Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm currently a Gold Card holder between Didcot Parkway and London Paddington so as a benefit of this I have been able to get my wife a Network Rail card for ^1.

My wife has used this Network Rail card between Didcot and Paddington on a number of occasions now to get 1/3 off the standard fare with no issues, however when she tried to use it yesterday to buy a ticket between Didcot and Oxford (at ~14:00) she was told that her Network Rail  card couldn't be used and she ended up having to pay the full fare without getting the 1/3 discount. She obviously didn't know any better so just accepted it and paid the full fare.

I have checked the Network Railcard routes and the route between Didcot and Oxford is definitely shown as a valid route...

http://www.railcard.co.uk/clientfiles/files/map.pdf

Does anyone know if there are any specific restrictions on the Didcot to Oxford route using a Network Rail card that we're unaware of (I can't seem to find any) or if the customer sales assistant probably just didn't know what they were talking about and incorrectly rejected my wife's Network Rail card?

The Network Railcard certainly can be used between Didcot and Oxford - the area extends as far as Worcester, Banbury and Bicester Town.  The problem here appears to be the minimum fare of ^13.00 which applies to journeys using the Network Railcard on Mondays to Fridays.  So, it is cheaper not to use the Railcard.

Thanks. That explains it. Looks like I missed the small print.

It was another sneaky fare rise by the then ex NSE TOCs (10 years ago?) to introduce this minimum fare for the NSE card on weekday Off Peak. It meant that from many stations up to around 25 miles from London you couldn't get cheap Off Peak Travelcards using the card. Taploe being one. It probably netted a lot of revenue for the TOCs concerned.

I know several people who used to travel a couple of times a week to London Off Peak with an NSE card who were most put out when they could no longer get their discount.

 

As I remember it, the NSE card always had a minimum fare Mon-Fri even from introduction.

Not quite: at introduction in 1986 there was no minimum fare. This came in set at GBP 10.00 in 2002, and was subsequently increased to 13.00 in 2009.

For a while there were railcards in circulation with the old T&Cs (no min fare) and he new T&Cs (min fare applies): the fact that the current railcard stock is endorsed with a red "R" in a circle is a hangover from this, with the R denoting the "revised" or "restricted" conditions.

As an aside to this topic, Thames Trains was not entirely supportive of the ^10 minimum fare imposed on the Network Railcard on Mondays to Fridays in 2002.  So, on 5th January 2003, it reacted by introducing the Cotswold Line Railcard (price then - ^5.00), which offers a 34% discount on off-peak journeys entirely along the Oxford-Worcester Line.  Unfortunately, unlike the Network Railcard, it does not allow up to three other passengers to accompany the card holder at the discount fare, but at a current cost of only ^7.50 per annum, it is still very good value for money if you make regular short off-peak journeys between stations on the Cotswold Line.