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GWR ITSO card information? (GWR website useless)
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alistairlees
Established Member
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- 29 Dec 2016
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This page links to both areas: https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/smart-tickets/payg
No good for a season ticket from Redhill to Guildford, then?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Anywhere in Britain apart from Scotland
I know. Its all as clear as mud. And they want people to switch to ITSO?
And surely it should say 'GB National Rail stations '?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
That's PAYG not just a Smartcard
Do you have a link to where I can find this information?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Touch smartcard | Great Western Railway
Our GWR touch smartcard is a quick and easy way to store your train tickets. Travel smart with GWR
www.gwr.com
It says 'selected routes'. But nowhere does it describe what those routes areTouch smartcard | Great Western Railway
Our GWR touch smartcard is a quick and easy way to store your train tickets. Travel smart with GWR
Haywain
Veteran Member
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It changes fairly regularly. Essentially, that refers to single and return tickets and the selected routes will be those which have been enabled for tickets to be fulfilled to smartcards.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Think of it as a carrier bag that your ticket goes inside. You don't need a Waitrose bag to shop at Waitrose. In the same way any ITSO enabled ticket (mainly seasons) can be loaded onto a GWR card
That makes sense. Just a shame the industry cannot explain it to people
If I wanted to buy a weekly season ticket for someone else, loaded onto an ITSO card, what do I actually need to do? They already have a photocard.
If this person is 17, and I want to get them a 16-17 Railcard and use this Railcard to get them a discount on this weekly season ticket, what do I need to do?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
The industry is expaining it here and now to you
. Just tick the Railcard box on the GWR site.Yeah, tried that, but the website doesn't do anything. Doesn't come up with any prices or anything.The industry is expaining it here and now to you
Can I use any operator's ITSO card to buy a season from any other website? And how do I get an ITSO card?
And how do I get a 16-17 Railcard?
And how does the ITSO card know the 16-17 card belongs to that ticket?
Do you need a photocard to go with a season ticket on an ITSO card?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
You need matching card and website, You buy a 16-17 Saver online The card season is loaded with a discount flag. If the Smartcard is registered in the RDG DTS system you don't need a photocard but you will need the railcard which has a photo on
GWR's roll-out of tickets capable of being loaded onto their Touch Smartcard is incomplete. For example, I cannot use Touch* when travelling on the North Downs Line east of Farnborough North, but the stations from Blackwater to Reading are covered.
It's actually quite simple to find out which tickets can be loaded onto the smartcard. Head to the old GWR Mixing Deck and when selecting the itinerary, tick the box marked "Only fares that can be loaded onto an ITSO Smartcard".
Link: https://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/JourneyPlanning/MixingDeck
*Actually I can, provided it's a flow priced by SWR e.g. Blackwater to Portsmouth Harbour (going via Guildford). But of course Blackwater to Guildford isn't available. D'oh!
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Haywain
Veteran Member
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The best use case for smartcards on rail is for season tickets, unless a PAYG scheme is available. If you want a season ticket (or any other ticket, come to that) on a smartcard you can buy it at most ticket offices and through a good number of TVMs, but if you want to buy online you need to use a smartcard issued by the company you are buying from as they won't recognise a smartcard issued by another company and the ticket is sold to a specified smartcard (this is a pain and an area where the industry has failed in implementing smartcards efficiently).
redreni
Member
I've just got a GWR Smartcard and added a 7 day Z1-4 travelcard to it. I have just a couple of questions:
1. If I want to travel beyond zone 4, can I choose between buying an appropriate ticket to extend the validity beyond zone 4 either on paper or on the smartcard?
If using a paper extension ticket, obviously that would mean touching in within zones 1-4 and not touching out.
Alternatively, if both (a) the travelcard and (b) the ticket from the zone boundary or boundary station to my destination are on the smartcard, I will tap in at the start and end of the journey but not at the boundary station. E.g. I might go from Paddington to Maidenhead on a Z1-4 travelcard plus a Network Railcard discounted off-peak day return from Southall to Maidenhead, so there would be a tap in at Paddington followed by a tap out at Maidenhead. Can I expect any issues doing this? Am I better off with the extension ticket on paper or on the smartcard?
2. Now that I have a GWR Smartcard, the GWR website and app offer me fulfilment to smartcard, but they are only offering me the opportunity to load tickets onto the card at a nominated station. This is inconvenient as I may want to load a travelcard onto it and then take a London bus to my nearest zone 4 station, which isn't really within walking distance. So I really need the travelcard on the smartcard before I leave the house. I'm unsure why the app doesn't offer me the opportunity to add the ticket using my smartphone?
1. If I want to travel beyond zone 4, can I choose between buying an appropriate ticket to extend the validity beyond zone 4 either on paper or on the smartcard?
If using a paper extension ticket, obviously that would mean touching in within zones 1-4 and not touching out.
Alternatively, if both (a) the travelcard and (b) the ticket from the zone boundary or boundary station to my destination are on the smartcard, I will tap in at the start and end of the journey but not at the boundary station. E.g. I might go from Paddington to Maidenhead on a Z1-4 travelcard plus a Network Railcard discounted off-peak day return from Southall to Maidenhead, so there would be a tap in at Paddington followed by a tap out at Maidenhead. Can I expect any issues doing this? Am I better off with the extension ticket on paper or on the smartcard?
2. Now that I have a GWR Smartcard, the GWR website and app offer me fulfilment to smartcard, but they are only offering me the opportunity to load tickets onto the card at a nominated station. This is inconvenient as I may want to load a travelcard onto it and then take a London bus to my nearest zone 4 station, which isn't really within walking distance. So I really need the travelcard on the smartcard before I leave the house. I'm unsure why the app doesn't offer me the opportunity to add the ticket using my smartphone?
Wallsendmag
Established Member
No requirement to touch in/out with a season ticket. You can add tickets that you’ve bought to your card via the National Rail Smartcard Manager app on a Smartphone
redreni
Member
Thanks I'll try that!
What if I want to travel on a weekend not covered by a 7 day travelcard season ticket? I'll only be buying these irregularly, as needed for work. I don't work enough days in the office to make monthly or annual worthwhile.
If I buy a Z1-6 day travelcard and a cheap day return West Drayton to Maidenhead, is that okay? And does it matter if the cheap day return is on the smartcard or on paper?
It's just that GWR's guidance sets out a reasonably firm requirement to touch in and out, but being written by a TOC it doesn't acknowledge the possibility of splitting tickets at all, so it doesn't say what happens where two or more tickets are used in combination.
I only want to go down the road of using smartcards if I can still do splits, including non-stop splits where one ticket is a season or daily zonal.
redreni
Member
So I've been using a Z1-4 7 day Travelcard on a GWR smartcard quite happily for 6 days now. No problems.
Yesterday I added a ticket to the smartcard using my phone for the first time - a Network Railcard discounted off-peak day return from Dartford to Abbey Wood. Encouragingly, when I tapped on the card reader to start short at Slade Green, I got a green light and a beep. When I stayed on the train beyond Abbey Wood and tapped out at Woolwich Arsenal, again, it seemed perfectly happy, which is good.
I also wanted to buy a super off-peak day return from Winchmore Hill to Cuffley but had to get that as an e-ticket because the GWR app said it couldn't be fulfilled to smartcard. I had been made aware of an issue with super off-peak tickets not being enabled for smartcard fulfillment, but thought it might be worth a try given - according to BRFares - somebody has taken the time and trouble to set up a specific, smartcard-only super off-peak fare for this journey: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=WIH&dest=CUF&rlc=NEW&rte=1000&tkt=0BY . The GWR app was extremely buggy, to the point of being borderline unusable, while I was trying to buy that ticket.
I've yet to test its behaviour if you split between two day single or return tickets or between a day travelcard and a day single or return. It may be some time before I need to make a relevant journey that will allow me to test this. It's something I may want to do regularly during the football season.
Yesterday I added a ticket to the smartcard using my phone for the first time - a Network Railcard discounted off-peak day return from Dartford to Abbey Wood. Encouragingly, when I tapped on the card reader to start short at Slade Green, I got a green light and a beep. When I stayed on the train beyond Abbey Wood and tapped out at Woolwich Arsenal, again, it seemed perfectly happy, which is good.
I also wanted to buy a super off-peak day return from Winchmore Hill to Cuffley but had to get that as an e-ticket because the GWR app said it couldn't be fulfilled to smartcard. I had been made aware of an issue with super off-peak tickets not being enabled for smartcard fulfillment, but thought it might be worth a try given - according to BRFares - somebody has taken the time and trouble to set up a specific, smartcard-only super off-peak fare for this journey: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=WIH&dest=CUF&rlc=NEW&rte=1000&tkt=0BY . The GWR app was extremely buggy, to the point of being borderline unusable, while I was trying to buy that ticket.
I've yet to test its behaviour if you split between two day single or return tickets or between a day travelcard and a day single or return. It may be some time before I need to make a relevant journey that will allow me to test this. It's something I may want to do regularly during the football season.
MrJeeves
Established Member
It's not clear what the GTR "SMART" fares are for, but my guess is either holdovers from the original ITSO trials or something relating to keyGo, but they're disabled for fulfillment via internet booking engines at the very least.
As a bit of a late answer to this, yes that is absolutely okay, the two tickets do not have to be on the same form. The GWR Train Managers and RPIs are very familiar with it.
Regarding tapping, on anything but a flexi season there is no need to tap if not required to use a gateline, or asked by staff. Not tapping in or out will not make any difference to the validity if checked at a station.
The only time tapping matters is on a flexi season, as this activates the ticket for the day (Think of it at filling in the date box on a paper ticket). However if you use the Smartcard Manager App to activate the ticket before boarding a train (Or entering a compulsory ticket area), this is equally okay and you do not need to tap.