That sounds reasonable when put like that but I cannot see how it is actually correct.
Let's look at the plausible scenarios:
If I renew my railcard I pay £30 and continue to pay discounted fares.
If I forget to renew my railcard I'll pay discounted fares but have possibly saved myself £30*.
If I decide to chance not renewing it and pay discounted fares in the hope I get away with it, I've saved £30.
In what scenario would I decide to not renew and then make 10 journeys at un-discounted fares?
I clearly know about railcards because I had one before and we're considering the situation where I still qualify for it.
It's not likely I would keep paying full fare so the railway would almost certainly never have had the money in the first place and therefore can't have lost it.
Putting it another way, the difference between discounted and full fares is only due because of the act of non renewal. So how can this act have caused the loss of this amount of money?
And even if that was the actual loss, how on earth could the loss then also include the £30 railcard fee not paid?
Yes I absolutely agree that the railway is within its rights to demand the difference in fares - railcard discounts aren't retrospective. And there's good arguments for an admin fee. But justifying charging far more on top of that on the grounds that the passenger has caused the railway to lose considerable sums of money defies all logic to me.
* Of course if I have a 16-23 or 24-30 railcard and do the sensible thing of renewing at the last moment, my months of not having a railcard may have saved me nothing.
I can see that if you genuinely believe that the railway is losing money each time someone uses an expired railcard then the reasoning above would make sense.
