Refund on voucher-bought ticket

Possibly a bit cheeky this one.

I have a Delay Repay refund Rail Travel Voucher for around £30 (just under) from last year, found while clearing out some paperwork, and noticed that it expires on the 9th January (Thursday). As it happens, I'm making a rail journey on Saturday, so plan to use the voucher to get the ticket when I pop near to the station tomorrow (Wednesday 8 Jan). The thing is, the voucher is more than the ticket I will be getting (around £15).

Now, I know that I can't get change from the voucher (says so on the voucher itself), but in theory, if I were to purchase another ticket at the same time in the same transaction, could I then get a refund on the ticket that I don't need?

(I don't have any issues with using the voucher for only half its value, but money is a bit short at the moment so any extra I can get hold of is welcome!)

You can, less the admin fee.

Exact refund method depends on each operator's own policies.

And noting your location, if you’re able to do the purchase at a Southeastern booking office, they do not charge admin fees for refunding flexible tickets before their validity period starts. So you could buy your ticket for Saturday and another one for a month’s time, then refund the latter by posting it in to customer service.

No idea what the refund method will be, mind.

Interesting that this would be possible.

In the end, my conscience got the better of me and I decided not to do it. As it happens though, in the time between me posting this question and actually getting to the station to buy my ticket, something else came up which required getting another ticket for another occasion, so I bought them both at the same time, so all was well in the end!

I'm glad that you made full use of the RTV.

Is it still possible to top up an Oyster card with a voucher? My friend asked at New Cross Gate and the ticket office implied that it would be possible, but not sure if the staff member fully understood and my friend didn't have the voucher so didn't actually do it

Yes, you can. I normally pop over to Marylebone to do it but LO and XR ticket offices should be able to do it as well.

I don’t think Marylebone retails Oyster products any more sadly. The GN/TL booking office at St. Pancakes should.

bb21 said:

Yes, you can. I normally pop over to Marylebone to do it but LO and XR ticket offices should be able to do it as well.

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New TIS at Marylebone, I understand, so no Oyster anymore.

Passed through Marylebone earlier. They've got a new machine on one window, but were only doing card payments on it.

Having spoken to the staff, they can still do Weekly Travelcards and PAYG on Oyster on the other windows (except the Excess Fares window), but have been told not to do Monthly and longer Travelcards as they'll have no way to process a subsequent refund once they switch all the windows over to the new system.