Why does my rail ticket seem to stop working in the ticker barriers?

Question

I keep it in the same section of my bag and have the same things in my bag to go to work with. The ticket will be fine for 2 weeks or so and then suddenly will not be accepted in the train station ticket barriers. It's so frustrating!

Answer 1

Do you keep in near a mobile phone.. that could do it or it could be damaged in the use of it... complain to the issuing office.

Answer 2

The most likely reason that your ticket has stopped working is because it has been in contact with something magnetic.  This could be a credit card, mobile phone or even a magnetic clasp on the bag itself.

   If your ticket has stopped working then take it to the station ticket office and usually it will be replaced free of charge.

Answer 3

Three possible reasons are:

1 It's gone out of date

2 You've had it up against something magnetic, or

3 The strip has been worn by the ticket machines

Answer 4

Do you happen to use London Underground?  It's just that LUL barriers are renowned for 'confusing' the magnetic strips on Travelcard season tickets.  No idea why?!  We always used to advise people not to store their ticket near anything with a magnetic field, eg mobile phone, but this has been disproved as a reason for the tickets messing up.  It would have to be quite a strong magnetic field to mess up your ticket.  A good rule of thumb is if you keep credit cards in the same place and they continue to work, then so should your train ticket.

You probably already know that the issuing ticket office will replace your ticket free of charge as I suspect you may have already done this a few times.  It's the 21st century, you would think that someone could come up with an answer to this widespread problem, hmmm?

Answer 5

ARE YOU KEEPING IT NEXT TO A BANK CARD....THE MAGNETIC STRIP CAN MAKE IT VOID