Railcards; Rail Delivery Group answer a different question to the one asked!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Guardian

Can I get a refund or extension on my railcard for lockdown?

There are an estimated 5.3m railcards in circulation, typically triggering discounts of about a third on ticket prices, and valid for a year.

Restrictions brought in to contain the coronavirus mean that train services have been cut and only essential journeys should be made, so it is unlikely many of those railcards are being used at the moment.

The Rail Delivery Group, which runs the railcard scheme, says: “Railcards provide great value for customers, as the cost of a railcard can often be covered by the savings they offer in a single journey, which is why they are normally non-refundable and cannot be extended. We recognise these are exceptional times, which is why we have offered fee-free refunds on almost all kinds of tickets, have extended the time to claim a ticket refund, and are refunding tickets remotely without people having to travel to a ticket office.”

The passenger group Transport Focus is calling for either an extension or a discount on renewal to be offered to railcard holders. But the government has temporarily taken responsibility for fares and the industry’s finances, so any changes to policy would be determined by the Department for Transport.

Although the Rail Delivery Group have chosen not to answer the question in this quoted reply, I think we can take it that the answer is "No, you cannot get a refund or extension on your railcard" - for surely they would have actually answered the question had the answer been a positive one.   The final paragraph goes on to suggest that responsibility for any change to this answer is now down to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) anyway.

[bobm]

Following on from that people may decide to delay renewing their railcard when it expires.   I wonder if there is a break in validity whether you will have to produce evidence of entitlement (eg over 60) when buying a new one.

[johnneyw]

A quick calculation a few months ago indicated that I had already recouped the total outlay for my 3 year card comfortably within the first year (in fact probably within the first few months) so I don't feel that I'm particularly out of pocket. True, the savings could have been greater but looking at it through the perspective of the current crisis, it would be very petty of me to moan about it.  I do realise though, that anyone who purchased a card just prior to the lockdown would have a different case.

[stuving]

Following on from that people may decide to delay renewing their railcard when it expires.   I wonder if there is a break in validity whether you will have to produce evidence of entitlement (eg over 60) when buying a new one.

That would be to protect themselves from miscreants who willfully get younger during the interval, would it?

[Robin Summerhill]

A quick calculation a few months ago indicated that I had already recouped the total outlay for my 3 year card comfortably within the first year (in fact probably within the first few months) so I don't feel that I'm particularly out of pocket. True, the savings could have been greater but looking at it through the perspective of the current crisis, it would be very petty of me to moan about it.  I do realise though, that anyone who purchased a card just prior to the lockdown would have a different case.

When you think about it, if someone is anywhere near a regular rail user then it is pretty difficult to be out of pocket. I bought my last 3-year Senior Railcard in June 2018 for £70.00, and after £210 worth of full fare travel I was winning. With an annal £30 railcard less than £100 worth of full fare travel would show a saving - for me, 3 trips to London would  do that. My spreadsheet that nerds like me keep about such things tells me that my £70.00 investment has saved me over £900 so far and it's still got 14 months to run.

Of course, should you have happened to have bought a 14-day all line rover at last years prices (as I did), that would have been a saving of £272.05 in one fell swoop (£523.95 as opposed to £796.00). But even without porcjases like that I would still be well in pocket.

[chuffed]

Would love to see one of those porcjases. Sounds like a Czech pig .. a swindler who jumped off his luxury yacht springs to mind.....

[grahame]

I have no argument what so ever with the position that railcards are excellent value and have remained such even if a number of months are lost.  But the point remains that a deal was offered and bought offering one or three years of discounted travel and people who purchased it, attracted by the 12 or 36 months, are now being denied use of the product they have purchased for a significant proportion of that time, by HM Government who have taken over the railway and put laws into place to stop the use for which the card was marketed and sold.

To be very clear - I am in agreement with the temporary elimination of all but essential travel at the current time.  I just think that the organisations that have got together to mastermind these cards should have (at the least) admit that they are not providing what they have sold a card for and (better) make a gesture to recognise that - such as extending the validity of all cards that were current at the time the lockdown started for a length of time equal to or a little longer than the length of the lockdown.

[Robin Summerhill]

... But the point remains that a deal was offered and bought offering one or three years of discounted travel and people who purchased it, attracted by the 12 or 36 months, are now being denied use of the product they have purchased for a significant proportion of that time, by HM Government who have taken over the railway and put laws into place to stop the use for which the card was marketed and sold.

I don’t actually disagree with anything you say; I was responding to a query implied in jonneyw’s post about whether one could fail to cover the cost of a railcard with the journeys that are made. My contention was that if somebody uses the railway so little that they make a notional loss on buying a railcard, then perhaps they shouldn’t bother buying one in the first place.

However your post, and other words that have reached my ears and eyes these past few days, begin to make me wonder whether people are concentrating on the right things at the moment.

I heard on the news that Admiral Insurance is to give a £25 refund to motorists on their premiums because car use is restricted. The first question I heard about this was someone with a multi-car policy, wanting to know if the refund was per car or per policy. On another forum I read of a campaign being started to get a rebate on Vehicle Excise duty for the same reasons. On here we have rumblings about getting a refund on a railcard because the services can’t be used. You will see a pattern emerging.

Railcards, VED and car insurance all run on the same basic principle. You pay a sum of money and that entitles you to do something that ths wh have not paid cannot legally do. That “something” is normally unlimited. A salesman doing 80,000 miles per year and a vicar’s wife who only uses her car on a Sunday morning to get parishioners to church, will pay exactly the same level of VED if they have identical cars. Is that fair? Should the vicar’s wife pay less? Perhaps, perhaps not – the vicar’s wife could use her car more if she wanted to but she chooses not to. Not only is that her choice, but it is difficult to see how you could make the system any fairer unless road pricing was introduced, a move that would be almost guaranteed to lose a government the next election of they ever tried it.

And so it is with railcards. I agreed to pay £70 back in 2018 and in consideration for that the railway allows me to travel at two-thirds of the normal fare. I could go to London twice every day for three years if I wanted to, or I could only use my railcard for a fortnightly trip to Bath. I still just pay the same £70 to get the discounted fare. That choice is entirely mine and mine alone (subject to bank balance, of course..).

A quick calculation, dividing the cost of the railcard by the number of days in three years, gives a cost of 6.39269 pence per day if no leap years are involved, and 6.38686 pence per day if there is a leap year in that period. On that basis, as we have been in lockdown for 4 weeks the railway currently “owes me” the princely sum of £1.79.

At a time when over 5000 people a week are still dying from this virus I for one am not going to get too concerned about being “swindled” out of less than two quid. And besides, when all this is over I can go back to going to London twice a day for a third off – and sod the vicar’s wife...

[Sixty3Closure]

While it seems people are not thinking bigger picture there are lots of people for whom that £25 might make all the difference for their food budget. Huge numbers of people have no income or have lost their jobs so I'm not going to get too worried about people trying to save all the money they can.

If you're self employed no government support till June and only then in limited circumstances which I know my sister's partner doesn't meet as he's a new startup. She's just been told her contract is being terminated.

A bit here on insurance, some more on rail card, some more on a gym membership it could all make a difference.

[LiskeardRich]

I recouped mine on the first journey!

[WSW Frome]

I can agree with all the principles expressed here - for both sides of the argument.

Two things come to mind:

The Government, Local Authorities, RDG^‡(resolve) and also commercial companies probably need to retain all the revenue they can get or retain just now.

Has anyone considered the administration costs/staff burdens of applying many of these suggestions which would further impact the revenue streams. These burdens could be minimised by a blanket approach from an organisation and indeed also used as an optional "good news" marketing tool by companies.

Let us keep it simple and in general consider these things in the nature of a charitable donation for the greater good.

[old original]

There was a promotion around 8-10 years ago-ish when it was 15 months for the price of 12, so something could be done reasonably easily I would have thought. Admittedly it was in the days before online and 3 year railcards but still....

[grahame]

I think I read criticism for a point I did not make or indeed I wouldn't want to make. The subject line is Railcards; Rail Delivery Group answer a different question to the one asked! and my concern was that the serious question asked of the Rail Delivery Group who hold a responsibility for these cards was sidestepped with a statementthat did not address the question.  Those reporting to the press may not have noted this slimy slight of hand, but some of usdid. 

An answer of "Sorry - no refund or extension; it would cost too much to do. We are in exceptional circumstances and refund amounts would be small" would have been honest, understandable , and acceptable even if not welcomed by all.

Comparison.  I had a fortnight rover running at the time of the shutdown, so was not able to use it to its conclusion. I asked if any form of refund was due, but (after a number of poor pieces of advise from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s customer support number) the final answer is "sorry - once you start travelling on a ranger or rover, no refud is due in any circumstance".  My loss - about £50.  No big shout - these thing happen; at least I (eventually) got my question answered. 

I agreed to pay £70 back in 2018 and in consideration for that the railway allows me to travel at two-thirds of the normal fare. I could go to London twice every day for three years if I wanted to, or I could only use my railcard for a fortnightly trip to Bath. I still just pay the same £70 to get the discounted fare. That choice is entirely mine and mine alone (subject to bank balance, of course..).

Point of order, Robin.

It is NOT your choice whether or not to go to London every day at the moment.  That choice has been taken away from you, even if you spent £70 with the intent of it making it more economic to make those daily trips.

[LiskeardRich]

I think I read criticism for a point I did not make or indeed I wouldn't want to make. The subject line is Railcards; Rail Delivery Group answer a different question to the one asked! and my concern was that the serious question asked of the Rail Delivery Group who hold a responsibility for these cards was sidestepped with a statementthat did not address the question.  Those reporting to the press may not have noted this slimy slight of hand, but some of usdid. 

An answer of "Sorry - no refund or extension; it would cost too much to do. We are in exceptional circumstances and refund amounts would be small" would have been honest, understandable , and acceptable even if not welcomed by all.

Comparison.  I had a fortnight rover running at the time of the shutdown, so was not able to use it to its conclusion. I asked if any form of refund was due, but (after a number of poor pieces of advise from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s customer support number) the final answer is "sorry - once you start travelling on a ranger or rover, no refud is due in any circumstance".  My loss - about £50.  No big shout - these thing happen; at least I (eventually) got my question answered. 

I agreed to pay £70 back in 2018 and in consideration for that the railway allows me to travel at two-thirds of the normal fare. I could go to London twice every day for three years if I wanted to, or I could only use my railcard for a fortnightly trip to Bath. I still just pay the same £70 to get the discounted fare. That choice is entirely mine and mine alone (subject to bank balance, of course..).

Point of order, Robin.

It is NOT your choice whether or not to go to London every day at the moment.  That choice has been taken away from you, even if you spent £70 with the intent of it making it more economic to make those daily trips.

In theory it is still his choice whether he goes to London every day now, he could find himself questioned or fined for breaking the rules, but he could still choose to break the rules

[Robin Summerhill]

...the serious question asked of the Rail Delivery Group who hold a responsibility for these cards was sidestepped with a statementthat did not address the question.  Those reporting to the press may not have noted this slimy slight of hand, but some of us did. 

An answer of "Sorry - no refund or extension; it would cost too much to do. We are in exceptional circumstances and refund amounts would be small" would have been honest, understandable , and acceptable even if not welcomed by all.

Comparison.  I had a fortnight rover running at the time of the shutdown, so was not able to use it to its conclusion. I asked if any form of refund was due, but (after a number of poor pieces of advise from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s customer support number) the final answer is "sorry - once you start travelling on a ranger or rover, no refud is due in any circumstance".  My loss - about £50.  No big shout - these thing happen; at least I (eventually) got my question answered. 

I agreed to pay £70 back in 2018 and in consideration for that the railway allows me to travel at two-thirds of the normal fare. I could go to London twice every day for three years if I wanted to, or I could only use my railcard for a fortnightly trip to Bath. I still just pay the same £70 to get the discounted fare. That choice is entirely mine and mine alone (subject to bank balance, of course..).

Point of order, Robin.

It is NOT your choice whether or not to go to London every day at the moment.  That choice has been taken away from you, even if you spent £70 with the intent of it making it more economic to make those daily trips.

In theory it is still his choice whether he goes to London every day now, he could find himself questioned or fined for breaking the rules, but he could still choose to break the rules

Responding to Liskeard Rich first, this scenario had crossed my mind too. Genuine question because I don't know the answer - how are the restrictions being enforced? Are BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) patrolling stations and/or trains challenging people? Is anybody else doing it and, if they are, what powers do they have to physically prevent anyone from travelling? Theoretically at least there might be nothing that is actually stopping people doing just that.

Moving on to Graham's points, perhaps we could do with an inout from TonyK here 

I think it could be argued that there is a major difference between a railcard and a rover and indeed a season ticket. When a railcard is purchased it is simply a document that entitles you to travel at reduced rates. It is not a permit to travel in itself.

In the case of a rover or a season ticket, the actual payment is for a ticket to travel. I would think that a much better case could be made for a refund in those circumstances because you have paid for a permit to travel that you are now being prevented from using.

As an aside, after I posted some extreme travel examples yesterday I thought about how much I would actually have used that railcard in the last four weeks. There was the monthly retired railway staff meeting in Bristol that was cancelled, I would have gone to Bath for shopping, probably have made two visits to Gloucester to see two octogenarian uncles, and most likely a longer trip or two towards London to walk somewhere different, or even just to get a KFC in Praed Street if I had become cheesed off enough with the weather! And all of that, except the cancelled meeting, can still be done when the lockdown is over.