Season ticket refund

[whole diary]

[cholsey]

Hi,

I am intending to return my 12 month gold card season ticket soon (Cholsey - Paddington) and am trying to work out my likely refund.  It expires 31 Dec 2012.    When working out the cost up until mid-August will FGW^▸ (First Great Western) use the price when I purchased the ticket (eg last years prices) and will they all include the 5% performance discount I got when I purchased the annual?  This could make all the difference in whether it is worth getting the refund. 

Thanks

[EBrown]

Any refund is calculated from the date the Season Ticket was handed in. It will be the difference between the price you paid and the cost of a ticket or tickets for the period for which you have actually used the ticket, plus an administration charge. Because of the discounts on longer term Season Tickets, refunds are not made pro rata to the periods before/after surrender and Annual Season Tickets have no refund value after about 10 1/2 months. For this reason we recommend that employers' Annual Season Ticket loan schemes are set up so that reimbursements are made in 10 equal monthly payments with two 'free' months at the end of the year, rather than in 12 equal monthly payments.

[JayMac]

Season ticket refunds are calculated using a base rate which is usually the weekly season ticket price, or if there is no published weekly season price, the base rate is the monthly season price divided by 3.84, rounded up 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 weekly season ticket price (or equivalent monthly/3.84) available at the time the monthly or longer season was purchased.

Cholsey - London Terminals Monthly Season at 31st December 2011: ^344.10

If you were to return your Annual Season ticket tomorrow, 13th August 2012, you will have had 8 months and 13 days use of it (31/12/2011-12/08/2012). That period requires a multiplication of the base rate by 32.39 (see table below)

Your base rate is ^344.10/3.84 = ^89.70 (89.609375 rounded up to the nearest 10p)

Base rate ^89.70 x 32.39 period multiplier = ^2905.40 (2905.383 rounded up to nearest 10p)

Refund is then the price paid for Annual Season (^3584) minus ^2905.40 minus ^10 admin fee = ^668.60

As a 5% reduction was offered on the Annual Season when purchased then I'd expect a 5% reduction on either  the base rate or the total of base rate x 32.39 period multiplier. That should still give a refund figure in the ball park of ^668.60

Table for calculating multiples of base rates for season ticket periods from 1 month to 1 year (extract from NFM98):


I believe ticket clerks don't have to perform these calculations themselves, their TIS^‡(resolve) does it for them. I'd be interested to know how close my maths is to the actual refund given. Do let us know cholsey! Oh and let us know the date you apply for your refund.

[JayMac]

Another thing to consider is your Gold Card. That should be surrendered if you are refunding your Annual Season. You may want to consider purchasing a Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St Johns Road Annual Season for ^148 to retain your Gold Card benefits.

[cholsey]

Thanks very much for the additional detail.  Planning on returning it on Friday (17/08), which should produce just over ^600.  My concern was they might base the refund on this years monthly price without the performance discount - which would have reduced this quite a bit.

As the refund is not managed by the ticket office I was worried I may not get a opportunity to keep hold of it if the refund was minimal.  I may append these calculations when I return my ticket!

[JayMac]

You may have to point out the performance discount, so that the use you've had isn't 5% more than it should be. I don't know whether a ticket clerk's TIS^‡(resolve) will automatically take this into account.

[eightf48544]

Re 5% discount I was most upset when I retired and reliquised my Gold Card in june 2005 to find that I didn't get the refund that I should have had for 2004/5 poor performance. I would have got if I'd renewed my ticket. Seems unfair the discount is retrospective for poor performance but only if you renew. So I'd put up with a year of pretty abismal  performance without compensation. Still I can't really complain my tickets were cheaper each year from 2000 to 2005 as the fare rises was less than 5% now that really was an incentive to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) improve performance..

[Southern Stag]

That's changed in more recent franchises, and will change in the Great Western franchise. Passengers with all types of tickets will have to claim based on individual delays using the delay repay scheme, there won't be any renewal discount for season ticket holders any more.

[JayMac]

For more recently awarded franchises the amount of compensation paid per delayed journey is based on the cost of each journey as a proportion of the season ticket total price.

It is assumed with an annual season ticket that you will make 546 single journeys in the year. That's 260 return weekday journeys (520) and 13 weekend return journeys (26).

Other lengths of season ticket and the amount of journeys assumed to be made are calculated pro rata from the annual figure.

Assumed cost of a single journey with a season ticket:

Annual: 1/546 of the total cost of the ticket
Monthly: 1/45
Weekly: 1/10.5

If the delay is 30-59mins you get 50% of the assumed single journey cost by way of compensation.
If the delay is 60+mins you get 100% of the assumed single journey cost.

If there is a period of sustained peak travel poor performance TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) operating Delay Repay schemes may offer additional compensation above and beyond the minimum per journey figures.

[cholsey]

A slightly delayed followup.  There was some delay in processing the refund and it has only just reached my credit card.

Based on bignosemac's recommendation I thought I would see if I could exchange my season ticket for a  Ryde Esplanade to Ryde St Johns Road Annual Season.
Seems you can and it results in a much better refund as it is a simple prorata over the year.  The new gold card cost ^56.17 until the end of the year, but I got a refund of ^1,222.04 and there was no ^10 admin fee.

In fact I can think of very few occasions where you would be better off asking for a refund.

Thanks for all your advice.

[Western Enterprise]

but I got a refund of ^1,222.04

Well done!
Let me get that right, you got a ^1,200 refund instead of something about ^600.
That^s sounds like madness.
I assume that with the Ryde annual ticket you are paying pro-rata cancellation rates as opposed to short-period rates?.
I wonder how many Ryde annual tickets there are out there that don^t get used!