Buying a season ticket online: which company?

[rsherhod]

Hi,

I'm going to be starting a new job in London in a couple of weeks and I plan to buy a month's season ticket in the next day or two. I was wondering which TOC I should actually by it from though.

I'm going to be travelling between Cambridge North and Kings Cross, so I'll almost always be on Great Northern or Thameslink trains. I was thinking they'd probably be the best bet, since I'm guessing I'd have to make any claims for delay compensation from them. Or is that a false assumption? Do I have to make claims through the company I bought the ticket from, or the one whose train it was? I've seen conflicting information.

My local stations, Cambridge and Cambridge North, are both Greater Anglia, so maybe they'd be the company to buy from. Am I right that if the season ticket stops working, I can get it reprinted at Cambridge even if I buy it from GTR? What about if it gets lost or stolen?

Finally, I'm aware that smart tickets are currently no good for my journey, since GTR smartcards won't work at GA stations and vice versa. Does anyone have any idea when that's getting sorted? I plan to move to an annual season ticket at some point, and I hate having to look after paper tickets.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I was thinking they'd probably be the best bet, since I'm guessing I'd have to make any claims for delay compensation from them. Or is that a false assumption? Do I have to make claims through the company I bought the ticket from, or the one whose train it was? I've seen conflicting information.

I suspect the conflicting information is due to the fact that many people (including many official TOC statements) conflate the separate concepts of a refund, and of compensation.

If you decide you no longer want to use a ticket which you have already bought, you can apply for a refund in most circumstances, though an administration fee of £10 will usually be charged unless you are cancelling due to predicted or actual disruption to your journey. Refunds should always be sought through the retailer who sold you your ticket - they will then pursue inter-retailer and inter-TOC agreements to get their money back.

However, if you are delayed on your journey and are seeking delay compensation (known as Delay Repay for most franchises), or have out-of-pocket expenses, then you are seeking compensation (or reimbursement). Compensation should always be sought from the train company responsible - and in the case of a journey involving multiple train companies, the first train company which disrupts your journey is liable.

If you send a claim for a refund to the train company you were due to travel with (e.g. Thameslink), having bought your ticket through The Trainline for example, they would quite rightly reject your claim - though internal rail industry guidelines suggest that they pass on the case to the appropriate party; that would be The Trainline in this case. Equally, if you sent a claim for Delay Repay for a journey with Thameslink to The Trainline then they would refer you back to Thameslink.

Now that's clarified, let's move onto:

My local stations, Cambridge and Cambridge North, are both Greater Anglia, so maybe they'd be the company to buy from. Am I right that if the season ticket stops working, I can get it reprinted at Cambridge even if I buy it from GTR? What about if it gets lost or stolen?

The National Rail Conditions of Travel ("NRCoT") set out the conditions under which tickets are issued. Condition 37.1 sets out that, if a season ticket becomes faded or can no longer operate ticket gates, you can ask to be issued with a replacement without charge - but only by the retailer which sold you the season ticket. So GTR would have no obligation to replace your season ticket if it stopped working if you had bought it from GA, though they may, at their sole discretion, choose to do so.

The same rules apply to lost or stolen season tickets - Condition 39.1 sets out that the retailer who sold you the season ticket will issue a duplicate of your season ticket once upon payment of an administration fee of no more than £20, and may do so a second time if it is satisfied the loss/theft is not fraudulent (this may require an interview).

Again here you must note the difference between a replacement and a duplicate - the former is no different to the original ticket in terms of your refund rights. However, if you hold a duplicate and ask for a refund, retailers are entitled to ask for evidence of a material change in circumstances (e.g. change of job, home etc.), as well as to refuse a duplicate refund if they consider the request fraudulent.

In terms of which retailer you buy your ticket from, I would advise the following - it is probably worth buying the season ticket from the retailer whose ticket offices are most conveniently located for you in case you have to obtain a replacement or duplicate.

It would also be a good idea to use a credit card to pay at least some of the cost of the season ticket (all reputable ticket offices will let you split the payment between cards), paying this off immediately of course to avoid interest charges. This is because, if you buy goods or services worth between £100 and £30,000 and pay any part of the cost by credit card, the credit card issuer is jointly and severally liable for any breaches of contract*. So, if for instance you are frequently delayed and therefore make frequent (and legitimate) Delay Repay claims, but Thameslink/GN suspend your Delay Repay account due to allegations of fraud, you would be entitled to recover the Delay Repay due from the card issuer. They would then have to recover this back from Thameslink/GN - it would be their problem.

Even better would be to use a cashback credit card, such as American Express, since you could earn quite a lot of cash or points in buying your season tickets - the introductory rate can be as high as 5%.

*See Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974

 

[arb]

You claim for delays from the company that caused the delay. Where you bought the ticket from is irrelevant for this purpose.

Reprints if the ticket is lost/stolen/damaged, or if for whatever reason you decide you want a refund half-way through the ticket's validity, can technically only be done from the station that issued it, although you may be able to persuade staff at other stations to do it. For this reason alone, I'd advise buying from a staffed and easily accessible to you station if at all possible (i.e. Cambridge or Cambridge North in your case), to avoid any potential hassle in the unlikely event that you need any of these features. Cambridge is better staffed, and for longer hours, than Cambridge North, so Cambridge might the best choice in terms of easily dealing with these situations if they concern you. But it sounds like Cambridge North might be closer to where you live. It's a trade-off of the hassle in buying the ticket in the first place, versus the potential hassle if anything (unlikely) goes wrong with the ticket in the future.

For a worst-case scenario horror-story that's unlikely to happen to you: I bought an annual season for travel from Ely to Cambridge (both Greater Anglia stations) online from Great Northern last year. They sent me the wrong ticket in the post, and insisted that I visited a staffed Great Northern station (of which there are exactly none between Ely and Cambridge!) to get it fixed. Eventually I was able to persuade Greater Anglia staff at Cambridge to reprint the correct ticket for me, but it wasn't easy.

Finally, you mentioned buying monthlies. You can actually buy season tickets for any period of time between a month and a year, so, assuming you're travelling Monday to Friday, and not at weekends, it's actually best to buy in blocks of just under five weeks, starting on a Monday, and ending on a Friday, so you get a free weekend every fifth week. This means buying a ticket for one month and two days in 31-day months, or one month and three days in 30-day months. You can also adjust as appropriate so that your "monthly" tickets always end just before you take any additional holiday.

 

[Haywain]

The National Rail Conditions of Travel ("NRCoT") set out the conditions under which tickets are issued. Condition 37.1 sets out that, if a season ticket becomes faded or can no longer operate ticket gates, it will be issue a replacement without charge by the retailer which sold you the season ticket. So GTR would have no obligation to replace your season ticket if it stopped working if you had bought it from GA.

Many (but not all) stations will happily issue you with a replacement ticket if it is required, regardless of obligations.

The same rules apply to lost or stolen season tickets - Condition 39.1 sets out that the retailer who sold you the season ticket will issue a duplicate of your season ticket once upon payment of an administration fee of no more than £20, and may do so a second time if it is satisfied the loss/theft is not fraudulent (this may require an interview).

A duplicate season ticket will not (generally) be issued by any station/retailer other than the one which sold the original ticket.

it's actually best to buy in blocks of just under five weeks, starting on a Monday, and ending on a Friday, so you get a free weekend every fifth week.

The "free weekend" is one where you won't have a ticket to travel, just to be clear. At other times your season ticket will allow travel on any day of the week.

If you buy an annual season ticket from a station within the 'Network Railcard area' this will be issued as a Gold Card, which acts as a railcard giving 34% discount on off-peak fares for journeys not covered by your season ticket. These discounts are for you and for up to 3 adults and 4 children accompanying you, and can apply to others when you are using your season ticket and travelling with them. It's a complicated matter, but good enough value for many people to buy an annual season ticket for just these benefits. Full details can be found at http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46573.aspx

 

[rsherhod]

Thanks for the help. I'll buy my season tickets from Greater Anglia then, since Cambridge is the closest staffed station.
I didn't know about the Gold Card thing. That's something to look forward to.

Any ideas about the smart card business?
Since I'll be buying my tickets through GA, I guess I'm waiting for their smartcard to work at King's Cross rather than GTR's working at Cambridge. Why interoperability wasn't a requirement in the first place, I really don't know.

 

[Hadders]

I’d steer clear of the smartcard if travelling from Cambridge.

GTR and GA don’t accept each other’s smartcard was far as I know so you get less flexibility.

Remember also that with a season ticket you can start and finish short so if you fancy a trip to Stevenage, or need to get to Stansted simply use your season ticket.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I’d steer clear of the smartcard if travelling from Cambridge.

GTR and GA don’t accept each other’s smartcard was far as I know so you get less flexibility.

Remember also that with a season ticket you can start and finish short so if you fancy a trip to Stevenage, or need to get to Stansted simply use your season ticket.

Yet we accept both.

 

[Hadders]

And to be fully the same as a paper ticket it needs to be accepted by Hull Trains (on their odd se vices that call at Stevenage), and London Underground on the inter-available section covering Finsbury Park/Kings Cross St Pancras/Moorgate.