Northern Rail Flexi Season on Smartcard - Collecting and Activating

[cranfan]

I will be travelling on the Cumbrian Coast Line this summer (and next) during vacation. I plan to purchase a Northern Rail Flexi Season. My mobile will be heavily used each day for navigation and the battery could easily run down, so my preferred option for the Flexi Season is therefore on a Smartcard. I would be more reassured about the ticket if I can collect (load) the ticket onto the Smartcard before leaving for my holidays. I don't live anywhere near Northern Rail so I can't use a station gate or validator, also I suspect (when I'm there) that some of the smaller stations on the coast line won't have these facilities. So I believe that leaves the possibility to use the NationalRail Smartcard Manager (which has some useful discussion on this thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/nationalrail-smartcard-manager.222867/).

I will install the Northern Rail App and the National Rail Smartcard Manager App on my android phone and request a Smartcard from Northern Rail.
I plan to buy the Flexi Season on Northern Rail's website (not with the App) and then presumably when I open the Northern Rail App it will download the ticket.
I am then hoping that with the NationalRail Smartcard Manager I can collect the ticket onto the Smartcard and if necessary when I'm travelling also use it to activate the ticket for use that day.

My questions:
1) Firstly to seek reassurance that the above process is correct and that it should work;
2) Northern Rail's website says 'Use the Northern app for rapid collection to your card, available 5 minutes after purchase' - so that may also be a way to collect (but not activate) the ticket, but does 'Use' mean that you need to purchase the ticket using the App (rather than website) for this to work;
3) Do you need a phone signal or internet access in order to use the NationalRail Smartcard Manager to activate a ticket, there may be no signal in parts of Cumbria;
4) If you load the Smartcard with the ticket, presumably you don't still have the Barcode ticket available for use within the Northern Rail App i.e. it's one or the other.

 

[Wallsendmag]

You can specify where you collect your ticket it doesn’t have to be a Northern station and any Smartcard ticket can be collected from a LNER TVM

 

[ainsworth74]

2) Northern Rail's website says 'Use the Northern app for rapid collection to your card, available 5 minutes after purchase' - so that may also be a way to collect (but not activate) the ticket, but does 'Use' mean that you need to purchase the ticket using the App (rather than website) for this to work;

Until the Northern app was recently updated to enable in app sale of season tickets you used to have to purchase from the website for collection via the app. So it's perfectly possible to purchase a season via the website to collect via the app. I used to do it every week when buying my weekly season.

4) If you load the Smartcard with the ticket, presumably you don't still have the Barcode ticket available for use within the Northern Rail App i.e. it's one or the other.

Correct you have to choose your delivery method so if delivered to smart card then you won't get the m/e-ticket version and vice versa.

I am then hoping that with the NationalRail Smartcard Manager I can collect the ticket onto the Smartcard

You should be able to do this in the Northern app.

 

[bkhtele]

I find that once you have purchased your ticket the national rail smartcard app is a very easy and simple way to download your ticket & activate a flexi season. You will need a signal or WiFi to activate your smart card but you could do this at your hotel/home/in town. Plus you will only need to do it once a day to activate.

 

[pdq]

I find that once you have purchased your ticket the national rail smartcard app is a very easy and simple way to download your ticket & activate a flexi season. You will need a signal or WiFi to activate your smart card but you could do this at your hotel/home/in town. Plus you will only need to do it once a day to activate.

In addition, your phone must support NFC to read/write the data on the smartcard.

 

[cranfan]

Thanks to all for the feedback. It looks like in principle my intended process should work.
I don't see anything on my local ticket machine that takes a Smartcard, but it sounds like either the Norther Rail App or the National Rail Smartcard Manager App should collect the ticket for me.
My phone LG G6 does support NFC, as far as I can see you just have to enable it.