Uckfield annual season ticket - but moved to East Grinstead

[Shempz]

Hi all,

I have an annual season ticket from Uckfield to London + Z1-6 which expires in December, but have just recently moved to East Grinstead.

Given that an Uckfield line season ticket is allowed to be used on the East Grinstead line (local easements...etc), should I just keep my Uckfield ticket until it expires, or is it better to get it swapped over to an East Grinstead ticket? If I did swap it over, do you think I would get a partial refund, given that an East Grinstead season ticket is cheaper than an Uckfield ticket?

 

[CyrusWuff]

A changeover is certainly possible, though you may need to do it at a larger station as they generally have to be signed off by a Manager and smaller stations might only get a visit once a week (or even less frequently).

Based on the current fares (which applied from 2nd January), you'd get a refund of £1.03 per day. Unfortunately I don't have fares from last year to hand to check, but it's probably around the same level.

You'll probably need to allow the station a couple of days to calculate the exact figures and get it checked and authorised, and if the original ticket was paid for by company cheque you'll need a letter from your employer saying whether they want the refund paid to them or authorising it to be paid directly to you.

 

[Shempz]

Cheers, I'll pop to East Grin station tomorrow, and see what they say.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The ticket office person managed to do it for me - took over 20mins for the system to give him the correct info, but I did get a partial refund.

 

[tsr]

I rarely (well, almost never) hear complaints about the competence of the staff East Grinstead ticket office, so I'm pleased to hear they sorted out this for you even if it was a bit slow (Southern ticket issuing systems have had all sorts of difficulties recently, so don't take it personally ).

For the future reference of others, the East Grinstead and Uckfield lines have a close-knit bunch of staff who are not averse to sorting this sort of thing out quite quickly, so if you didn't manage to get it done immediately, there's usually a pretty good chance something would get sorted quite fast.

 

[causton]

Refreshing to know some companies do it quickly! We would take about 20 minutes to find the right fare, then have to fill out two forms from 1996 one for the changeover and one for the refund, both sent off to head office and with any luck you might get the refund back in four weeks!

 

[Shempz]

As an aside to this, there was a bit of a queue forming behind me for people wanting to get the tickets, but not wanting to use the TVM - and they were getting grumpy (I specifically timed it so I turned up a few mins after a London train had left, and hoping this would not happen). Some old "gentleman" had a pop at the ticket office person saying he needed to get the next train which was leaving in a couple of mins. I explained to him that if he spoke to the guard on the train , he would most likely give him permission to board without a ticket (barriers were open), and could purchase a ticket on board - needless to say, Mr Snooty dismissed my advice out of hand, and looked at me like I was something he'd stepped in.

 

[causton]

As an aside to this, there was a bit of a queue forming behind me for people wanting to get the tickets, but not wanting to use the TVM - and they were getting grumpy (I specifically timed it so I turned up a few mins after a London train had left, and hoping this would not happen). Some old "gentleman" had a pop at the ticket office person saying he needed to get the next train which was leaving in a couple of mins. I explained to him that if he spoke to the guard on the train , he would most likely give him permission to board without a ticket (barriers were open), and could purchase a ticket on board - needless to say, Mr Snooty dismissed my advice out of hand, and looked at me like I was something he'd stepped in.

Welcome to the world of selling tickets. I had a customer who needed help with an Advance and was comparing two different options when a customer walked out of the queue (which was 4 or 5 people) and shouted SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO CATCH TRAINS TODAY YOU KNOW? YOU'RE HOLDING UP EVERYBODY! and ran off to the ticket machine. She then came back to shout more abuse at the customer who I was just finishing up with... I told the lady in no uncertain terms to mind her own business! Meanwhile the other people in the queue had already been served by other cashiers...

 

[Shempz]

Hi all, hopefully someone can help me again on this!

I now need to do a delay repay claim from East Grinstead, but as my ticket is a changeover, it does not display the annual cost of the East Grinstead + Z1-6 season ticket for 2014 on it, but the cost from the point at which I changed over (18th Aug) until the end date (5th Dec), which is £962.50.

Will the delay repay system/staff be able to cope with this, or would they automatically divide the £962.50 by the annual 520(?) journeys by mistake?