London Travelcard Advice Please

[46026]

Good morning to you all, yesterday at a GWR ticket office I wanted to purchase 3 off-peak zones 1-6 London travelcards for a trip on Monday (tomorrow). He told me I could get a group save discount as 3 of us travelling, I told him I never knew you could get this on a travelcard, he told me its available, he sold them to me, just as I got outside I noticed on the top it says group 10+, I went back in to the same person and told him of my concerns of the wording 10+, he told me it still covers 3 people and I would be ok. I've had a day thinking of it and am a little worried that when we get to Paddington tomorrow and go down to the Elizabeth Line it will become a problem.
Can someone please advise if these tickets are correct or not, many thanks. Picture of tickets attached.

 

[CyrusWuff]

In-boundary Travelcards (i.e. those that don't have any validity outside Zones 1-9) don't attract a GroupSave discount.

What you've been sold, as printed on them, is a Travelcard for groups of 10 or more. They'll work gates exactly the same as normal Travelcards. It's only likely to be an issue if there's a manual ticket inspection.

 

[CarrotPie]

The Groupsave Terms & Conditions state (my bold):

1. A Group of three to nine customers travelling together may be eligible for the GroupSave discount on selected journeys on National Rail
2. The GroupSave discount is 1/3 off the price of Adult single or return Tickets, and London Travelcards with an origin station outside of the London Zonal Area.

8. Only Tickets with a ‘cross-London’ marker (†), or a London Travelcard from outside the London Zonal Area, may be used on London Underground and DLR services

Edit: I've been beaten to it...again

 

[46026]

Thank you so much for the replies, my suspicions were right, I will try and get them changed today or buy new ones in the morning and sort these out on Tuesday.

 

[talldave]

Why not buy outboundary Travelcards from, say, Potters Bar in order to get the Groupsave discount - £37.65 for 3 people.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Why not buy outboundary Travelcards from, say, Potters Bar in order to get the Groupsave discount - £37.65 for 3 people.

BRFares suggests GroupSave is available with Travelcards from Amersham, which would be £35.40 for three.

 

[46026]

Good ideas, many thanks.

 

[JonathanH]

An off-peak 1-6 day travelcard is £16.60. £11 is a standard 33% off. Valid from 0930.

An anytime day 1-6 travelcard is £23.60.

 

[redreni]

Seeing as you've posted online in such a way as to create a paper trail proving you're aware these tickets are not valid for a group of 3, I concur you should try to get them changed for three outboundary Travelcards from somewhere like Amersham or Brentwood, with a GroupSave discount.

Were it not for the existence of this thread I would say the tickets you have been sold must be valid. If a ticket office sells a ticket, it has to be valid. There might be route or time restrictions on when it is valid, and you might have to carry another ticket or Railcard to make it valid (which the ticket office should have checked at time of purchase), but I struggle to see, contractually, how a set of tickets could be flat-out invalid and totally useless if an accredited retailer such as a ticket office sold it to you.

Not much difference in price anyway - just the extra cost of a bit of unwanted validity outside Z1-6 in order to trigger the entitlement to the GroupSave discount.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Were it not for the existence of this thread I would say the tickets you have been sold must be valid. If a ticket office sells a ticket, it has to be valid. There might be route or time restrictions on when it is valid, and you might have to carry another ticket or Railcard to make it valid (which the ticket office should have checked at time of purchase), but I struggle to see, contractually, how a set of tickets could be flat-out invalid and totally useless if an accredited retailer such as a ticket office sold it to you.

If it wasn't for the fact that the tickets have "Off-Peak Day Travelcard Group 10+" printed at the top, there'd be a stronger argument to say they should be treated as valid.

It's an obvious issuing error, however, which ideally should have been queried at the point of purchase. (It being easier to correct such mistakes at that point, given they can just be non-issued rather than having to go through the full refund process.)

 

[Peter Mugridge]

It's an obvious issuing error, however, which ideally should have been queried at the point of purchase. (It being easier to correct such mistakes at that point, given they can just be non-issued rather than having to go through the full refund process.)

The OP says he did query it and the clerk insisted it was correct and valid!

 

[redreni]

If it wasn't for the fact that the tickets have "Off-Peak Day Travelcard Group 10+" printed at the top, there'd be a stronger argument to say they should be treated as valid.

It's an obvious issuing error, however, which ideally should have been queried at the point of purchase. (It being easier to correct such mistakes at that point, given they can just be non-issued rather than having to go through the full refund process.)

By whom? The trained railway staff or the untrained customer?

You and I know that 10+ refers to the group size. The customer is neither required to notice that the ticket says that, nor know what it refers to.

 

[fandroid]

An off-peak 1-6 day travelcard is £16.60. £11 is a standard 33% off. Valid from 0930.

An anytime day 1-6 travelcard is £23.60.

What equivalent ticket costs £37.20?

Apologies. I was effectively combining 2 threads in my head where a previous poster was enquiring about tickets from Reading.

I'll delete my misleading piece of nonsense

 

[boiledbeans2]

This is the first I've seen a Travelcard with an Aztec code. Can you scan the Aztec code at the ticket barrier instead of inserting into the barrier?

 

[redreni]

This is the first I've seen a Travelcard with an Aztec code. Can you scan the Aztec code at the ticket barrier instead of inserting into the barrier?

Definitely not at London Underground or Elizabeth Line stations, no; as the barriers have no barcode readers. Nor do London Buses. Some National Rail barriers might or might not be able to scan them, I'm not sure.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I think they are the wrong type of barcode to be scanned successfully. Type 11 instead of type 6 if memory serves

 

[MrJeeves]

TTK (the on-board inspection app used by many TOCs) will scan the barcodes, but the barcode type is marked as no longer accredited and isn't to be used in the future. I don't think they scan on other inspection devices, but I'm happy to be corrected.

These barcodes have never worked on a gateline as there is simply not enough room to include data to act as a security element to the barcode. For CCSTs, the paper stock acts as the security element, so allowing the barcode to be scanned could allow anyone to just create a barcode on their phone and scan it without the paper stock security aspect.

The barcode is not used by most TOCs. GWR will still print it, and I think Avanti might at ticket offices too? I don't know if LNER still do, but I think they did in the past.

 

[jon81uk]

By whom? The trained railway staff or the untrained customer?

The OP stated the same person they bought the tickets from also told them it is valid, see bolded sections of their original post, the OP raised the concerns and a member of railway staff stated they would be OK.

I told him I never knew you could get this on a travelcard, he told me its available, he sold them to me, just as I got outside I noticed on the top it says group 10+, I went back in to the same person and told him of my concerns of the wording 10+, he told me it still covers 3 people and I would be ok.

 

[Wallsendmag]

TTK (the on-board inspection app used by many TOCs) will scan the barcodes, but the barcode type is marked as no longer accredited and isn't to be used in the future. I don't think they scan on other inspection devices, but I'm happy to be corrected.

These barcodes have never worked on a gateline as there is simply not enough room to include data to act as a security element to the barcode. For CCSTs, the paper stock acts as the security element, so allowing the barcode to be scanned could allow anyone to just create a barcode on their phone and scan it without the paper stock security aspect.

The barcode is not used by most TOCs. GWR will still print it, and I think Avanti might at ticket offices too? I don't know if LNER still do, but I think they did in the past.

No LNER stopped about 5 years back although posted CCST still include it ( LNER posts printed eTickets where available)

 

[46026]

Just to update, I went back to the ticket office, it was a different person and after my query she confirmed tickets sold are for a group of 10+, I told her the name of her colleague who sold them to me and told me he was correct in saying they were valid for 3 people, she replied saying he is fairly new and obviouslygot it wrong. I was refunded and then sold the correct tickets.
The reason I did not buy an outside boundary with the travelcard was because a friend purchased tickets about 6 weeks ago for our trip.
Thank you for the advice.