Railcard & Contactless anomalies

[OscarH]

Is this allowed??

The ticket office and gateline at Paddington are a law unto their own. I don't think they care if it's allowed

 

[Watershed]

I was at Paddington before 19:00 and wanted to buy my ticket straight away but the ticket machines weren’t selling off-peak tickets from Eynsford yet

As mentioned by others, there are a number of workarounds for this. One being to use the 'tickets for future travel' button, another being to buy it online and collect it at a TVM (entering a later departure time if necessary). There are even some websites, such as GTR/SE, that will let you buy a 'favourite' or recently purchased ticket without needing to select a journey at all.

, so I went to the staffed ticket office.

The agent refused to sell me a single from Eynsford to Reading for today because “people are abusing the system”

It is not 'abusing' the system to buy a ticket and use it in a valid way (e.g. 'starting late' on a ticket that permits break of journey). You should raise a complaint about this to GWR; their ticket office staff have no business refusing the sale of such a ticket.

It should be noted I didn’t elaborate why I wanted it from Eynsford, and when I said what the price of the ticket should be he confirmed it was the single price, so he himself was the one not selling it to me, not his sales terminal.

Yes, there is no question he would have been able to sell it. He just chose to impose his own opinions into the purchasing process, thereby further hastening the demise of ticket offices!

Well Mr GWR I’m afraid you’re the ones abusing us with your outrageous nonsensical fares for singles!

They're fairly pointless compared to buying a return, but I don't think it's far to say they're outrageous; they have been priced that way going back long before privatisation. Single leg pricing is a relatively modern concept in Britain and still only applies to a small percentage of flows overall.

Anyway I waited a few minutes and at 19:01 (ticket machine local time and actual time) the off-peak fare option finally showed up on the automated ticket machines and I bought it. It was accepted no issues at the automated barrier gates at the platform and I boarded. A few minutes later the train departed. I would have preferred getting my ticket earlier to have more time finding a seat, but unfortunately ticket desk staff believe they are bouncers . Maybe if I had insisted he would have sold me it, but I didn't push it.

Unfortunately this isn't the first time we have heard of GWR staff at Paddington making up their own rules. Both the gateline and ticket office staff seem to have form for it, and the supervisors often back them up rather than checking to see what the rules are.

Unfortunately there was no ticket inspector aboard to verify further, but by that fact my ticket was accepted by the barrier gates and I believe I am respecting the ticket restrictions, it appears this works. Saved me £2.90, but this saving is still £1.65 short what I'd save if TfL bothered to apply railcard discounts to contactless!

Railcard discounts have never been offered on contactless. I agree it's frustrating (indeed many of my regular journeys would be cheaper), but I don't think you can compare anything to the notional cost of a discounted fare that has never eixsted.

I was told

for my cases (my journeys are usually less than an hour)

for a journey which involves multiple changes despite being geographically close

(I had used an example of two stations in an area with multiple lines, but the point was that off-peak singles are only negligibly cheaper than off-peak returns, which is the also case Waterloo to Portsmouth on-the-day super off-peak tickets £41.80 vs £42.80. But this tells me there are indeed sometimes no regulated fares)

You can see the full list of regulated fares here, released under a Freedom of Information request.

 

[unsatisfied]

Late yesterday evening, I tried to buy a Reading to Eynsford ticket from a TVM, but only an Anytime Day Single ticket was available. I thought it may be because it was late evening so there were no more onward service, but this wasn't the case according to the GWR journey planner.

I also checked available future tickets for Sunday at 10:00 on the TVM and there was still no off-peak single. On the National Rail journey planner and GWR app an Off-Peak Day Single was available for the both journeys.

Unfortunately I was unable to buy my ticket through the GWR app because the Mobile e-Ticket and Load to Smartcard options were unavailable. I understand why Mobile e-tickets wouldn't be offered as the journey to Eynsford travels across London using the tube, but why not the Smartcard? The only option available was collecting the ticket at the station, but by this time it was only a few minutes before the train was scheduled to depart and the GWR app refused to let me buy it, saying "No delivery options available. There are no delivery options available for your chosen ticket. Error code: DELIVERY_001". Being short on time I only later noticed that the collection from station option was available for later trains, so it must have been a minimum collection time requirement. The error message gave me no indication I could have bought a later ticket. Anyway I would have probably missed my train if I had collected it from the TVM in the time remaining due to the time I previously spent unfruitfully working the app and TVM. I used contactless instead.

So there goes £2.90! I have taken photos as evidence, but I will not dispute or officially report this as I think it is more likely for this 'anomaly' to be patched than the TVMs! The TVM should have shown me the Off-Peak Day Single fare. It is a shame I need to go via the app to buy and collect a valid ticket as this takes more time and I need a charged device with me.

A while ago I noticed on Sundays the TVMs at Reading did NOT show the cheapest fare on the Popular Destinations screen. It was showing off-peak tickets and when you clicked on the destination that's what you were asked to pay for, but if you manually entered the destination you were presented a cheaper Sunday fare. Maybe things have changed since, but it just goes to prove that TVMs were never perfect!

Unrelated, what would happen if I tried to buy a ticket late in the evening when there are trains running between Reading and Paddington, but by the time I get to Paddington there are no more onwards service to continue to Eynsford. Would the app (or the TVM if it worked) refuse to sell me a Reading to Eynsford ticket, instead making me buy a ticket (or use contactless) from Reading to Paddington?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2025 ==

You should raise a complaint about this to GWR; their ticket office staff have no business refusing the sale of such a ticket.

Similarly to the TVM issue I have now posted above, I think leaving Eynsford-related issues under wraps is best to avoid prompting financially disadvantageous changes. If in your experience this isn't the approach train operators take, please tell me so and I might share a ticketing tip (not contactless this time) I have discovered on a different route. I am only new here and don't know how best to deal with such fare tips.

 

[bakerstreet]

Similarly to the TVM issue I have now posted above, I think leaving Eynsford-related issues under wraps is best to avoid prompting financially disadvantageous changes. If in your experience this isn't the approach train operators take, please tell me so and I might share a ticketing tip (not contactless this time) I have discovered on a different route. I am only new here and don't know how best to deal with such fare tips.

I would either offer to provide this information via direct message to members you trust, or by attending a fares workshop (@yorkie can probably provide more info re these) and share it that way.
You may know that the risk of publishing useful tickets here is that the TOCs will also see and may act to end that usefulness.

 

[Hadders]

The forum runs regular forum meals and events such as walks all over the country where these sort of things are best discussed. Do keep an eye out in the Forum Events section of the forum and feel free to sign upo attend an event that is convenient for you.

 

[unsatisfied]

In relation with what appears to be increasing National Rail fares to match increased TfL contactless fares (gwr-fare-increases.287542/page-2#post-7324062). Unfortunately TfL contactless to National Rail adjustments seem only to happen when it's favourable to the TOC, GWR still haven't introduced an off-peak fare for single travel between Paddington and various Elizabeth line stations before Reading, happily charging in the region of 75% more. If you travel peak times in both directions Slough to Paddington, it's still cheaper to buy a National Rail ticket (but if one leg is off-peak contactless becomes cheaper!) so as usual any 'simplification' is half-hearted, isn't thorough, only partially removes complexity, and increases fares. I doubt this more favourable National Rail price is a product of generosity, most likely they haven't yet petitioned to increase this regulated Anytime Day Return fare.