Railcard rant!

chrism62

This seems like bureaucracy gone mad - any thoughts/advice anyone?


My step-daughter has recently bought a Friends and Family Railcard as our grandson is now five years old.
First some background - she lives and works in Scarborough, is a single mum and is trying desperately hard to make things work. We live in Leeds and have our grandson to stay alternate week-ends both to give her a little break and also to allow her to work some extra hours. So she used the card for the first time last week and when she bought the return tickets for both her and our grandson, in conversation with the man at the window, she said where she was going and that she would be coming back later that evening and that we would be bringing our grandson back to Scarborough on Sunday.
At this point she was told that she would not be able to use the card as both of them would need to travel on both outward and return journeys. Whilst I can understand you not wanting people to take advantage of this card and travel alone can someone please explain why when return tickets have been purchased for both of them she's not allowed to return on her own?
It seems crazy - she’s trying to do her best, we're trying to help and process and procedures are making it really difficult!!


I would be grateful for some advice and if there’s no way around this any advice to ensure we get the most cost effective way forward.
As things stand it’s not really worth her doing the extra hours as she’s barely covering the additional cost of the ticket.


Thanks in anticipation!

dzug1

A return ticket bought with the railcard requires that the child travels on both legs. If he doesn't then the cheaper of:


single each way, using the railcard for the leg on which the child travels


Undiscounted return ticket - when it doesn't matter whether the child travels or not

please explain why when return tickets have been purchased for both of them she's not allowed to return on her own?

the discount she's being offered specifically requires a child to travel

Otherwise it would be very easy for a single traveller to cheat their way into a discount both ways saying they delivered/will collect a child on the other leg when they've no intention of doing so

davemorton

Buy a return ticket for the dates the child will be traveling, and another return ticket (in reverse) for when she is traveling alone. (Or as said, just buy single way tickets.)

chrism62

Thanks for the comments - just a pity there's no flexibility for these genuinely tricky situations

Bollotom

I'm afraid a child must be travelling with the adult to comply with the T and Cs. I had the same with a "Dual" and got grabbed on the way back as I was alone. :cool:

wealdroam

chrism62 wrote: »

...a pity there's no flexibility for these genuinely tricky situations

There is.

Re-read post #3.

chrism62

In terms of the idea of "cheating their way into a discount" dzug1 it may seem pedantic but won't they still have to buy return tickets for both them and the child?
In which case where's the saving?

HappyMJ

chrism62 wrote: »

In terms of the idea of "cheating their way into a discount" dzug1 it may seem pedantic but won't they still have to buy return tickets for both them and the child?
In which case where's the saving?

The savings can exceed the value of the child ticket.

I was thinking could she buy a discounted adult and child return from scarborough to leeds (I'll call this ticket 1) then when she gets to leeds buy a non discounted adult return from leeds to scarborough (ticket 2).

Then she can travel with the outward portion of ticket 1 then the outward portion of ticket 2 then the return portion of ticket 2 and finally the return portion of ticket 1.

Spendless

when you take your Grandchild back to his Mum do you travel by train? Did your step-daughter name you on the railcard? If so you could use the return leg to deliver him back to his Mums, then you'd need to buy a single ticket to get back home.

Your step-daughter would still need a single ticket after she's dropped him off to get back, or she'd need to work out the difference in costs between doing that and buying a f&f single ticket and a single ticket for her to get back.

securityguy

chrism62 wrote: »

In terms of the idea of "cheating their way into a discount" dzug1 it may seem pedantic but won't they still have to buy return tickets for both them and the child?
In which case where's the saving?

An adult ticket and a child ticket with an F&F is still cheaper than an adult ticket.

1*0.66+0.5*0.4=0.86, so it's a 14% discount.

Plus on Virgin it would get you access to the "peak trains with offpeak ticket" easement, which is about an 80% discount.

securityguy

Oh, and to return to the OP, you can have two names on an F&F railcard, so the tickets would be usable by you anyway just by putting your name on the card.. Or you could buy an F&F railcard: the tickets aren't linked to a particular F&F, just an F&F in general.

If you're over 60 there's a slight wrinkle in that you can't use one half of a return with an F&F and the other half with a 60+. The complicating factor is that most cheap returns are only 10p more expensive than a single for the same journey, so buying two cheap singles is a lot more expensive than buying one cheap return. You'd need to sketch out the whole sequence of journeys to get the best combination (for computer science nerds, I keep fantasising about a paper in which I prove that getting the cheapest ticket on British Trains is at least NP, if not NP-complete).