Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi Guys

i am planning to buy a annual ticket next year, but i wanted to ask people if they could help me understand the refund policy around annual season tickets and how much if any i will lose out if i was to return the pass after lets say 4 months.

from reading it is going to cost me ^4516 yearly which equates to ^376.3 per month.

if i was to return it after four months, how much would i get back?  ^376.3 x 8 ?

how is it worked out?

regards

Season ticket refunds are calculated using a base rate which is the monthly season price divided by 3.84, rounded to the nearest 10p. The base rate is then used to calculate differing season ticket periods by multiplying that base rate by a factor determined by the amount of usage the ticket holder has had from their Season. The base rate should be the prevailing monthly season/3.84 available at the time the monthly or longer season was purchased. Season ticket refunds are also subject to a ^10 admin fee.

Table for calculating multiples of base rates for season ticket periods from 1 month to 1 year (extract from NFM98):
(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/STfactors.jpg)

So, if you return your season ticket after 4 months exactly the refund will be: ^4516 minus (base rate x 15.36) minus ^10 admin fee. The base rate for your season is ^112.90. 

Should you need an annual season for a different journey part way through your current season's validity, then a changeover rather than a refund and re-issue will be better value. You can do a changeover in any circumstance, provided the season has a month or more remaining. A season changeover is worked out with a daily rate for each ticket. This daily rate will be 1/365 of the price of the current and new annual seasons. The price of the current and new season (from the original start date to the expiry date) will be divided by the total number of days the current ticket is valid for. Those figures are then multiplied by the number of days remaining on the ticket. The difference between those figures is refunded (or charged as applicable).

I believe ticket clerks don't have to perform these calculations themselves, their Ticket Issuing System does it for them.

<BMN just beat me with the reply and his was better, but here's mine anyway>

Hi, FGW112 - welcome to the forum.

You get back the money based on what you would have spent for a season ticket for the length of time you've used it (and I believe there's a small admin fee?).

So, use the season ticket calculator on the National Rail website http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/seasonticket/search (http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/seasonticket/search) and that will give you all the information you need, though in the case of 4 months, then that ticket would cost ^1734.20, so you'd be looking at a refund of ^2782 (less any admin fee).

Basically, an annual ticket is based on 40x the cost of a weekly season ticket (i.e. you get twelve extra weeks free), and a monthly ticket is based on 3.84x the cost of the weekly ticket.  Upwards of 1 month up to that 40 week period (10 months in effect) and the price is simply a multiplication of the monthly charge.  So 6 months is twice the cost of 3 months.

thanks guys.

No. Yours was better. I got my maths, base rates and daily rates in a right old muddle. I've edited my reply to fix that. I think!

Oh, and I forgot to welcome you to the forum FGW112.  :-[

So, welcome.  :D

Or alternatively exchange it for a Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St Johns Road gold card.  This is done on an entirely pro-rata basis.  This doesn't require you to pay the admin fee, will probably give you a bigger refund, allow you to continue to receive gold card benefits for a while longer and could be useful if you ever go to the Isle of Wight.

See http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/season_tickets/season_ticket_conditions.html under "Changeovers"