Train ticket problems

[Joe]

I ordered a ticket from nationalexpresseastcoast.com to self print at my local station.
Went to the station a couple of days ago to pick it up. Put my card in and then it asked me for my booking confirmation number. As I'd forgotten to bring it with me I pressed cancel and left.
Went back today with confirmation number, went through the various screens and entered it to be greeted with something along the lines of "there are no tickets available for you to collect with that confirmation number".
Went to the guy in the ticket booth who said the machines a bit dodgy and he'd have a look on his computer, but nothing there either.
Just been on the phone to nationalexpresseastcoast and they say my tickets have been collected (though they can't tell me when) and theres nothing they can do.
It seems putting in my card without the confirmation number equals printing off the tickets, despite the fact that it's not possible and you can't get past that screen!
They won't issue me any new tickets and won't refund me the money. So I'm down £22 and have no way of getting back to uni on Monday without paying £65 for a ticket that may or may not allow my bike on
Any ideas?
I hung up on the call centre girl as we were just going round in circles...

 

[SavageHoutkop]

If you have a reserved seat it might be worth pointing that out to the call centre etc as well... did you reserve your bike on as well?
I take it there are no advance tickets left (or are the ones that are left the 65 pound ones?)

 

[Joe]

Like talking to a brick wall.
They insist I've printed them off. So either theres some mistake in their system, or you can print tickets without a booking confirmation number. Which makes no sense. If you get to an "insert booking number" screen and don't have it with you, are you really going to wait around for tickets to print out?
They won't issue me another ticket with the same seat reservations, but will "investigate the situation" after the event if I write to them. Really holding out a lot of hope for that one
When speaking to a different operator, the original girl I spoke to told him that I'd denied ever going to the station the first time! Which is a bare faced lie
I've managed to order another ticket, for £20ish on a different (slower) train with no bike reservation. But with no help from them. Wouldn't even resell me my original ticket for £22.
Not best pleased.
Oh I'm picking up my new ticket from the same machine, wish me luck!

 

[april74]

I've solved all my train ticket problems by buying a car. Life's too short to master all the UK's train ticket pricing and bike carriage policies.

 

[akaAndrew]

They won't issue me another ticket with the same seat reservations

Why ever not? That just strikes me as rules getting in the way of common sense. If you can produce your card or give them the number they then can confirm that it's the same number as the booking.

Or do they expect people never to loose tickets? Or forget them on the day of travel? There are any number of instances where re-printing a ticket is a completely normal expectation.

 

[ufkacbln]

Contact the bank and cancel the card transaction!

We are in a similar situation with trains.

Used card to get two tickets to London and also ended up with one to Brighton..... never appeared on the screens or on the confirm page.

As no Ticket Office open - spoke to guard who could not refund, but annotated the ticket and said we could see ticket office when we returned for refund or see LOndon ticket office....... we tried, but the London one could not refund as it was not their machine!


Us - "Can you refund this ticket?"
Ticket Office - "No you have to do it on the day"
Us - "But there was no ticket Office open, that's why we used your machine. Can we have our card refunded?"
Ticket Office - "You can only get a refund on the day, nothing I can do!"
Us - There was no ticket office on the day, and the one in London couldn't do anything as it is your machine. We couldn't do anything on the day"
Ticket Office -"Nothing I can do now, you should have sorted it n the day - its too late"

Gave up at that point sna have now taken the matter further



We now a wait a reply from head office about why we were lied to by their staff, which of the satff is lying and how we get a refund from a closed ticket office.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I've never used the print @ station option with that company, but IIRC I think I have printed them off before without the number from Virgin's ticket booths. I now just get them posted to me if I book enough in advance, much easier...

Good suggestion from Cunobelin though - raise it with the card company.

 

[JamesAC]

The thing is that there is no one organisation responsible.

I bought a day return from London Liverpool Street to Lowestoft ( I don't know why!!) from a TOC over the internet, and had the tix delivered by post. On the day, I got to Liverpool Street only to find that there was a major signal failure near Ilford, and trains were being cancelled of delayed by hours. The info desk at Liverpool Street suggested a route via Cambridge and Ely that was just not practical for a day trip. So I abandoned the journey. I went to the ticket office at Liverpool street to see if I could get my ticked refunded. They pointed out that as I had bought it from some other TOC (not Anglia or whatever) I would have to take it up with that TOC. Seemed reasonable.

So, I got home, and phoned up the TOC. Ah, no, I would have to contact "TheTrainline.Com" as they actually issued the tickets. So I contacted them. They said that there was a strict No Refunds policy on Apex tickets. I pointed out that because of operational problems, there were effectively no trains. So they said I should contact the TOC through whom I bought the tickets ..

In the end, I phoned the TOC, and whinged and moaned, and in the end they did refund my ticket. But I probably spent more on phone calls than the refund I got.

When it was all British Rail there was no doubt about who was responsible.

However, I do travel extensively on the railways in Britain, and rarely have any problems.

Good luck!

 

[Rob S]

Or do they expect people never to loose tickets? Or forget them on the day of travel? There are any number of instances where re-printing a ticket is a completely normal expectation.

There are indeed and you haven't mentioned any of them there.

Regarding the original problem....the office you ordered your tickets from should know that these ticket machines are not 100% reliable and the information regarding ticket status on isn't either. Although the status may appear on the operator's screen as the tickets having been printed further investigation by a grown-up to the people responsible for providing their system will no doubt determine what has actually happened. You will not be the first person to turn up with either no booking reference or an incorrect one.

Depending on the amount of time available, (unsurprisingly many people collect their tickets very shortly before the train leaves) you may need to buy a ticket to travel again and then send those tickets with a letter of explanation to the people that sold you the original tickets.

 

[Llama]

write a letter of complaint to head office - have to say i always get them posted to me - take it there could be the same problem if they got lost in the post though?
(ps the train line sucks with their £1 booking fee and £3.50 for credit card fee)

 

[2wheelsgood]

Yep, try the train company's customer complaints dept, saying you are giving them the opportunity to rectify their error before you contact Passenger Focus and the consumer editor of the national newspaper of your choice.