Oyster with railcard

[dcmbarton]

Recently, my mum and day have both got Oyster cards. My dad set up an online account and bought his; when it arrived, he took it down to Waterloo undeground station to add the senior railcard. He then bought a second card for mum and we want now to add her senior railcard to that one. So far, we haven't been successful - dad added the card to his online account, but when he took it back to Waterloo, they said they couldn't do it as the card wasn't registered. The second time we tried, they wouldn't do it at Richmond as it wasn't an underground station.

Question is, does mum need to have a separate online account with the bought Oyster card being added to that and then take it to a tube station to add the railcard, or can it be registered to dad's account but with her railcard added (the latter makes sense as it's the same money which pays for it!).

We're in London tomorrow, so want to try and get this sorted out.

David

 

[island]

The reference to "online account" is a little bit of a red herring here. An Oyster card can quite happily be registered without ever being used or accessed online — to register it you fill in a form at an Underground station (some other classes of station might be able to do it, but let's not overcomplicate things for now) and hand it in with the Oyster card and the Senior Railcard at the ticket window. The clerk will set the card to registered and then add the Senior Railcard entitlement to it.

If you later want to use the card online you can open a new online account or add it to the existing one, in each case using the security question and answer that you wrote on the form.

 

[dcmbarton]

I'm confused then because dad didn't fill in any form to register his when he added the railcard at Waterloo. He just took the card and the railcard to the window and they did it.

 

[island]

If you bought the Oyster card online it is automatically registered before it's sent out to you. Was the second card bought at a station?

 

[dcmbarton]

Yes we did, so that's what it must be that we're doing wrong. Thanks.