The BBC are looking to run a feature about linking National Railcards and Oyster cards on a radio programme next week. They are looking for people to share their experiences of getting the cards linked (good or bad) and views about the (lack of) publicity telling people that they can do this. Here’s the message from the researcher involved:
My name is Hayley and I am researching for a programme for Radio 4- You and Yours- about the availability from January 2010 of being able to register your National Railcard on your Oyster card to get a reduced rate for your off-peak daily travel.
I am looking to get a few comments from anyone who has used this new National Rail scheme? Anyone who wants to share their good or bad experiences using this new scheme would be very much appreciated.
Also, what are your thoughts on the way this new scheme was publicised? Do you think it was publicised enough? Do people know enough about it? Has putting both National Rail cards and Oysters together made travelling too complicated?
Any thoughts on any of these questions would be great!
If you would like to reply you could also email me at: hayley.moorey@bbc.co.uk.
Thanks for your help.
I have the discount linked on my oystercard. I only found out about this when I came across the ‘Mind The Gap’ blog at the BBC website.
My daughter aged 16 successfully added her national railcard in Sept 2010 and enjoyed good discounts on trains into and out of London. This year though when she tried, she lost her student discount of free buses. twice we have tried and each time it messes up her free bus travel. Staff dont seem to know what to do
Hi Kathy,
If the Oyster card is a zip 16+ then I have heard about this (or a very similar) issue before. It is a bug in the system unfortunately. The person who had this problem ended up with two cards, one the zip card and the other an adult card with the railcard added. If you can confirm what your daughter’s card is, I’ll try and find out confirmation of the problem. I’m not sure whether there is a fix though.