National Rail Priv discount on Oyster

I’ve raised this separately with TfL, but I thought you might be interested to know about the difficulty I had trying to get an “NR Only” Priv discount added to a new Oyster card last week.

According to Rail Staff Travel, this is only available at certain Elizabeth Line stations and only during off-peak hours, so I started at Romford shortly after 10:00, having no intention of going anywhere close to Zone 1 on the day.

Romford declined to add the discount, saying the card had to be registered online first, despite the actual requirement – as anyone who’s ever had a Railcard or other discount to an Oyster knows – being to have the Registration flag set on the card itself. Registering online doesn’t achieve that, as it can’t write to the card.

I then started heading towards Ilford by bus, but missed my stop as I was registering the card online at the time, so stayed on to Stratford. A member of LU staff managed to complete the registration – but without adding the discount – and I headed for Custom House to try again.

Custom House were unable to add the discount as there was no Manager on duty. Descending to platform level, a train to Abbey Wood arrived first. As one of the stations that didn’t show a Manager was required, I headed there only to be denied as the person who could do so was on the early shift and had finished for the day.

Undeterred, I headed for Canary Wharf, where staff at Abbey Wood assured me a Manager with the ability to add the discount was present. This was indeed the case, unfortunately the Manager was dealing with a medical incident at platform level – along with several other staff, so I found myself on a train once again.

Finally I headed to Ealing Broadway. So much for not wanting to pass through Zone 1! But I’d heard reports of people being successful there before, so figured it was a fairly safe bet. Again spoke to the Ticket Office staff, confirmed the card was now registered, and got the discount set in about two minutes.

Not exactly a good customer experience, or an effective use of my time given it took the best part of four hours in the end, I’m sure you’ll agree!