Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

I bought an NXEA version today to go to Heathrow to meet my aged mother
returning from afar.

It worked fine on NR and on LU at Tottenham Hale and Heathrow T5. But at
Putney (SWT) it was rejected with code 122. I queried this with staff who
said "it's Super Off Peak", at which point I recalled a similar problem in
the past at Putney. As a result of the hassle I missed a train and was
over half an hour later home to Cambridge.

Before I complain to SWT for crap programming of their ticket gates whose
fault is this actually likely to be - theirs or NXEA's?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In message ,
writes
I bought an NXEA version today to go to Heathrow to meet my aged mother
returning from afar.

It worked fine on NR and on LU at Tottenham Hale and Heathrow T5. But at
Putney (SWT) it was rejected with code 122. I queried this with staff who
said "it's Super Off Peak", at which point I recalled a similar problem in
the past at Putney. As a result of the hassle I missed a train and was
over half an hour later home to Cambridge.

Before I complain to SWT for crap programming of their ticket gates whose
fault is this actually likely to be - theirs or NXEA's?

It's FCC's laziness. I've have submitted over the last year a series of
complaints to FCC over the fact that these randomly don't open ticket
gates at national rail stations (and sometimes London Overground),
though the non-super versions always do. They always seem to work on
tube gates, for some reason. I've followed up with complaints to London
TravelWatch, who as usual were pretty useless, but the more pressure one
can apply to the dozy idiots at FCC the better, I figure. It appears
that they have used a code on the magnetic stripe which they have failed
to circulate to the other train operating companies. The last I heard
from FCC was that they hope the problem will be sorted out very soon.
That was last July.

Please complain to them - if enough of us do it they may decide it's
cheaper to fix the problem than keep on replying to complaints. It's
about the only hope. FCC are in fact so dozy that their own tickets
sometimes don't open their own ticket gates a few yards from the ticket
office at Luton Airport Parkway where the tickets are sold.

--
Clive Page

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In article 01cbd786$8537b080$LocalHost@default, (Michael
R N Dolbear) wrote:

wrote

I bought an NXEA version today to go to Heathrow to meet my aged
mother returning from afar.

It worked fine on NR and on LU at Tottenham Hale and Heathrow T5. But
at Putney (SWT) it was rejected with code 122. I queried this with
staff who said "it's Super Off Peak", at which point I recalled a
similar problem in the past at Putney. As a result of the hassle I
missed a train and was over half an hour later home to Cambridge.

Before I complain to SWT for crap programming of their ticket gates
whose fault is this actually likely to be - theirs or NXEA's?

It's not clear what SWT restriction on SOP tickets that refusing entry
at a Putney barrier was trying to enforce.

Surely this cannot have been before 11 am ?

Precisely! It was at 17:18 on a Sunday.

They told it was because it was a Super Off-Peak ticket, both this time
and once before. I don't know what code 122 means. Does anyone here?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

In message ,
writes
I bought an NXEA version today to go to Heathrow to meet my aged mother
returning from afar.

It worked fine on NR and on LU at Tottenham Hale and Heathrow T5. But
at Putney (SWT) it was rejected with code 122. I queried this with
staff who said "it's Super Off Peak", at which point I recalled a
similar problem in the past at Putney. As a result of the hassle I
missed a train and was over half an hour later home to Cambridge.

Before I complain to SWT for crap programming of their ticket gates
whose fault is this actually likely to be - theirs or NXEA's?

It's FCC's laziness. I've have submitted over the last year a
series of complaints to FCC over the fact that these randomly don't
open ticket gates at national rail stations (and sometimes London
Overground), though the non-super versions always do. They always
seem to work on tube gates, for some reason. I've followed up with
complaints to London TravelWatch, who as usual were pretty useless,
but the more pressure one can apply to the dozy idiots at FCC the
better, I figure. It appears that they have used a code on the
magnetic stripe which they have failed to circulate to the other
train operating companies. The last I heard from FCC was that
they hope the problem will be sorted out very soon. That was last
July.

Please complain to them - if enough of us do it they may decide
it's cheaper to fix the problem than keep on replying to
complaints. It's about the only hope. FCC are in fact so dozy
that their own tickets sometimes don't open their own ticket gates
a few yards from the ticket office at Luton Airport Parkway where
the tickets are sold.

It can't possibly be FCC's fault. The ticket was NXEA only, issued by an
NXEA ticket machine at an NXEA station, Cambridge. However, the last time
I had the problem at Putney it was an FCC ticket, though similarly issued
by NXEA at Cambridge (might have been from the ticket office though).
Hence my question about where to pin the blame.

I was going to say that the ticket caused no problems elsewhere, including
at Vauxhall (SWT) but I think the barriers there were open.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In message ,
writes
They told it was because it was a Super Off-Peak ticket, both this time
and once before. I don't know what code 122 means. Does anyone here?

I'm almost certain that I have seen code 125 when the barriers have
failed to honour my super off-peak travelcard. But I failed to find a
list of codes.


--
Clive Page

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In message ,
writes
It can't possibly be FCC's fault. The ticket was NXEA only, issued by an
NXEA ticket machine at an NXEA station, Cambridge.

My mistaken assumption. So please complain to NXEA. Obviously more
than one train operator is failing to notify all the others about their
new ticket types. In the case of FCC these have now been in use for at
least 18 months, and still they haven't bothered to circulate details.
And they haven't even bothered to program their own barriers to accept
them, in some cases.

--
Clive Page

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

In message ,
writes
It can't possibly be FCC's fault. The ticket was NXEA only, issued by
an NXEA ticket machine at an NXEA station, Cambridge.

My mistaken assumption. So please complain to NXEA. Obviously
more than one train operator is failing to notify all the others
about their new ticket types. In the case of FCC these have now
been in use for at least 18 months, and still they haven't bothered
to circulate details.
And they haven't even bothered to program their own barriers to
accept them, in some cases.

I've only ever had problems with SWT barriers, at Vauxhall and Putney.
None at Cambridge, King's Cross, Tottenham Hale or the Underground.

Why are you so sure the fault lies with NXEA/FCC and not SWT, who do have
Super Off-Peak tickets of their own.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In message ,
writes
Why are you so sure the fault lies with NXEA/FCC and not SWT, who do have
Super Off-Peak tickets of their own.

Because I have had problems with these tickets with East Midlands Trains
barriers at St.Pancras (now apparently fixed), with London Overground,
with SouthEast Trains, South Central, SouthWest Trains, and with FCC's
own barriers. When I complained, they admitted there was a problem and
that they were trying to fix it by circulating details of the "new"
ticket encoding to the other companies.

It could be sloth on the part of the other companies, but it really
should be FCC (or in your case NXEA) which keeps on prodding them to get
it implemented.

My own feeling is that there was no reason whatever to change the code:
since these tickets have exactly the same geographical validity as the
non-super off-peak One Day London Travelcard (what a snappy description
one has to use) they could have used the same code. The FCC tickets are
not valid on weekdays, but they are dated, and only issued with a
weekend (or bank holiday) date, so that should not permit any kind of
fraud even if they had the same magnetic strip encoding.

--
Clive Page

Super-Off Peak Day Travelcards from Cambridge
 

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

In message ,
writes
Why are you so sure the fault lies with NXEA/FCC and not SWT, who do
have Super Off-Peak tickets of their own.

Because I have had problems with these tickets with East Midlands
Trains barriers at St.Pancras (now apparently fixed), with London
Overground, with SouthEast Trains, South Central, SouthWest Trains,
and with FCC's own barriers. When I complained, they admitted
there was a problem and that they were trying to fix it by
circulating details of the "new" ticket encoding to the other
companies.

It could be sloth on the part of the other companies, but it really
should be FCC (or in your case NXEA) which keeps on prodding them
to get it implemented.

It's always NXEA in my case because they always issue me the tickets at
Cambridge, whether for King's Cross or Liverpool St.

My own feeling is that there was no reason whatever to change the
code: since these tickets have exactly the same geographical
validity as the non-super off-peak One Day London Travelcard (what
a snappy description one has to use) they could have used the same
code.

Probably. They did have problems getting the ticket machines at Cambridge
to sell them until people complained. Loads of punters were buying
standard Off-Peak tickets at weekends and getting fleeced.

The FCC tickets are not valid on weekdays, but they are
dated, and only issued with a weekend (or bank holiday) date, so
that should not permit any kind of fraud even if they had the same
magnetic strip encoding.

Actually FCC did make Super-Off-Peak tickets available on weekdays for a
period last summer.

--
Colin Rosenstiel