Railcard website experiencing technical issues

[BluePenguin]

Once again the railcard website appears not to be working. Some friends and family have all been trying to renew their railcards this week and not had any luck.

So far we have:
- Tried 3 different VPNs
- 3 different browsers
- Deleted cookies and cleared the cache
- Tried with different railcard accounts
- Attempted a 16 - 25, 26 - 30 and Senior railcard purchase
- Tried JPEG, PNG and GIF when uploading a photo
- Entered different emails under the different railcard types
- Reset passwords
- Attempted both renew and fresh application options
- Tried both passport and driving license as ID options
- Entered several different phone numbers
- Tried on a phone, iPad, laptop, Surface and a desktop
- Attempted a purchase every day since Sunday 15th May

The website needs attention and has failed to allow any of us to buy railcards. Does anyone know what is going on? We can't be the only ones needing to renew. Tickets have already been bought for journeys due to be made from Saturday onwards. Where do we stand? We have the funds to buy a railcard but the machine is not working. Anyone want to sell us a promise to pay? Will pay £3 and the remaining £27 on board


Image shows unhelpful error message on the railcard website apologising for an unexpected issue on their systems and asking whether the user would like to empty their basket and try again, with a button below to do so

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Can you do it over the phone?

I renewed my wife's disabled railcard last night by phone ( with my son doing the actual call as I'm cloth eared ) and that went through smoothly.

 

[island]

Your local staffed station will be delighted to sell you a Railcard (except 26-30).

I am also informed EMR and Trainline are able to sell digital Railcards.

 

[miklcct]

Your local staffed station will be delighted to sell you a Railcard (except 26-30).

I am also informed EMR and Trainline are able to sell digital Railcards.

I think you will need to use the same retailer for renewal though, so you better wait until the expiry date of you really have to use another retailer. Similarly, if you want to buy a 26-30 Railcard at the final day before you turn 31, and before the old one runs out, you can use another retailer for such purpose.

 

[BluePenguin]

Can you do it over the phone?

I renewed my wife's disabled railcard last night by phone ( with my son doing the actual call as I'm cloth eared ) and that went through smoothly.

I tried over the phone but the person was not particularly helpful. They have taken £30 and I still have not received anything on the app

Your local staffed station will be delighted to sell you a Railcard (except 26-30).

I am also informed EMR and Trainline are able to sell digital Railcards.

That is the trouble isn’t it? I can’t get a paper one from the station because they want me to use the stupid app. It doesn’t help that our local ticket office is closed what seems like 22 hours a day anyway

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I tried over the phone but the person was not particularly helpful. They have taken £30 and I still have not received anything on the app

How long ago was that? It takes up to five working days to issue a card once paid for, whether a physical card or an electronic one.

 

[James H]

I needed to buy some railcards in a hurry last month and ran into glitches on the official site. Instead I used the Avanti website which worked very well.

 

[SpaldingMan]

Last Thursday I used my Senior Railcard and my App said on the front screen that my card would expire on 10 June and gave me a button to renew now. Having read the numerous stories on this Forum of people being pulled up due to expired railcards I decided to follow the renew button and paid the £30 annual fee. I was sent a key code to download the renewed card onto my phone. When I had done this the new card expiry date was 18 May 2023. In an instant I went from feeling positive about National Railcard not wanting to leave me vulnerable to forgetting to renew my existing card to being angry that they have taken nearly four weeks value from that existing card! I found no warning that this would happen before pushing the renew button - others beware!

 

[Furryanimal]

I went around the houses before I managed to renew my senior railcard and then it took nine days to arrive and at no point was I asked for payment......
But I’ve got it!
Since I last renewed it I’ve acquired a new credit card so I’m going to be intrigued to see if the charge is on next months bill.

 

[gray1404]

Last Thursday I used my Senior Railcard and my App said on the front screen that my card would expire on 10 June and gave me a button to renew now. Having read the numerous stories on this Forum of people being pulled up due to expired railcards I decided to follow the renew button and paid the £30 annual fee. I was sent a key code to download the renewed card onto my phone. When I had done this the new card expiry date was 18 May 2023. In an instant I went from feeling positive about National Railcard not wanting to leave me vulnerable to forgetting to renew my existing card to being angry that they have taken nearly four weeks value from that existing card! I found no warning that this would happen before pushing the renew button - others beware!

Seriously give them a call on the phone and complain about this. I had a very similar situation and they did put it right for me. What is frustrating is I experience this problem a year ago possibly slightly more and it is still going on.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Railcard that I ordered for someone on 17th May has been received today. Covering letter is also dated 17th May but physical railcard actually has a future expiry date of 23rd May so no loss of validity period awaiting postal delivery.

 

[BluePenguin]

I managed to buy myself a new rail card and put the code into the app. Unfortunately I had lost one days validty, do you think it’s possible to get this extended? I really don’t want to call the call center again

 

[extendedpaul]

It's still not functioning correctly. I can get almost to the end but then hit a greyed out Continue button. Checked and double checked everything is correctly completed and photos uploaded. Can't do it at a station as we're using a Tesco Clubcard code for a Two Together Railcard.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Can three-year Senior Citizen Railcards still only be purchased online, as has been the case when I have renewed it in past times. The next one will be the fifth 3-year railcard....kind of gives my age away...

You get a discount code usually and it does save money rather than buying an annual railcard.

 

[Haywain]

Can three-year Senior Citizen Railcards still only be purchased online, as has been the case when I have renewed it in past times.

Yes, it is online only.

 

[SpaldingMan]

Last Thursday I used my Senior Railcard and my App said on the front screen that my card would expire on 10 June and gave me a button to renew now. Having read the numerous stories on this Forum of people being pulled up due to expired railcards I decided to follow the renew button and paid the £30 annual fee. I was sent a key code to download the renewed card onto my phone. When I had done this the new card expiry date was 18 May 2023. In an instant I went from feeling positive about National Railcard not wanting to leave me vulnerable to forgetting to renew my existing card to being angry that they have taken nearly four weeks value from that existing card! I found no warning that this would happen before pushing the renew button - others beware!

An update on my previous post. On the advice of Gray1404 I contacted the contact centre. They said they could not extend the validoty date of my renewed railcard. I submitted a written complaint to which I received the following response:
Having checked your account, I see that you have purchased a new Railcard and have not renewed your old one, due to which, the days left in your old Railcard has not been added into new one.
I would like to inform that the start and end date of the Railcard is system generated and cannot be amended. I am sorry to inform you that we are unable to honour your request to add the remaining validity days into your new Railcard.

This response confirms to me that the Renew button on the Railcard App did not properly register on the Railcard main application system that this was a renewal and not a new application. Perhaps it will be sorted out by next year!

 

[gray1404]

This is an appalling response from them and I am sorry it did not yield a positive outcome. If I was in your situation I was now raise a chargeback through my bank as I have not received the product I have purchased. That being a Railcard with 12-months validity.

 

[BluePenguin]

This is an appalling response from them and I am sorry it did not yield a positive outcome. If I was in your situation I was now raise a chargeback through my bank as I have not received the product I have purchased. That being a Railcard with 12-months validity.

I finally managed to also purchase my railcard although it also is not valid for a full year. The old one expired on 20 May although the new one expires on 19 May next year. Should I also do the same and file a chargeback?

 

[danm14]

I finally managed to also purchase my railcard although it also is not valid for a full year. The old one expired on 20 May although the new one expires on 19 May next year. Should I also do the same and file a chargeback?

To do so would be exceptionally unwise.

It is unlikely that your bank would entertain a chargeback of £0.08 (the pro-rata cost of the missing validity) - and if they did, your Railcard would likely be invalidated immediately on doing so (which would be trivial to do with a digital Railcard).

Chargeback is the nuclear option which you use when every other avenue has closed; not before even making a complaint in a scenario where the product can be remotely deactivated.

 

[gray1404]

I finally managed to also purchase my railcard although it also is not valid for a full year. The old one expired on 20 May although the new one expires on 19 May next year. Should I also do the same and file a chargeback?

That is your personal decision to make.

 

[stuu]

I have been experiencing issues with the website for the last couple of days. When I try to login to my existing account to renew my railcard I get an error message. I just tried registering as a new customer using a different email address and it worked first time. Presumably an issue with their customer database

 

[jrh2254]

Just called Railcard helpline with an issue with the Railcard App.
After some discussion the operator eventually told me 'There is a problem with the Railcard App' 'We are aware of it and so are train managers'
Essentially if you have bought or renewed your railcard today it will not be possible to display the railcard digitally!
She then said 'take a copy of your receipt and if you are charged extra then submit a claim to National Rail'!
I said surely I dont have to go to all this trouble its a fault with your system? She said 'thats what we have been told to advise'!
I then said why cant you put an alert on the Railcard website? She said 'there is a problem with the website as well'!
She then said that 'android users issues should be sorted by 1pm today and iphone within 48 hours'!
Unbelievable!

Wasted 1.5 hours of my time this morning trying to fathom out what the problem was ! Does that qualify for delay repay

 

[HughT]

There still seem to be problems with the website. My wife tried 3 times to put through a Senior Railcard renewal and each time it reported a system error at the final stage. The phone renewal alternative approach worked just fine...

 

[Furrball]

And still issues

500 - Oops! Something is broken
We are experiencing technical difficulties at this time and working to correct the problem.

 

[pdq]

I got this last night. Phoned up and got the card sorted very efficiently. I have suggested via FB Messenger that the phone number is included on the error message as I only found it in the middle of a FB thread.

 

[Meole]

There is a compatibility issue with the National Rail site and some older browsers, journey enquiries will get the 500 error.

 

[Furrball]

Still borked!

No attempt to even acknowldge that there is an issue. Our two together card has just expired and the link in the notification email takes you straight to an error page