Southeastern confuses itself

I sent Southeastern what I assumed would be a simple enquiry for them to answer, back on 24 November. I set out how under the current system I could make a return journey after work into London for £3.50, using my Zones 5-6 travelcard and the accompanying Gold Card discount. I then asked what would be the simplest and cheapest way to do this from 2 January, once Oyster Pay-As-You-Go had been introduced.

Straightforward enough, yes? Finding the cheapest ticket for a customer is the bread-and-butter work of the train companies, after all.

Nine days later, I’m excited to find a reply from Southeastern has appeared in my inbox. At last I can find out from the horse’s mouth whether I really do face a 43% fare increase from next month. Or maybe not. The e-mail says:

We are currently looking at your enquiry about the introduction of PAYG on our network and will get back to you as soon as possible.

That’s it. That’s the best they can offer after over a week.

Congratulations, Southeastern! You’ve managed to complicate the introduction of Oyster Pay-As-You-Go so much that you can no longer negotiate its ins and outs to answer a simple cheapest fare enquiry.

I’ll keep you posted with any further response from them. Perhaps they’re referring my enquiry to Mensa. Or perhaps they just want to delay confirmation of my huge fare hike for as long as possible to minimise the length of time I have to get a campaign against it off the ground properly. Hmmm.