Annual season ticket 'refund' advice

neilio

I currently have two season tickets: a London Zones 1-6 season ticket loaded on an Oyster card, and a separate Southeastern paper ticket covering between my home station and the Zone 6 boundary. It was cheaper to buy the ticket in two parts rather than combined. Both tickets commenced from the same date in early November 2016.

I just started a new job, one of the benefits is travel between home and work can be expensed back to the company. I have three options: (1) Wait until my current season tickets expire and expense my new tickets in November 2017; (2) Renew the season tickets now and expense them now, giving me tickets covering me up to November 2018; (3) Buy new season tickets to commence now, expense them, and sell my current tickets back to TFL and Southeastern respectively.

If I go for option 3, is it worth my while when requesting a refund? I'm one third of the way through the season tickets' validity periods, and it seems very unclear to me how much money I'd get back for them. I know it won't be as much as two thirds the original amount I paid. I asked the ticket office at Charing Cross yesterday but the gentleman told me it's not straightforward to calculate the refund amount and can take "a while" to do; I had a train to catch so didn't bother waiting.

It isn't clear at all how much of a refund I'd expect. Anyone have any experience of this?

jon81uk

Can you discuss it with your employer, show proof of purchase of the current tickets and ask them for 2/3rds of the value (April to November)?

If you get a refund from TfL then they work out what you have used in monthly tickets, then weekly then daily and deduct that total from what you paid. So if it is exactly four months used (4x £231.20) then you get £1483.20 refunded. But if its four months, 1 week then its (4x £231.20 plus £60.20) etc.

Asking your manager to reimburse current tickets would be the easiest to start with. Assuming you still have a receipt or can show on a bank statement / Oyster online printout for proof of payment.

neilio

I doubt that asking the to reimburse what I'd already paid for will be agreeable, but worth a try. I'll think about that one.

Thanks for clarifying how the refund is calculated.

Altarf

neilio wrote: »

I just started a new job, one of the benefits is travel between home and work can be expensed back to the company.

Hope you factored the tax that will be due into your calculations.