What a palaver.
Yesterday I tried to get my railcard added to my Oyster card, a process which took about two hours! I live in the northern tip of Enfield and needed to go to Chingford; Walthamstow Central is just one bus ride away from there so I thought I'd go there knowing (hah) that I'd be able to get it done at the station.
Seeing as there's just one London Underground ticket office there, I thought I'd ask at the Greater Anglia offices first, as I'd read that Walthamstow's can retail Oyster cards. So I asked the ticket clerk if they could handle Oyster cards. No was the response, telling me to go downstairs to the Underground concourse instead. Whilst I eyeballed his yellow Oyster pad through the ticket window. Not wanting an argument this early on in the process though, I obliged.
Went downstairs but oh the ticket office was shut. Despite there being a poster in front of it detailing the opening hours, which included the time I was there. So I went back upstairs and saw a new GA ticket office window had opened. Asked him if he could handle Oyster cards this time the response was yes, but he couldn't do the railcard thing. (I believe this to be false; multiple online sources say NR offices that retail Oysters can load railcards too.)
Frustrated, I decided to wander around Walthamstow Village for a bit then return, hoping the TfL ticket office might be open when I got back. During this wander I passed two Oyster ticket stops. One had no idea what I was talking about, whilst the other also didn't know but he did fiddle with his machine to try. He got to the photocard number entry screen, but it seems that my online-issued 1625 railcard, which has a big long railcard number on the front rather than a shorter photocard number, stumped him. If I'd had an old-fashioned paper railcard photocard I think he might have managed it. So, I returned to Walthamstow Central.
The Underground ticket office was now open hooray. But with a queue. I duly waited, then when it was my turn asked the clerk to sort out the railcard. He told me that the Oyster wasn't registered and that I needed to fill in a form. Huh? It most definitely was registered. I walked away, collected my thoughts for a couple of minutes then returned to ask him to check again, explaining that I'd definitely registered it, offering him the password and so forth. He said he couldn't see my details and told me to fill in the form. I said I'd rather not, in case that caused more problems because I'd then be registering the same Oyster twice. At this point he got a bit impolite sarcastically asking why I couldn't fill in the form. Not rude/insulting as such, but he clearly thought I was being deliberately awkward. (I've noticed this before: tube staff don't often take kindly to the suggestion from a customer that they're in the wrong. NR staff seem better in this regard.)
I decided to phone Oyster customer services whilst in the station, wanting to get this sorted out now as I'd made a special journey because I live nowhere near an Oyster-capable station. After waiting for a few minutes on the phone, the support person confirmed that the Oyster card was definitely registered, that I should go back to the ticket office and ask that he phones up the Oyster people himself. I went back to the office, saw a bit of a queue, looked at my watch and realised it was nearly 5pm, when Woodford's ticket office opened for 75 minutes. So, not wanting to face the awkward ticket office clerk again (I don't like conflict), I caught a bus for half an hour to Woodford.
At Woodford I found a ticket office with no queue, and a very helpful older gentleman in the ticket office who looked in to the problem for me. It turned out that the Oyster card
was showing as registered, but that my details weren't visible on the system. He didn't know why that was the case, but the is registered: yes flag was all he needed to add my railcard to the Oyster, which he happily did. Hallelujah.
I can only assume that the reason my details weren't showing up was because of the perhaps slightly unusual way I registered the Oyster: I added it to a preexisting online account first thereby protecting it in Oyster parlance, then printed off a page and took it to a tube station with a password to properly register it.
So, morals of this story:
- Greater Anglia ticket offices that supposedly handle Oyster cards only do so when they feel like it;
- LUL ticket office opening hours can't be relied upon, nor can their staff to be helpful;
- Oyster ticket stops probably can theoretically load railcards, but haven't been trained how to do so;
- Registering any Oyster using the online printout method can cause complications down the road;
- We're clearly still some way away from a properly functioning integrated ticketing system where everyone knows what's going on.