• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Half price Railcards

Status
Not open for further replies.

telstarbox

Established Member
Joined
23 Jul 2010
Messages
5,928
Location
Wennington Crossovers
I read on Twitter that you can buy a digital Railcard from Trainline, half price with code Railcard50. Sorry can't verify with a source. Anyone heard of this?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

mad_rich

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Messages
323
Location
Newcastle
Thank you. Just bought a Network Railcard for £15. (Oddly, when I tried to pay with Apple Pay it came up as full price, but came out as £15 when I put the card details in manually.)

SNCF Railcards are half price this week too - €25. 30% off at weekend OR on returns with a weekend night away. And some sort of price-cap. French and int'l trains from France.

Seems the Railcard has to be displayed in the Trainline app, not the Railcard app.
 

Dave W

Member
Joined
27 Sep 2019
Messages
586
Location
North London
Well... That's got me using the trainline... I wonder if the amount I pay in booking fees over the next year will cover that 15 quid I've saved...
 

mad_rich

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Messages
323
Location
Newcastle
You don;'t need to buy your tickets through Trainline. At least as far as I know.Just download their app to show the railcard.
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,540
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
I got this by email with a different code they said was personal to me, but I would rather pay £30 and get a plastic one.

Edit: this is only because of the stupid need to connect to the Internet to verify every 24 hours and the well-documented failures of this. If I could have one as a simple barcoded PKPASS with verification done at the point of checking (as per e-tickets) I would certainly go electronic.
 
Last edited:

4COR

Member
Joined
30 Jan 2019
Messages
441
Super, thanks! 2 Together for £15 - and should get this back in a single Swindon to Heath High Level journey next year :)
 

Egg Centric

Member
Joined
6 Oct 2018
Messages
872
Location
Land of the Prince Bishops
I buy our two together railcard for an even deeper discount - paying only 1/3 face price and you can do that for any railcard.

NB however that this is something of a loose definition of face price - essentially it’s exchanging Tesco Clubcard vouchers for £X for railcard of £3X - but it’s handy nontheless. And if you shop at Tesco anyway and don’t mind letting them data mine you it’s essentially completely free.
 

XAM2175

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2016
Messages
3,469
Location
Glasgow
I don't suppose you can select a starting date several months in the future, can you?
 

mad_rich

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Messages
323
Location
Newcastle
I don't suppose you can select a starting date several months in the future, can you?
I think it asked me if I had an existing Railcard, so presume it would have renewed on the expiry date.

But otherwise no. I think it has to start on day of purchase.
 

Trackman

Established Member
Joined
28 Feb 2013
Messages
2,922
Location
Lewisham
I got this by email with a different code they said was personal to me, but I would rather pay £30 and get a plastic one.

Edit: this is only because of the stupid need to connect to the Internet to verify every 24 hours and the well-documented failures of this. If I could have one as a simple barcoded PKPASS with verification done at the point of checking (as per e-tickets) I would certainly go electronic.
I received this in a email last week, is it the same thing?
I have noticed them before, could have been going on for a few months.
There’s still time to buy a digital Railcard and get a £15 voucher to use on your next Trainline booking.* But hurry, you’ve only got one day left!

If you’re regularly travelling by train, life’s just better with a digital Railcard. For just £30 you get 1/3 off ticket prices for a whole year!** That’s a whole 365 days of saving on your commute, meeting up with family & friends or having adventures
 

Metal_gee_man

Member
Joined
28 Oct 2017
Messages
669
Well that's my Network Railcard purchased, I wish I could move it to the railcard app by using the download code option, rather than The Trainline who I really can't stomach, I suppose it'll have to do, £15 off a railcard is £15 off with added annoyance with the TL app.
 

WelshBluebird

Established Member
Joined
14 Jan 2010
Messages
4,923
Annoying I couldn't use this when I renewed my one!
As for the people complaining that its the Trainline, worth saying if you buy etickets using the trainline then buying your railcard from them too makes total sense because they add a nice little "show railcard" button on the eticket that makes it so much easier to show your railcard! Indeed it is exactly why I did buy my railcard from them.
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,540
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Annoying I couldn't use this when I renewed my one!
As for the people complaining that its the Trainline, worth saying if you buy etickets using the trainline then buying your railcard from them too makes total sense because they add a nice little "show railcard" button on the eticket that makes it so much easier to show your railcard! Indeed it is exactly why I did buy my railcard from them.

Yep, handy if you buy from them. I sometimes do, but for anything long distance I use Trainsplit so as to use the seat selector.
 

mad_rich

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Messages
323
Location
Newcastle
Flatmate had an email about it, I didn't. Will try to see if there's a closing date. I would assume Friday in the absence of any other info.
 

_toommm_

Established Member
Joined
8 Jul 2017
Messages
5,845
Location
Yorkshire
Expiry is 17/12/21 at 11:59 GMT:
Please do not reply to this email as this email address is unmonitored.

If you no longer wish to receive these messages please unsubscribe.

Terms & Conditions

Railcards
*Applies to selected train fares. See Trainline's Railcard terms for full details of each Railcard, eligible tickets and travel times.

Discount terms   
**This discount code offer is valid until 11:59pm (GMT) on 17/12/2021.
To use the discount code, you must have, or create, a Trainline account. Please note, discount codes cannot be used in conjunction with any other Trainline offer and can only be used to purchase one UK Railcard. Train tickets for travel with UK and non-UK train carriers and UK and non-UK coach companies are excluded. Digital Railcards require an updated version of the Trainline app (on iOS 13.4 and above or Lollipop on Android). This Discount Code Offer is subject to availability. We reserve the right to refuse the issue of any Discount Code Offer at any time and to vary any and all elements of each offer at any time without notice. To see the full conditions and restrictions that apply to this discount code offer, take a look at our Terms and Conditions.
 

ashkeba

Established Member
Joined
13 May 2019
Messages
2,171
If I could have one as a simple barcoded PKPASS with verification done at the point of checking (as per e-tickets) I would certainly go electronic.
I agree with this. I tired of trying to remember which app for which ticket and franchly some of the apps are unstable rubbish that I will not trust to behave and avoid me becoming a penalty fare. The phone maker's ticket wallet app is much more stable.

Isn't the current digital railcard the equivalent of mTickets? Why does the railway keep repeating this same mistake? Why are they so keen to sneak their apps onto our phones? Wouldn't you pay £5-15 to avoid supporting another mTicket?
 

mad_rich

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Messages
323
Location
Newcastle
I agree with this. I tired of trying to remember which app for which ticket and franchly some of the apps are unstable rubbish that I will not trust to behave and avoid me becoming a penalty fare. The phone maker's ticket wallet app is much more stable.

Isn't the current digital railcard the equivalent of mTickets? Why does the railway keep repeating this same mistake? Why are they so keen to sneak their apps onto our phones? Wouldn't you pay £5-15 to avoid supporting another mTicket?
I'm quite happy to. If you're not, don't. Simple!

Trainline get to put their app on my phone, and they hope I will use it to buy my tickets. Fair enough. The Network Railcard is a marginal decision for me most years; half-price makes it worthwhile.
 

AY1975

Established Member
Joined
14 Dec 2016
Messages
1,748
The Network Railcard is a marginal decision for me most years; half-price makes it worthwhile.
Same for me. In previous years I have often bought a Network Railcard and just about done enough journeys on it for it to pay for itself, but half price would mean having to do only two rather than three medium to long distance journeys within the former NSE area in a year for it to be worthwhile.

I agree with this. I tired of trying to remember which app for which ticket and franchly some of the apps are unstable rubbish that I will not trust to behave and avoid me becoming a penalty fare. The phone maker's ticket wallet app is much more stable.

Isn't the current digital railcard the equivalent of mTickets? Why does the railway keep repeating this same mistake? Why are they so keen to sneak their apps onto our phones? Wouldn't you pay £5-15 to avoid supporting another mTicket?
I would guess that if you make use of this offer, you could face a dilemma of whether to buy your tickets using other more user-friendly apps (in which case showing your ticket and railcard to train guards/inspectors would be a rather convoluted procedure) or using the Trainline app. At least if you're using a paper ticket, a print-at-home ticket or an e-ticket that you print out you wouldn't have that problem as long as you can get the Trainline app to work so you can show your railcard.
 

Bessie

Member
Joined
30 Oct 2017
Messages
258
I got my 50% off a Network Railcard before the offer was withdrawn so I’m happy but I assume Trainline ran this offer at a loss. Would they need to pay a full retail cost (£30) to the Rail Delivery Group for the railcard I got for £15?
 

Watershed

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
26 Sep 2020
Messages
11,945
Location
UK
I got my 50% off a Network Railcard before the offer was withdrawn so I’m happy but I assume Trainline ran this offer at a loss. Would they need to pay a full retail cost (£30) to the Rail Delivery Group for the railcard I got for £15?
That seems the most likely option to me (though I doubt they have to remit the full £30 retail price normally anyway). £15 is a rather inexpensive 'acquisition' outlay, effectively locking people into their ecosystem. Alternatively, they may also have agreed with RDG to sell a limited number at a lower price.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top