Coronavirus, Work-From-Home (wfh) and Rail Annual Season Tickets

Johackett

Hi
I have been trying to work this out myself and for the life of me i can't work out the refund amount lol sorry!!! 
I have a Season Ticket with Southeastern (Gillingham (Kent) to London).  I have been working from home since last week due to my daughter being in one of the high risk group.  I took a Season Ticket loan out with work which they then take from my salary each month (£354.33). My ticket cost was £4252.00 and runs out on 01 October 2020.  
Obviously we don't know how long this is going to to go on for and the extra £354.33 would be very useful at this time. 
Any advise or help would be great.

darthpaul6

I can help, as I've actually done it now.
My annual Gold Southeastern pass was £6656, and I'd used 3 months and four days. I got back ~£4652, I think. Slightly under my calculation but the four days makes all the difference. Although I thought the Ts and Cs said first to last date of travel, the ticket office said they can't back-date the refund, so I lost out for the 4 days I didn't travel last week. Go as quickly as possible if you want to avoid that.

Kathmandu

I live in Whitstable, Kent and commute to St Pancras via the high speed line. Currently WFH until further notice, I requested a refund on my annual ticket from Southeastern which had about 6 weeks left to run. The ticket cost around £6000 so I was expecting at least £500-600 back but have received an e-mail saying they're crediting me with £9. I phoned them up and they said that it's not done pro-rata but the way they calculate it is by saying you effectively pay for the first x weeks of the year and then the weeks at the end are effectively 'free' so I'm not entitled to anything.

Slightly peeved at this, is this anyone else's understanding about how it works? Any help appreciated.

Ed

darthpaul6

Yes, that's my understanding. There's little value to the ticket in terms of a refund after around ten months.

rdr

Yesterday we did a changeover on an annual season ticket from Chelmsford/Liverpool Street to Devonport/Devonport Dockyard.

The ticket started on 31/12/19 and cost £4092, by doing the change over we got £3054 back and have the option of changing it back at the annual rate at a later date, if we had got a refund we would only have got £2690 and would have had to start from scatch when travel restarts. £360 for an hour or so's effort.

Wouldn't be far better to allow people to pause their tickets?

They were also charging £10 to refund season tickets but not to change them over.

rdr

darthpaul6 said:

Yes, that's my understanding. There's little value to the ticket in terms of a refund after around ten months.

You can get more back if you do the changeover trick above. You might even get some value from the ticket if you change it to a short, local journey.

EmmaHSFPA

Please can you advise re annual season tickets? Have a query relating to Govia Thameslink - you don't get a refund if you are within the 12 weeks "free" travel but if a ticket was purchsed in December, it has only been in use 3 months. They are currently suggesting a ticket is returned to them, specifying when it was last used and it is likely that £2000 will be refunded. Can this be right that they can keep £4000 for 3 months travel? If a new ticket was to be bought in 5 weeks time, it will still cost £6000!

KeithP

EmmaHSFPA said:

Please can you advise re annual season tickets? Have a query relating to Govia Thameslink - you don't get a refund if you are within the 12 weeks "free" travel but if a ticket was purchsed in December, it has only been in use 3 months. They are currently suggesting a ticket is returned to them, specifying when it was last used and it is likely that £2000 will be refunded. Can this be right that they can keep £4000 for 3 months travel? If a new ticket was to be bought in 5 weeks time, it will still cost £6000!

What is the cost of a three month season ticket? Use the exact dates and look it up NRE's season ticket calculator.
That is the amount that is deducted from a full price refund (plus maybe a £10 admin fee).

Nicnicg

Hi, can anyone help me please? I have a season ticket into Waterloo which runs until 15th September.  I haven't travelled for 2 weeks already.  I visited the ticket office 2 weeks ago and they couldn't tell me what the refund will be.  I tried again on Saturday but the ticket office is now closed.  South Western Railway say you have to return the season ticket to the ticket office for a refund but how can I do that if its closed and its also non essential travel. I also am totally confused how to work out what refund I'd be due and if its worth it! Thanks

KeithP

Nicnicg said:

Hi, can anyone help me please? I have a season ticket into Waterloo which runs until 15th September.  I haven't travelled for 2 weeks already.  I visited the ticket office 2 weeks ago and they couldn't tell me what the refund will be.  I tried again on Saturday but the ticket office is now closed.  South Western Railway say you have to return the season ticket to the ticket office for a refund but how can I do that if its closed and its also non essential travel. I also am totally confused how to work out what refund I'd be due and if its worth it! Thanks

A season ticket for any period from one month to one year can be purchased at the monthly rate.

Use the National Rail Enquiries Season Ticket Calculator to calculate the cost of a season ticket for the period of your ticket up to the cancellation date.

Subtract that from the price you paid for your ticket, then possibly a £10 admin fee, and you have the amount of the refund due.