NationalRail Smartcard Manager User Reviews

Customer Experience

Positive experience3.7% of reviews
Neutral3.7% of reviews
Negative experience92.6% of reviews

~ Based on 27 written reviews from the US App Store.

Is NationalRail Smartcard Manager Safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess NationalRail Smartcard Manager.

Is NationalRail Smartcard Manager Legit?

NationalRail Smartcard Manager appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for NationalRail Smartcard Manager is 80/100.

Based on 80 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Full of bugs

Such a simple app yet actually a useful one for checking on and activating flexi passes on my smart card. Yet despite this it hasn’t been updating in years and is full of bugs. Activating a ticket shows an error has occurred every single time. Odd it’s like it’s been built and completely forgotten about in at least 3 years!
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Don’t rely on it

It’s bad. Just really, really bad. I’ve complained to GWR, and they don’t care. And it hasn’t been updated in years, which tells you how much National Rail care.

For one, it throws a ton of errors that you’re just supposed to ignore. Keep trying, and you’ll usually get there.

But then sometimes, it just doesn’t work. You can have a smartcard full of tickets ready to go, but the app just won’t activate one. And you know the train company will fine you if you board without a ticket. So you don’t have any choice but to buy another ticket — a paper one, that actually works.

I’ve wasted so much time and money on this app, it’s ridiculous. With all the duplicate tickets I have to buy, there’s no point in renewing my flexi-season anymore. It’s cheaper just to buy paper tickets every day.

EDIT: I loaded £60 of flexi tickets onto my card, and the app refuses to activate them, and GWR say it’s none of their business. What an absolute scam of a system. I quit. The bus takes longer, but at least it’s honest.
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Don’t rely on it

It’s bad. Just really, really bad. I’ve complained to GWR, and they don’t care. And it hasn’t been updated in years, which tells you how much National Rail care.

For one, it throws a ton of errors that you’re just supposed to ignore. Keep trying, and you’ll usually get there.

But then sometimes, it just doesn’t work. You can have a smartcard full of tickets ready to go, but the app just won’t activate one. And you know the train company will fine you if you board without a ticket. So you don’t have any choice but to buy another ticket — a paper one, that actually works.

I’ve wasted so much time and money on this app, it’s ridiculous. With all the duplicate tickets I have to buy, there’s no point in renewing my flexi-season anymore. It’s cheaper just to buy paper tickets every day.
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Terrible app

My children use this to travel to school but they get stopped all the time by ticket staff accusing them of not having tickets because the app doesn’t work. It constantly says, ‘sorry we couldn’t find your tickets’. We are constantly on edge and anxious. How is this an experience? Terrible.

Unable to activate pass

App reads card alright but comes up with an error trying to active a pass

Doesn’t work at all

Used to be fine but now it doesn’t work at all. I have contacted National Rail and the company I bought my ticket from and no-one knows how to fix it. Useless.

Just not reliable

A necessary app for all Smartcard users as there is nothing else but just isn’t working. Everytime I attempt to view/activate ticket it successfully reads the Smartcard and then crashes/app closes. Normally after 12+ attempts the app stays open and finally displays info on the tickets held on card. Note this is happening iPhone 11 Pro, and app deleted and reinstalled multiple times. Finally there is no means in the app to feedback bug and the app support link here on the store simply opens up the generic national rail contact page.
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Worst App Ever?

Possibly. Absolutely horrendous user interface. Constantly bugs out, no idea if I’ve activated my ticket or not for that day. Now way to see how many days I have remaining that month once ticket is purchased. Constantly crashes. The list goes on.

The RDG/National Rail need to earmark some money to sort this out.
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Works but still has a glitch

Validating the smart card is straight forward enough, and it seems to work better than it did when first brought out.
However, even when validation has been successful, it still shows an error message “sorry, we’re unable to read your Smartcard” - I know now to ignore this message because when I go through the process again, it says it has already been validated!
In summary, it works but can be confusing from the messages which pop up.
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Fails too often

Fails to give any information more times than not. Would be useful if it worked reliably

Doesn’t work!!

Horrible app. Reads card just fine however takes ages to get it to activate, if at all!

Doesn’t work

I’ll just carry on keeping track myself of how many out of 8 days I’ve got left on my flexi-season tickets. GWR say this app is the only way to track that countdown but it can’t actually do it. The app knows I’ve got a GWR smart card but can’t read what’s on it

Awful

App can read the card fine but totally refuses to activate it. This app shouldn’t have been released if it’s performance is this bad..!

Useless

Downloaded the app to be able to load my flexi tickets. Never works just get errors!!

Hopeless!

Often takes 30 mins to read my Smartcard…constant inability to read the card and idiotic meaningless error messages. Long overdue for an upgrade to fix the problems with this awful app.

Bug ridden

Have nothing but trouble trying to activate a 8 trips in 8 day smart card. Sometimes it works and other just reports errors. Quite a problem because a colleague got fined by Transpennine Express because this app wouldn’t activate a trip (we travel from an open station so no barriers to cancel the card on entry to the platforms). The apps needs to be lot reliable than it is!
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Rubbish

Does not work and when you do get it work it will be after extreme perseverance.

This app writer/developer should find a new job well away from anything to do with IT.

Bugs ironed out

Had no problem with this app. I guess the poor reviews were right at the time, but now it works fine.

Absolute embarrassment of an app

This is an absolute embarrassment of an app. It needs to do two things; 1. Read what ticket you already have loaded, 2. Add on new tickets. It can rarely do either.

I’m not sure who actually developed this, but I’d recommend that they look to employ someone else, maybe a professional instead? This is one of the worst apps I have ever had the misfortune to try and use.
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Needs an update

Works in principle but seems to have had issues since November ‘22 in terms of loading and activating the card