Railcard Avis 

I would like to give ZERO stars if I could. Website looks easy to use, but loads of problems trying to buy a card. Kept getting errors saying needed to delete purchase and restart. Tried several options of browsers and cards, no success. And they don't take loads of cards or PayPal. 10 days!!! response time is given for help. Utterly useless. RAILCARD - please find a company that actually knows how to setup an epayments site and pay them to actually build a site that works. Terrible. UPDATE: After trying multiple times and on two different devices - ALL WHICH FAILED and gave an error message, I now find multiple charges to my bank. The banks need to force them to fix this terrible service.

The website design is awful. Both mine and my husbands 3 year Senior Railcards are on the same e mail account.
I renewed my husbands easily, but then went back to renew mine… disaster.. not able to complete the transaction.. . The helpline was not helpful, and the adviser kept telling me I hadn’t renewed my husbands (it arrived the next day!!). Her understanding of the situation seemed poor.
I decided to give up on trying to renew on the Railcard website, logged on to my East Midlands Railway account, and renewed my card.. a very clear and simple process via a well designed website.
I received my card by first class post in 24 hours.. First class customer service that puts railcard.co.uk to shame.
I

Daughter purchased senior railcard for her auntie. Took £60 out of her account instead of £30 now 3weeks later still not been refunded her money said its the responsibility of her bank

I had misspelt my name on the form during account creation on railcard.co.uk. Luckily, I had not purchased any railcard under that wrong name.

I quickly called the customer services line (on a Sunday at 12:00PM) and the issue was resolved in 7 minutes! Amazing!

Spent a long time trying to renew online, but the website kept throwing up error messages when I tried to log in. Tried to change password but received an email saying that my email address wasn't registered. Tried to register, but had a new error message.
Telephoned 0345 3000 250 - got through straight away. All my details were there and the renewal process was very straightforward, even using a Tesco voucher. Obviously there are technical difficulties with the website.

I have tried to renew my senior rail card on line and after inputting all the information it just says woops there is a problem. A simple renewal ought not to be a problem!

Please make clear to customers paying for special delivery, costing £6.50, that they must be present at the delivery address for the 1 to 5 day delivery period as Railcard do Not provide a post office tracking number.
Otherwise the Post Office will not deliver if there is no one present at the address.
There is therefore no obvious advantage in paying £6.50 special delivery unless you are prepared to stay at home for 1 to 5 days.

After changing my phone I was unable to add my railcard to the new phone, I emailed railcard who advise a 10 day reply mine came after 10.5 days and then asked more questions, that was Tuesday, now Friday and still no reply, told them on Tuesday I was going away on the train on Friday and still no reply. Appalling customer service. My ticket was full price today

Poor value for money
I purchased a 3 year rail card in September 2019 - pandemic restrictions lasting for more than 2 years meant this card was unusable for the majority of its 3 year term - yet there is no good will extension of any kind on a three year card purchased in the 12 months prior to the pandemic - my card was used for a single journey in October 2019 & again once in December 2019 -(saving £12 and cost £70) - it was unusable for 2/3rds of its membership hence not such a great discount card ….my opinion is it is best to avoid 3 year cards - the pandemic situation highlighted there is no guarantee it will remain valid / usable for the entire period it is purchased for…
as a minimum railcard could have offered all 3 year card holders in period 2020-23 a years extension on their card

Same problem as many others describe - Railcard app just stopped working suddenly. Couldn't get through to them on phone, nothing on their website about how people could travel, the National Rail Enquiries Helpline tried talking to them but didn't get anywhere either. They didn't reply to Twitter DMs or Facebook messages.

In followup discussion they explained that people who managed to get through to them on the phone had been emailed a "Permit to Travel". They don't seem to care about all the people that didn't get through to them.

It seems pretty clear that this is an organisation that can't be trusted either to run a critical service, or to make things right after messing it up.

When a train company sells you a digital train ticket, they send you a PDF of the ticket you can use even if their app fails. If they need to later revoke the ticket, they can as it contains a QR code that can be checked on line. Railcard seem to have deliberately chosen a much more risky solution.

Worse than useless. Got a notification that my version of the Railcard app would no longer work and I should update. Linking my railcard to the new app took several attempts over three days. Accessing my railcard account was impossible. I kept getting an error code to say the site was unavailable. I got no reply from the help desk.

The problem with download codes has now been fixed thank goodness. Let's hope it stays fixed.

In the same situation as most people on this thread!
Ordered and paid for on Tuesday, download code won’t work. Travelling tomorrow.
Tried to call the helpline, customer service couldn’t sort!

My digital senior railcard, valid until dec 2026 disappeared without warning from my android phone 2 days ago. Tried clearing cache, reinstalling, -app now tells me 'oops somethings gone wrong'. and will not display anything. Spent 50 mins waiting before getting through to the helpline. They admitted a problem, would send me new download code. Nothing received 24hrs later. The app is currently not fit for purpose. STRONGLY ADVISE everyone NOT to purchase any online railcards until Railcard issues new reassurances.

Tried to order 2 Railcards on the website and got half way through and 'Oops there is an issue' - then went round in the perpetual circle of not getting any further. Son then said lets try on the app (which he uses) - ordered 2 Railcards with absolutely no problem!! Get the website sorted out railcard.co.uk

So it worked fine for a long time and then I got a message that the app needed to be updated - bottom line, currently no card and tickets booked. Hopefully train companies will be sensible but I am disappointed and will renew with card not app in due course. Not helpful that you cannot get through to speak to anyone or that written response time supposed to be 10 days!

Bought a new railcard. Code won't work. Just an "Oops something went wrong" message. Completely unacceptable.

As with so many others it would seem, our two together railcard disappeared from my wife's phone yesterday. After trying many things online with a non-functional website I resorted to phoning them. After a 35 minute wait the lady in India (yes she told me her location) apologized for the delay in answering as the App had developed a fault in the past 30 minutes and this had resulted in a large number of calls to the helpline. Eh what? I said it obviously happened before that as I had been waiting online longer than that. I was told very abruptly NO! it has only just gone down!
Fixing the system would take 24 hours she said. If I wanted to buy a ticket I would have to pay full price, photograph the ticket and send it to Railcard to ask for a refund. Yeah sure. 24hours later the system has slightly unfrozen but is still not allowing the download of rail cards. As for my opinion of the company I would just echo everyone else. The shortsightedness of outsourcing call centres across the world so that respondents are merely reading from a card with no understanding of the situations they are supposed to be helping with is plain to see.

My digital senior railcard has completely disappeared on Android valid until Sept 2024 - app telling me 'oops somethings gone wrong' and will not accept the original download code. I have reinstalled but same problem This is not good, I cannot recover it or use it. This appears to be a widespread IT issue judging by Twitter posts. The helpline phone wait was so long I gave up, so I have reported by email - up to 10 days reply. This issue demonstrates a fatal flaw in the Railcard app as it doesn't save an offline copy for customers to use or recover. Please can the developers provide advice and an update on Google Play.

I want to travel tomorrow but the railcard app is not working so I won't be able to show my card if asked. Will have to pay full price even though I have bought a senior railcard....ridiculous!