they might try and wriggle out of it. Don't let them!
Thanks. It's only £15 at the moment so I am relaxed if they send me a goodwill voucher or something. I'm not after a fight with a TOC to be honest - I know they are trying their best in a complex system. But I'd just like to get it resolved!
I don't think they are trying their best at all, this is very simple stuff which has nothing to do with the complexity of the fares system. As far as I see it, there is no excuse for getting it wrong - especially after another similar case was escalated all the way to David Horne if I remember correctly. It seems that they have either done nothing to fix the fundamental problems with their Gold Record Card issuing processes, or any steps they have taken are inadequate.