Southeastern: Train tickets 4+

This is such a good idea but in practice is pretty shoddy. Sometimes it takes ten times for the app to recognise my keycard, saying time and again the ‘tag’ has been lost even though I’m doing nothing differently. Sometimes it randomly only offers me single tickets for a routine return journey between the same two stations umpteen times. Sometimes it only has the option of collecting paper tickets from the station for the same journey I make multiple times but can sometimes load onto the key. I gave up using the PayPal payment option and went for a card instead as that kept being glitchy, too. Someone else wrote a review with a tip: if it’s only offering singles, tap on ‘other fares are available’ and today the usual return was in there(!). Please get the user experience sorted out! If you can’t buy the tickets you want or can’t load onto the keycard you might as well just queue at the machine in the station and buy the ticket there! So, it has promise but it also has a lot of temperamental problems.

I’ve been using this SE Key Card for some time now. I was advised by the lady in the ticket office to get one because the station I use will not be manned soon. However, I have had several issues with this mainly when trying to activate it by tapping in for the first time. This happens mainly when I use the bus straight after activating it. The tap in machine on the bus don’t recognise it and the conductor tells me it’s expired. The bus drivers always ask what type of card it …! They never seem to know what the card is and have never seen them before of which doesn’t help. It makes me feel like I’m a ticket avoider and can be embarrassing. I have to show the email receipt to prove to the bus driver that I’ve paid for a weekly because they expect me to tap in using my bank card. Yes it can be a nightmare at times. It does however always work when I tap in at the underground and overground services. It’s mainly the bus tapping in that’s a problem.

Postcode database file is out of date, it should use the real time live service but doesn’t. ‘The key’ card functionality is badly implemented and broken, app errors before attempting to read a card. Doesn’t have ability to add an existing key card, so although you can force it to read a card, you cannot buy a ticket for it. If you download the app, register for an account, request a key card, wait 4 days for it to arrive, then buy a ticket, it will let you load the ticket to the key card successfully. If you get a key card from a ticket office and try to load a ticket to it, it will never work. So if you have done this, and you want to load tickets from the app, order another key card, then it will be linked to your account in the app. Also when you want the app to show you tickets loaded to the key card, hold the key card to the correct part of your phone before you press the load tickets button. This avoids error messages. Southeastern: your front end web dev and your iOS dev can so easily sort the issues if they talk to each other. For the ticket search, just retain the search parameters when switching to season ticket tab. This is a public service, not a student bedroom startup. You must have paid top dollar for this work.