Great Western Coffee Shop

When an e-ticket is booked and selected, the ticket is supplied in an e-mail containing the .pdf with the bar code. The ticket can also be accessed via the GWR App.

A booking reference is also supplied with the e-mail. Does this mean that it is also possible to collect the paper ticket if that was preferred instead at the time?   

No is the simple answer.

The booking reference is quoted should you have problems accessing the pdf/file problem etc

Nowadays (trying to be modern) I aim to book E-tickets rather than the collect the paper version. On most occasions when using either the GWR App or on a laptop, I seem to fail. I only ever get offered the Collect at Station or Postal options.

Previously I thought I had cracked it by ensuring that I was fully logged in to my account before starting the process. It worked that time.  Recently whilst trying to book advance tickets several days ahead I also failed no matter what tricks I tried and resorted to "collect."

Can anyone explain this and again these types of hassle would defeat Jo Public? For example, does everyone need an account to buy online? 

I think it might help if we could play with the same journeys/railcards that you are trying to book & use. Could you repeat your journey in this thread please?

Are you booking a ticket for travel via London as these still require paper tickets to access the underground?

Also, I think this is still the case, Southeastern ticket gates don’t take e-tickets. Well they weren’t doing so when I last traveled with SE late last summer. There may be other TOCs ticket gates that don’t accept e-tickets.

I too modernised to e-tickets a while back as I was fed up with the either the tickets machines being out of order at our local station or the machine not wanting to recognise the credit card I booked the tickets with.

Referencing this thread: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=27231.0

Both machines are of the original ancient variety.

Also, PlusBus is not available as an E ticket, so your train & bus tickets will be click and collect.

I recently purchased a couple of Advance Singles - parts of a DIG<>TWI journey - using the GWR app but needed to amend both after the match KO times were changed. One ticket (RDG>DIG) updated OK via the app, with the admin charge waived as expected, but for the other (EXC>BSK) online amendment was denied by the app.

A call to the GWR contact centre produced advice to go to my nearest staffed station because they had no clue why the DIY amendment had been barred and were unable to process the change themselves.

It took the combined skills of two ticket office staff at EXC to produce the required result, as a paper ticket!, but on the + side they were persuaded to also waive the admin fee when I proved that I had changed the other ticket myself.

I can only surmise, possibly completely incorrectly, that the issue might have had something to do with the fact that the offending ticket was wholly non-GWR. Which if TOC's are able to sell each others tickets obviously shouldn't happen. 

Thanks for all the thinking. The journey is quite simple FRO-WEY and v/v. GWR advance singles have been available on this route for ca 2 years now and can be a useful cost saving for single journeys or returns (when purchased in the lower price bands). So no complications for this and if I recall I have only succeeded twice before in generating a relevant e-ticket.

Hopefully PlusBus will be available in digital format soon. The following articles are from March / April last year.

First Bus & GWR launched a plusbus E ticket in Weston-Super-Mare last year.
https://www.sustainable-bus.com/maas/first-bus-ticketer-qr-code-bus-rail/

And a national launch was to have taken place from Summer 2022. I don't know why that didn't happen.
https://www.route-one.net/news/plusbus-set-to-be-available-in-digital-format-from-this-summer/