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Railcard website currently broken

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monxton

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The railcard website has been down for a few days now. They took it down for maintenance but now they say
We have completed the website maintenance. However, we are currently experiencing some issues which we are working to fix. We apologise for any inconvenience. Please bear with us during this time.
Their Twitter and Facebook are going wild with desperate would-be passengers, who are being advised to pay full fare and claim back afterwards.

I was there because I wanted to get a code to transfer my digital card to a new device. Luckily for me, the old device is still working, so my journey tomorrow is unaffected. It's really a shambles though.
 
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thewaistcoat

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Yup, they're busted beyond belief. Being trying to move a railcard between phones since yesterday. Luckily I don't need it for a week or so. Must have got TSBs IT team in for their maintenance work. I work in the same field, this is very shabby. The advice I've seen is to pay for a full ticket and to claim the difference back which you can do only once per year!
 

ainsworth74

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And this is why, if I had the choice, I'd have stuck with a trusty paper railcard. I have little faith in the industries ability to actually deliver the product via electronic means reliably and even less faith in ensuring I'm not out of pocket if they make a mistake!
 

PeterC

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Glad I chose a plastic one when I bought it a few days ago.
 

infobleep

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Yup, they're busted beyond belief. Being trying to move a railcard between phones since yesterday. Luckily I don't need it for a week or so. Must have got TSBs IT team in for their maintenance work. I work in the same field, this is very shabby. The advice I've seen is to pay for a full ticket and to claim the difference back which you can do only once per year!
Surely under the circumstances they would allow one to claim back the difference more than once.
 

trentside

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Surely under the circumstances they would allow one to claim back the difference more than once.

In the circumstances, I would hope so.

I have just checked and RDG sent out a brief to TOCs yesterday requesting that staff use discretion if presented with confirmation emails from affected customers. If they are charged they should be directed back to Railcard customer services to claim the cost back.
 

Rebus

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The site itself seems to be back up now (Sat 30th, 17:50), but it does have this message warning of possible problems still:

"Planned website maintenance 28 Nov - We have completed the website maintenance. However, we are currently experiencing some issues which we are working to fix. We apologise for any inconvenience. Please bear with us during this time."
 

dosxuk

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I have just checked and RDG sent out a brief to TOCs yesterday requesting that staff use discretion if presented with confirmation emails from affected customers. If they are charged they should be directed back to Railcard customer services to claim the cost back.

This obviously hasn't worked. Been affected by the issue today, and after being on hold for 45 minutes sat on a bench at the station to get through to their customer "support" we eventually got an email (complete with misspelt names) saying "please ignore lack of Railcard". When presented, conductor knew nothing of the issues, and was very suspicious of the email, but eventually decided to let us off with a warning.

Got absolutely zero support or information from the station staff at Sheffield, who just went "we don't do railcards, you'll have to contact whoever you got it from" even when asked what our options were with the railcard tickets (not given an option to excess them to normal tickets).

Furthermore, the cross country app now seems unable to allow you to book tickets for collection, so was stuck with activated e-tickets that if we decided to abandon our journey we couldn't get a refund for (the railcard issue became apparent after activating but before boarding). Overall an extremely frustrating day, caused by factors outside of our control, and we now have complete distrust in any of the (forced) e-ticket solutions.

And just to add a final nail in the coffin, the train we caught was delayed by 45+ minutes, but cross country doesn't recognise my bank details in order to do a delay repay claim. Lots of complaints to write in the coming days!
 

dosxuk

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The site itself seems to be back up now (Sat 30th, 17:50), but it does have this message warning of possible problems still:

"Planned website maintenance 28 Nov - We have completed the website maintenance. However, we are currently experiencing some issues which we are working to fix. We apologise for any inconvenience. Please bear with us during this time."

For reference, the issue they seem to be facing is confirming purchases, and generating codes to allow you to download the railcard to your device. It appears the website was originally updated on Wednesday and any purchases or downloads since then have been likely to fail.
 

Deafdoggie

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This obviously hasn't worked. Been affected by the issue today, and after being on hold for 45 minutes sat on a bench at the station to get through to their customer "support" we eventually got an email (complete with misspelt names) saying "please ignore lack of Railcard". When presented, conductor knew nothing of the issues, and was very suspicious of the email, but eventually decided to let us off with a warning.

Got absolutely zero support or information from the station staff at Sheffield, who just went "we don't do railcards, you'll have to contact whoever you got it from" even when asked what our options were with the railcard tickets (not given an option to excess them to normal tickets).

Furthermore, the cross country app now seems unable to allow you to book tickets for collection, so was stuck with activated e-tickets that if we decided to abandon our journey we couldn't get a refund for (the railcard issue became apparent after activating but before boarding). Overall an extremely frustrating day, caused by factors outside of our control, and we now have complete distrust in any of the (forced) e-ticket solutions.

And just to add a final nail in the coffin, the train we caught was delayed by 45+ minutes, but cross country doesn't recognise my bank details in order to do a delay repay claim. Lots of complaints to write in the coming days!

The XC website doesn’t allow TOD ticket sales within two hours of travel, they have to be an e-ticket.
XC want the bank details correct, and if it didn’t match what the bank say it should be they won’t pay into it, as you can then claim you’ve not had the money.
 

dosxuk

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The XC website doesn’t allow TOD ticket sales within two hours of travel, they have to be an e-ticket.
XC want the bank details correct, and if it didn’t match what the bank say it should be they won’t pay into it, as you can then claim you’ve not had the money.

The app won't allow TOD bookings for a month away. Tickets I was using yesterday were booked on Wednesday but only eTicket was allowed then. Just tried for mid-february and again, only eticket allowed.

And my bank details are correct, as copied and triple checked from my online banking. Even tried different forms of my name (initial surname, firstname surname, Mr initial surname and so on) in case that was what was tripping out, but it was having none of it.
 

radamfi

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The XC website doesn’t allow TOD ticket sales within two hours of travel, they have to be an e-ticket.

The app won't allow TOD bookings for a month away. Tickets I was using yesterday were booked on Wednesday but only eTicket was allowed then. Just tried for mid-february and again, only eticket allowed.

Is there a good reason for using the XC app or website, rather than using one from a different TOC?
 

dosxuk

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Is there a good reason for using the XC app or website, rather than using one from a different TOC?

I was using the EMT app, which I never had any problems with, so when their franchise ended I had to create new accounts. I'd already installed the cross country app for some other reason, so I used that.
 

yorkie

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Is this ongoing?

There are reports of Avanti staff (Train Manager?) incorrectly charging a customer even though the customer was told they could travel:
https://twitter.com/maybeitspierre/status/1211623589058957312
@maybeitspierre said:
first time travelling with and what a terrible service. [Staff on] your 11:20 from London to Manchester today literally didn’t give a ****, how could you not be aware of the technical problems railcard is experiencing at the moment ?????
@maybeitspierre said:
I’ve paid £70 for this rail card a month ago and im getting fined even though your customer service told me it was 100% okay to travel with the email you sent me as a proof of railcard .... you shouldn’t be selling services you can’t provide
Avanti said:
So sorry to hear that, Pierre. Please submit your comments and all tickets here and this will be looked into by Customer Resolutions for you - https://avantiwestcoast.service-now.com/help_and_contact?id=submit_a_complaint ^MW
If this is how it appears, it is a breach of consumer and contract laws.

Avanti need to carry out a full investigation.
 

infobleep

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Yes, they are adding individual cards for people who contact them directly, but the website is still broken.

According to The Grauniad (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...rash-leaves-passengers-without-discount-cards), they switched supplier, which is why they couldn't just roll back to a working version.
I wonder how they can tell that 99% of people are not experiencing any problems? I wouldn't have thought that would be easy, unless they can trace the problem to a subset of cards and know the precise number involved.
 

TeaLovingDave

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The problems have also been affecting plastic railcards ordered online in the last month or so - as one can see from even a cursory trawl of Twitter :P and last time I checked, people were still having little to no luck contacting Railcard customer services for assistance.

I reported problems my partner and myself had arising from this issue a few weeks ago in the following thread:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/advice-with-regards-to-expired-railcard-issue.196801

Latest on this, incidentally, is that having renewed our railcard on Dec 4th, it finally arrived on Dec 23rd - so nearly three weeks, rather than the usual 5 working days.
 

Cletus

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I notice that the Tesco clubcard website is now accepting applications again.
https://secure.tesco.com/clubcard/1-year-two-together-railcard/UK-009624.prd

I would need to travel on the 18th January.
If I cash in my Tesco vouchers and apply online for a railcard, should I anticipate any problems in receipt of my new railcard?
Would it be best to apply for a plastic or digital one?

To answer my own questions:
I cashed in my Tesco clubcard vouchers towards the railcard, which workied ok.
I then applied online for the digital version of the railcard, that wnt through straight away, and I now have the digital railcard on my phone.
All of which went through within half an hour. :smile:
 

Class172

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Having had my railcard stolen a few days ago, I've been trying to get hold of customer services to provide them with my crime reference number to get a replacement but I must have spend at least 2 hours on hold so far. With mine being a plastic card, can I get a paper substitute provided if I went to a ticket office? Given I have pre-booked travel next weekend on railcard advances, I'm not entirely sure what to do if I cannot source a replacement by then.
 

Haywain

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Having had my railcard stolen a few days ago, I've been trying to get hold of customer services to provide them with my crime reference number to get a replacement but I must have spend at least 2 hours on hold so far. With mine being a plastic card, can I get a paper substitute provided if I went to a ticket office? Given I have pre-booked travel next weekend on railcard advances, I'm not entirely sure what to do if I cannot source a replacement by then.
No, ticket offices can’t help with this.
 

zoothorn

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18 Feb 2011
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Website is up but continually looping, rejecting passwords and sending invalid links in the reset password link. Looks like I'll have to buy a 1 year railcard at the station, so that will be extra revenue for RDG due to their inability to run, what used to be a very reasonable website
 

gray1404

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Having had my railcard stolen a few days ago, I've been trying to get hold of customer services to provide them with my crime reference number to get a replacement but I must have spend at least 2 hours on hold so far. With mine being a plastic card, can I get a paper substitute provided if I went to a ticket office? Given I have pre-booked travel next weekend on railcard advances, I'm not entirely sure what to do if I cannot source a replacement by then.

I think you just need to call the helpline first thing when it opens so you are near the front of the que. Then, stay on hold as long as it takes for them to answer you. If you can get this done on Friday then hopefully you'll have your replacement railcard by next weekend, even allowing for second class post.
 

Paul Kelly

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I was thinking for these sorts of problems where a passenger has to pay extra up front due to errors/omissions by a TOC or its suppliers - if the rule was that the passenger was refunded double the difference, it might make it a bit more palatable as well as putting a bit more pressure on to get the problems fixed!
 

thewaistcoat

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2 Jan 2018
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Railcard site is still borked meaning I haven't been able to transfer my railcard to a new phone since their site 'upgrade' back in November. Luckily I haven't needed to go anywhere in the meantime, but I plan to travel at the weekend. Rather than carry my old phone around with me, I sent a Facebook direct message to them today with my name, email (as railcard have it recorded) and my railcard number asking of if they could help. They messaged me back within 20 minutes with a new download code and my railcard is now on my new phone. Probably worth a go if you're in a similar situation.
 

crosscity

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The railcard site looks as though it still needs some tweaking.

My Senior Railcard expires next week, and I like to have a piece of plastic paid for with Tesco Club Card points. Having read this thread at one point there was a problem with the Tesco process and the Railcard system, so I decided to invoke the process as early as I could. The Railcard T's & C's say that I can renew within 1 month of the expiry date.

I converted my Tesco points into a railcard voucher with no problems at all. The second email containing the voucher code arrived less than an hour after the conversion request.

I hadn't accessed my Railcard account for a year, and the first hurdle to overcome was accessing my account. Having invoked the password change process I managed to get into my account. Just under four weeks before the expiry date I tried to renew, but I got a message which inferred that I was applying too early.

I left it another week, and tried again with the same result. I then sent an email via the Railcard website, and received a reply within four days. The person replying apologised for the problem, and offered to sort out the problem if I provided the relevant information. I replied the same day (Fri) and on the Tuesday received further emails showing that my account had changed and the Railcard had been requested. The Railcard arrived two days later, with the correct (new) expiry date.

I was impressed with the customer service. From my initial query email to receiving the railcard took ten days, and I was kept informed throughout.
 
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