My 3-year Senior Railcard expired on Tuesday so on Monday I renewed it
online. It turns out they add a week to the renewal expiry date for online
renewals to allow for posting the cards out. The new card actually arrived
in the post on Tuesday.

Yesterday I tried to register the railcard on my Oyster card at a ticket
machine at Liverpool St station. When the assistant typed in the 01/11/2019
expiry date it was rejected, apparently for being more than 3 years in the
future. He tried 01/11/19 too. Nothing he or his colleagues could do would
get the railcard registered to the Oyster card.

Luckily I had my bike with me and wasn't planning to use Oyster yesterday.
My next visit to London when I might need Oyster won't be till after 1st
November.

But why doesn't TfL recognise that railcard expiry can be more than 3 years
away, even if by only a week? This failure must surely be in breach of their
contract with ATOC?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 07:46:16
on Fri, 28 Oct 2016, remarked:
My 3-year Senior Railcard expired on Tuesday so on Monday I renewed it
online. It turns out they add a week to the renewal expiry date for online
renewals to allow for posting the cards out. The new card actually arrived
in the post on Tuesday.

Yesterday I tried to register the railcard on my Oyster card at a ticket
machine at Liverpool St station. When the assistant typed in the 01/11/2019
expiry date it was rejected, apparently for being more than 3 years in the
future. He tried 01/11/19 too. Nothing he or his colleagues could do would
get the railcard registered to the Oyster card.

Luckily I had my bike with me and wasn't planning to use Oyster yesterday.
My next visit to London when I might need Oyster won't be till after 1st
November.

But why doesn't TfL recognise that railcard expiry can be more than 3 years
away, even if by only a week? This failure must surely be in breach of their
contract with ATOC?

They might well say "only attempt that when on your first trip on or
after 1/11/16".

Transport companies are very weak when it comes to IT - hence why I've
had a prepaid bus carnet card unpredictably decide it was out of date on
my first attempted trip one January, and an ITSO card (East Midlands
Trains) which had been given a birth date as the issue date, so was
unable to sell me other than child tickets.

The bus company put into place measures to cure the former (as long as
you were prepared to visit their office), but I never did get EMT staff
to even understand what the problem was.

"We've not been trained on it, **** off". They'll make ideal employees
for a re-nationalised MML.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
07:46:16 on Fri, 28 Oct 2016, remarked:
My 3-year Senior Railcard expired on Tuesday so on Monday I renewed it
online. It turns out they add a week to the renewal expiry date for
online renewals to allow for posting the cards out. The new card actually
arrived in the post on Tuesday.

Yesterday I tried to register the railcard on my Oyster card at a ticket
machine at Liverpool St station. When the assistant typed in the
01/11/2019 expiry date it was rejected, apparently for being more than 3
years in the future. He tried 01/11/19 too. Nothing he or his colleagues
could do would get the railcard registered to the Oyster card.

Luckily I had my bike with me and wasn't planning to use Oyster
yesterday. My next visit to London when I might need Oyster won't be till
after 1st November.

But why doesn't TfL recognise that railcard expiry can be more than 3
years away, even if by only a week? This failure must surely be in breach
of their contract with ATOC?

They might well say "only attempt that when on your first trip on or
after 1/11/16".

That date is not on the card. The ATOC railcard web site makes it clear the
card is valid from issue.

Transport companies are very weak when it comes to IT - hence why
I've had a prepaid bus carnet card unpredictably decide it was out of
date on my first attempted trip one January, and an ITSO card (East
Midlands Trains) which had been given a birth date as the issue date,
so was unable to sell me other than child tickets.

:-)

The bus company put into place measures to cure the former (as long
as you were prepared to visit their office), but I never did get EMT
staff to even understand what the problem was.

:-))

"We've not been trained on it, **** off". They'll make ideal
employees for a re-nationalised MML.

:-)))

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 28/10/2016 13:46, wrote:
My 3-year Senior Railcard expired on Tuesday so on Monday I renewed it
online. It turns out they add a week to the renewal expiry date for online
renewals to allow for posting the cards out. The new card actually arrived
in the post on Tuesday.

Yesterday I tried to register the railcard on my Oyster card at a ticket
machine at Liverpool St station. When the assistant typed in the 01/11/2019
expiry date it was rejected, apparently for being more than 3 years in the
future. He tried 01/11/19 too. Nothing he or his colleagues could do would
get the railcard registered to the Oyster card.

Luckily I had my bike with me and wasn't planning to use Oyster yesterday.
My next visit to London when I might need Oyster won't be till after 1st
November.

But why doesn't TfL recognise that railcard expiry can be more than 3 years
away, even if by only a week? This failure must surely be in breach of their
contract with ATOC?

I think I had the same problem - the fairly helpful assistant at King's
Cross managed to renew by Oyster discount for (I think) 2 years. So
when this date comes around I will have to remember to get it extended,
somehow. There seems no way of the user discovering the expiry date of
the railcard discount embedded in an Oyster card. As others have said,
the rail operators are hopeless at IT.

--
Clive Page

In message , at 11:09:47 on Sat, 29
Oct 2016, Clive Page remarked:

There seems no way of the user discovering the expiry date of the
railcard discount embedded in an Oyster card.

Not even asking a TfL roaming assistant?
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

On 28/10/2016 13:46, wrote:
My 3-year Senior Railcard expired on Tuesday so on Monday I renewed it
online. It turns out they add a week to the renewal expiry date for
online renewals to allow for posting the cards out. The new card
actually arrived in the post on Tuesday.

Yesterday I tried to register the railcard on my Oyster card at a ticket
machine at Liverpool St station. When the assistant typed in the
01/11/2019 expiry date it was rejected, apparently for being more than 3
years in the future. He tried 01/11/19 too. Nothing he or his colleagues
could do would get the railcard registered to the Oyster card.

Luckily I had my bike with me and wasn't planning to use Oyster
yesterday. My next visit to London when I might need Oyster won't be
till after 1st November.

But why doesn't TfL recognise that railcard expiry can be more than 3
years away, even if by only a week? This failure must surely be in
breach of their contract with ATOC?

I think I had the same problem - the fairly helpful assistant at
King's Cross managed to renew by Oyster discount for (I think) 2
years. So when this date comes around I will have to remember to get
it extended, somehow. There seems no way of the user discovering the
expiry date of the railcard discount embedded in an Oyster card. As
others have said, the rail operators are hopeless at IT.

Very interesting. I realised contrary to what I wrote above I actually
wanted to use my Oyster card on a trip to London today even without a
railcard discount. I initially expected to use a Day Travelcard but because
of engineering works on SWT I realised I could use tube and bus (free with
my bus pass) to get where I was going for less than a travelcard from
Cambridge costs over and above a London Terminals Day Return.

So I spoke to as helpful assistant as yours, also at King's Cross St Pancras
(maybe the same guy?). He put a 2 year validity on it and told me to get it
fixed when the card had less than 3 years to run. I'll find out if that
causes any complications next month I expect.

It must be possible to set a date as, to his surprise, he found that my
railcard was already registered to the Oyster card as its serial number was
already there, presumably from the failed attempts at Liverpool St (or we
both misread the number - they only differ in one digit, something else to
check next time).

If the ruse works the assistant deserves praise for using his initiative and
being creative. I wish there was more of that on the railway and TfL.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 11:09:47 on Sat, 29
Oct 2016, Clive Page remarked:

There seems no way of the user discovering the expiry date of the
railcard discount embedded in an Oyster card.

Not even asking a TfL roaming assistant?

I thought one could now see railcard registration on Oyster cards without
requiring a roaming assistant. I know you can see the registration. I'll
have to check again if the expiry date is included. I'm sure it's there if
the assistant logs in. It may be that not all machines have been updated to
show the data too,

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 30/10/2016 01:45, wrote:

It must be possible to set a date as, to his surprise, he found that my
railcard was already registered to the Oyster card as its serial number was
already there, presumably from the failed attempts at Liverpool St (or we
both misread the number - they only differ in one digit, something else to
check next time).

If memory serves, the first digit after the two letters in the Railcard
number is the issue number, so your first one might be 01ABC1234567890,
second might be 01ABC2234567890, etc.

Hope that helps,

Barry


--
Barry Salter, usenet (at) southie (dot) me (dot) uk

Disclaimer: The above do not necessarily represent the views of my
employer.

In article , lid (Barry
Salter) wrote:

On 30/10/2016 01:45, wrote:

It must be possible to set a date as, to his surprise, he found that my
railcard was already registered to the Oyster card as its serial number
was already there, presumably from the failed attempts at Liverpool St
(or we both misread the number - they only differ in one digit,
something else to check next time).

If memory serves, the first digit after the two letters in the
Railcard number is the issue number, so your first one might be
01ABC1234567890, second might be 01ABC2234567890, etc.

Hope that helps,

That was my guess too. Thanks for confirming it. I'm expecting to find out
more on Tuesday week.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
() wrote:

In article , lid
(Barry Salter) wrote:

On 30/10/2016 01:45, wrote:

It must be possible to set a date as, to his surprise, he found that
my railcard was already registered to the Oyster card as its serial
number was already there, presumably from the failed attempts at
Liverpool St (or we both misread the number - they only differ in one
digit, something else to check next time).

If memory serves, the first digit after the two letters in the
Railcard number is the issue number, so your first one might be
01ABC1234567890, second might be 01ABC2234567890, etc.

Hope that helps,

That was my guess too. Thanks for confirming it. I'm expecting to
find out more on Tuesday week.

Wednesday in fact. I was in London today for a lunchtime workshop. As I was
early I went to the Liverpool St ticket machines and managed to get the
expiry date corrected. Despite the lack of initiative of the 3 staff members
I met on 27th October, today's knew exactly about the idea of registering an
earlier date and fixing it later. He suspected no 2019 date would be
accepted by 01/11/2019 was accepted fine.

It turns out the number of the railcard is entered as "Photocard number" and
only the last 9 digits are recorded, not including the issue number. So the
previously recorded number is unchanged on railcard renewal. There also
seems to be no plausibility checking of the expiry date other than the 3
year maximum at the time the date is set.

--
Colin Rosenstiel