HSL will refund long season tickets due to coronavirus

We will refund season tickets to our customers due to the coronavirus epidemic in cases where the customer does not need to use public transport. On Wednesday evening, the Executive Board of HSL decided to authorize HSL’s Executive Director to decide on the refund policy as follows.

A refund will be paid for season tickets that

  • were bought on or before 16 March and
  • are valid on or after 16 April

HSL app

Cancellation fees will not be charged for terminating auto-renewing saver subscriptions in April. Cancellation fees charged to customers after 16 March will be refunded in May.

HSL card

Long season tickets loaded on the HSL card (tickets with a start date on or before 16 March and valid on or after 16 April) will be refunded for the portion that extends beyond 16 April. To get the refund, customers must mail their cards to HSL by the end of May. Also the value loaded on your card will be refunded.

Instructions on how to get a refund

No processing fee will be charged for returning the card and customers will be able to get a new card later free of charge.

Discount on season tickets once the epidemic subsides

We will offer a 50 percent discount on 30-day season tickets loaded on the HSL app or the HSL card in autumn once the coronavirus epidemic subsides. We will provide further details on this in due course.

Questions and answers

What does is mean in practice that a refund is paid for a season ticket bought on or before 16 March and that is valid on or after 16 April?

If you purchased your season ticket on 16 March or before that and your ticket is still valid on 16 April or after that, you will get a refund for the portion of your ticket that extends beyond 16 April.

This also applies to tickets with start dates after the date of purchase.

For example:

  • You purchased a 30-day ticket using the HSL app and the ticket is valid 16 March-15 April -> No refund will be paid.
  • You purchased a season ticket onto your HSL card on 13 March and the ticket is valid from the moment of purchase to 24 April -> A refund will be paid for the period of time between 16 April and 24 April.
  • You purchased a season ticket onto your HSL card on 17 March and the ticket is valid for 60 days from the moment of purchase -> No refund will be paid.
  • You purchased a season ticket onto your HSL card on 15 March and the ticket is 1 April-15 May -> A refund will be paid for the period of time between 16 April and 15 May.
  • You have set up an auto-renewing saver subscription on the HSL app and you want to terminate your subscription -> You will not need to pay the cancellation fee if you have terminated or terminate the subscription between 16 March and 30 April.

Why do you only refund the portion of tickets extending beyond 16 April?

We want to offer a refund for season tickets to those who suffer the biggest financial losses because of unused tickets.

Those who do not now get a refund for their tickets, will have the opportunity to buy season tickets at half price in the autumn, once the coronavirus epidemic subsides. The same discount will, of course, be available for all customers.

The coronavirus epidemic has caused sudden, massive changes to the society, including HSL’ operations. For this reason we also have to establish limits on refunds based on the financial and other resources available to us. We have sought to find the fairest possible solution. Unfortunately, we do not have enough resources to process the refunding of all season tickets valid on 16 March as the refunds are processed manually.

Apart from some reductions to services, public transport has been operating almost as usual all the time. Passenger numbers have dropped by 70 percent from the normal levels but some customer steel need to be able to travel. On 16 March, about 330,000 people had HSL season tickets.

Moreover, HSL’s card system does not enable mass processing of cards in the background system so that we could conveniently get the details of the remaining season ticket of each customer and their bank account numbers. It is also not technically possible to postpone season tickets to a later period of time.

Why do I have to surrender my HSL card to get a refund? Why do I have to mail my card to you?

In order to refund the money on the card to the customer, we need the physical card.  In normal circumstances, the refund would be processed at a service point but this is not possible because of the coronavirus epidemic. For this reason, customers must mail their cards to HSL to get a refund on their season tickets. We will provide detailed information on this over the coming days.

If I now surrender my HSL card and I later want to get a new one, will I have to pay for the new card?

No. You will later get a new HSL card free of charge. The HSL app is free to download, now and in the future.