season ticket refunds?

hotcookie101

My OH has an annual train season ticket that cost £5K :eek: He bought it with a season ticket loan from his employers. He has used it for 4 months so far.
He is thinking of changing jobs, and has £3266 left to pay on the loan. he thinks that when he turns in his season ticket for a refund he will not get this full amount. And its hard to try and get the information/I can't make sense of what they are saying here

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.

He thinks he will end up getting no final wage check, and will end up owing his employer more money. (PS his employers have set it up over 12 months not 10)

kalaika

Your husband has two considerations:

1 - his season ticket is with the train company. The above says that if he gives it back to them with one and a half months left or less, he will get no cash refund for the unused portion. If he gives it back with more than that remaining he will get some refund, but the amount of the refund will not be equally split across the year. So, if he gives it back now with, say, the eight months remaining, the refund he gets will be less that 8/12ths of the original cost.

2 - He will owe his employer back the full amount outstanding on the loan if he leaves, and owes that regardless of what he gets back from the train company. It will be up to him and his employer to arrange how this full payment is made.

hotcookie101

Thanks,

We had sort of figured those 2 bits out, its more the "how much less" the refund will be question that I can't seem to find the answer to-is it a full 2months less, or a proportion of that? Eg-he has used 4 out of 12 months, so will he get a refund for 8 months, or 6months, or a proportion in between?

photome

hotcookie101 wrote: »

Thanks,

We had sort of figured those 2 bits out, its more the "how much less" the refund will be question that I can't seem to find the answer to-is it a full 2months less, or a proportion of that? Eg-he has used 4 out of 12 months, so will he get a refund for 8 months, or 6months, or a proportion in between?

The answer was in post 2 that it is not a pro rata refund so he would not get 8 months refund! As for how much only the train company will know, why not ask them

mikey72

What's the next ticket down?
eg, how much would say 4 x 1 month tickets cost?
Maybe they would take that of the price of the annual ticket, and then refund the difference.

AirlieBird

You will get back
the original price paid
less the number of weeks used * the price of a weekly ticket
minus an admin charge.

NB: An annual season ticket is 40 times the price of a weekly ticket so no refund is due if the season ticket has been used for 40 weeks or more.

dzug1

However if he needs a season ticket in the new job (even for a different journey) he can get something much nearer pro rata value by trading it in.

And I thought (but don't have time to confirm) that the refund on an annual ticket was based on monthly seasons/parts of month rather than weeklies, which would be slightly better

GRM

dzug1 wrote: »

And I thought (but don't have time to confirm) that the refund on an annual ticket was based on monthly seasons/parts of month rather than weeklies, which would be slightly better

The National Rail Conditions of Carriage says:

The refund will be the difference, if any, between:
(a) the price paid for the Season Ticket; and
(b) the total cost of the combination of tickets that you would have needed to make one return journey a day up to the date the Season Ticket was handed in, less a reasonable administrative charge (not exceeding £10).

Slightly ambiguous wording but it would appear to allow the use of monthlies for refund purposes.

hotcookie101

Thanks, I did know he wouldn't get back 8months-as they count them as paying for 10.5, I was just finding it hard to express what I meant.
He thought he would lose about 2months worth of the cost, so £800, but if they calculate it on the cost of monthly/weekly ticket then thats much better

It would be much better if he could trade it in-as he will need a new one, but potentially without the tube part, so thats about £1k cheaper, but don't have the spare cash-he could get a 0% card I suppose

crispycrisp

Hi

Having worked in a ticket office, just to clarify....

Refunds are worked out on the basis of the cheapest possible tickets for the journey made. In your case this would be at the appropriate monthly rate. This can include odd days, e.g. 2months, 5 days as necessary. Admin is charged which is usually around £10.

However as suggested above if your OH is still travelling by train it is much better to have the ticket changed for the new journey. Called a 'changeover' any refund or extra charge is then calculated on the basis of the cheaper annual rate.

Bear in mind that the admin can be a little time consuming and some companies will require notice, so best to enquire a few days ahead of time what the proceedure is.