Trainline App missing Railcard

Chrissiemc

Bought 3 Year Senior Railcard from Trainline in June 2023, through MSE offer and it vanished from the Trainline App by December 23.  7 months since first comlaining, Trainline can still not make my Railcard available for use through the App and refuse any refund.  Any one else with same problem?  Any suggestion how to progress? 

Nasqueron

Chrissiemc said:

Bought 3 Year Senior Railcard from Trainline in June 2023, through MSE offer and it vanished from the Trainline App by December 23.  7 months since first comlaining, Trainline can still not make my Railcard available for use through the App and refuse any refund.  Any one else with same problem?  Any suggestion how to progress? 

Are you able to use the railcard in another app or book direct with the rail operator? Do you have an actual card that happened to be promoted by them or was it some Trainline specific offer? Just pondering as trainline still show a 3 year senior railcard for £70 on their site and it seems to be the same one as the standard Senior Railcard here: https://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/

James_Londoner

Railcards bought via Trainline can only be stored in the Trainline app (you can't use the official Railcard app).

I'm wondering if perhaps you have more than one Trainline account (with different email addresses) and you're not currently logged in using the same account you used to purchase the railcard?

answerman9000

@chrissiemc if your railcard has disappeared from the trainline app, and trainline claim there is no railcard associated with your email, it may be because the email you used to sign up to the railcard is the default "hide my email" address created by apple to avoid spam. This will cause you to not get any of the emails sometimes too. To fix this, find the hidden email for the train line app address by searching in settings (it will be a meaningless address with random figures). Citing this address to trainline will allow them to find the railcard. 

Its a terrible bug in their system and nearly cost me £200+ after being accused of travelling without a railcard when it disappeared. Hope this helps someone out there. 

katejo

answerman9000 said:

@chrissiemc if your railcard has disappeared from the trainline app, and trainline claim there is no railcard associated with your email, it may be because the email you used to sign up to the railcard is the default "hide my email" address created by apple to avoid spam. This will cause you to not get any of the emails sometimes too. To fix this, find the hidden email for the train line app address by searching in settings (it will be a meaningless address with random figures). Citing this address to trainline will allow them to find the railcard. 

Its a terrible bug in their system and nearly cost me £200+ after being accused of travelling without a railcard when it disappeared. Hope this helps someone out there. 

It is issues like this which make me refuse to buy my Railcard via Trainline or to have mine on my phone at all. I am in a train now on my way back to London and my senior Railcard card is the physical card. I have had to show both ticket and Railcard 3 times during this trip so could easily have had problems.

EmmaHelsinki

This has just happened to me and my railcard has been linked to my Trainline account for years. They are refusing to refund the £3.65 difference in price and are now saying that I can only use a railcard purchased via Trainline and there’s no option to add an existing railcard. I’ve been going round in circles with this and they’re now saying I must’ve done an app update and that’s deleted my preferences! It’s them that update and do the coding so it’s Trainline that’s responsible if data has been wiped. Their customer service is shocking and they have deleted any posts that I’ve put on their Facebook page. I’ll never use them again and I’m so angry 😡 

clive_p

I have little symphthy for you as you are using Trainline, which charges a commission for tickets that you can buy for without any surcharge from any of the other retailers.  Just use your local train company or any of the score of others. 

randomBean

EmmaHelsinki said:

This has just happened to me and my railcard has been linked to my Trainline account for years. They are refusing to refund the £3.65 difference in price and are now saying that I can only use a railcard purchased via Trainline and there’s no option to add an existing railcard. I’ve been going round in circles with this and they’re now saying I must’ve done an app update and that’s deleted my preferences! It’s them that update and do the coding so it’s Trainline that’s responsible if data has been wiped. Their customer service is shocking and they have deleted any posts that I’ve put on their Facebook page. I’ll never use them again and I’m so angry 😡 

Any updates on your case? This has also been happening to me since last week. I’ve been going round in circles and have tried signing in again, reinstalling the app, and trying it on another phone, but nothing helps. Their customer service is not helpful at all. I intended to escalate it to the oversight body but am not sure which one to go for. The Rail Ombudsman doesn’t seem to regulate Trainline. There doesn’t seem to be a formal complaint channel for Trainline, only customer services on WhatsApp and X.

gocurlygirl

clive_p said:

I have little symphthy for you as you are using Trainline, which charges a commission for tickets that you can buy for without any surcharge from any of the other retailers.  Just use your local train company or any of the score of others. 

I think that most people who use the train very rarely would not know this.