Great Western Coffee Shop

Read in the Sun or Express (I was in a pub in Aylesbury they were something to read I'm not proud) that some TOCs are charging a pound to pick up your tickets from a TVM or ^3 to send them to you.

One odd suggestion was to buy a child ticket between the Devonport
Stations for 35p with every order and they have to send you tickets free.

Seems like the TOCs think they are budget airlines!

I know the rip off merchants AKA trainline, railsleazy, redspottedripoff and others charge you for delivery, ToD pickup and Special Delivery.
Cross Country charge ^1 for TVM pickup, the only free option is to have them sent as an e-ticket. I also belive that other tocs that have e-tickets are about to do the same.

Are you sure? I've just booked tickets with them and I wasn't charged for the TVM option. In fact, that was the only option offered to me. Having checked another random journey it appears that the ^1 charge applies to First Class delivery.

It's possible to circumvent the ^1 charge for First Class delivery, on some TOCs websites, such as East Coast, if your start station has no TVM. You can also reduce that charge if your start station does have a TVM, by adding a Child Anytime Single from Lostock Hall to Bamber Bridge to your basket for 30p. As Lostock Hall has no TVM the ^1 postage fee is waived. Handy when buying East Coast only Advance tickets which are cheaper on their own website.

Every little helps.

If they gave me e-ticket that was mobile/ipad/laptop scannable - give me it any day

When I had to rebook my out trip from NYC to MCI because virgin delayed and I couldnt go amtrak,  the whole thing - the ticket and the boarding card was on my mobile phone

Get with the times

Whatever next? Charging for using the toilet?

After having another go at getting the ^1 to show, it appears it will only charge you for TVM pickup is when you book XC advance and XC only fares.

Moral of the story: if your TOC is charging for whatever, then use another TOC website.

XC charge ^1 for TVM pickup if there is a print at home option (ie only on XC, VT or a combination of the two Advance fares), as XC don't operate any stations then there is always a charge levied by other TOCs for the use of their machines.

From a staff brief:
We have recently introduced a Ticket on Departure (TOD) fulfilment charging functionality on the CrossCountry website:
The TOD fulfilment charging functionality is to encourage customers to move away from getting their tickets fulfilled at self service ticket machines at the station and to cover the company's cost of TOD where possible. Customers will be charged ^1.00 if the e-ticket option is available. If the e-ticket option is not available then TOD fulfilment will be free of charge. This is to ensure that a free method of fulfilment is always offered.

It is complicated nonsense like this that strengthens the argument for bringing back BR.

I don't see why they would charge for use of TVM collection. I've collected FGW tickets from Liverpool Lime Street and not been charged when booking them... ::) :o :-\

Another moneyspinner I guess >:(

I would quite happily welcome print tickets at home. When I travelled in Spain, all the tickets you book through the Renfe website, you can only get as E-Tickets. You can also cancel your booking online and get a refund without even having to pick up a phone, or go to a ticket office.

When I flew out to Spain last year, I flew with BMI Baby. As I was registering for special assistance at the airport, their website told me I needed to check in at the airport and it wouldn't let me select E-Ticket... So they decided to charge me ^7+VAT for Check in at the airport AND ^15+VAT for an extra legroom seat (Which I did request), that they then issued to another passenger and said I would not be eligble for a refund >:( >:( I don't have much luck with Air Travel ::)

Breach of contract??? Failure to provide service as advertised and as paid for. Would get onto credit card company and do a partial chargeback. Its for bmi baby to prove it was as advertised not the other way around.

Could be, but that also depends on the circumstances. Frequently extra legroom seats, especially on short-haul aircraft like the A320 series and B737s, are located on exit rows. In that case you're expected to be competent (generally judged as being able to understand and react to commands in English) and also physically fit enough to open the exit door itself and in some cases throw the heavy panel clear of the aircraft so that people can get out. I believe that the commander of the aircraft, or perhaps the cabin crew, have more or less total discretion in this regard, so if they don't like the look of you then you'll be moved to another seat.

Just as an example, in some cases BA will let you fork out and book an exit-row seat for extra legroom ahead of time, but there is a clear statement of the requirements to occupy such a seat on the website together with a warning that if you don't fulfil them you'll be moved to a different seat and won't qualify for a refund:

For any normal TOC, it is swings and roundabouts. They all have a network of TVMs offering TOD, and any internal transaction costs will flow between TOCs, so every FGW ticket collected at Lime St is potentially cancelled out by a ticket for a Virgin or Northern or LM service picked up at a FGW TVM.

However XC have no stations and therefore no TVMs of their own - so every TOD issued costs them a payment to another TOC, so they want to discourage it. I'm sure that's the bottom line.
 
Paul

I cant remember exact costs of a ToD transaction, but I understand it is the range of 50-75p per transaction/reference number.
Remember those old ATB style tickets (the long white ones which had your journey plan printed on them?) They cost around ^2 per transaction to process. Plus the tickets weren't exactly cheap to buy either.

What a pain in the backside those things were! Far too big and clumsy to fit in a wallet or pocket, plus they wouldn't work ticket barriers either. And despite all your journey details being printed in fairly large letters on the front people still seemed to be incapable of reading and understanding the information.

I never really understood why they seemed to be the standard for advance purchases from so many TOCs and at so many stations - I know that they were the ticket stock used for Eurostar bookings but surely that didn't make it necessary to inflict them on so many passengers making domestic journeys? In the end I discovered that the totaljourney.com booking website (late of this parish) issued APTIS tickets and bought everything from them until they were dismantled at some regulatory authority's insistence - from memory I think it was a joint venture between Railtrack and First, or one of the other big franchise-owning groups, and Railtrack's involvement in retail was deemed to be incompatible with the terms of its agreement with HM Gov.

I think that ReadyToStart should enter the staff brief quote into the Plain English Campaign's bullshit awards. Alternatively, it could be an exam question:


Rewrite into English.

And I'd love to know what "ticket on departure fulfilment charging functionality" translates into in German!

Karte auf aufladenfunktionalit^t der Abfahrterf^llung

 ::) :D ;D

Put that back through Babel Fish and you get:

"Map on loading functionality of the departure fulfillment"  ??? ;D

I know: that's where I got the German translation!  ;) :D ;D

Google goes for... Ticket bei der Abreise Erf^llung Ladefunktion

which back into English... Ticket on departure charge function performance

So: still complete gibberish from the TOC, then?  ::)

I couldn't agree more. Why on earth can't they say something like: "We have introduced a charge for collecting a ticket, which has been booked online, from a self-service machine. This is to encourage customers to print an e-ticket, and reflects the cost to the TOC of providing a ticket through a machine. In situations where an e-ticket is not available, no charge will be made for collecting a ticket from the machine."

Hard luck Ross H they couldn't possibly use your wording because it seems to be written in plain English such that even I can understand it!

Welcome to the Forum keep up the good work.

I'm just about to buy some tickets off the DB website, will buy e tickets because there is postal change and as I am making two separate single journeys Berlin Gorlitz and Wernigerode Berlin and there is no basket facility so there would be two separate postal charges.

1st class Wernigerode to Berlin 49 Euros.

Speaking of using plain English, I've always thought the term 'ticket on departure' is pretty useless anyway.

If you think about it, it is really just shorthand for 'collect previously purchased ticket at departure station', where the significant feature of the procedure is to 'collect previously purchased'.

Buying a ticket from a clerk or TVM can still mean getting your ticket on departure really, can't it?   ;D

Paul

And just to confuse the issue, the clerk can issue you your ToD tickets as well!

East Coast have started to charge ^1 for tickets to be delivered. You can now print your tickets at home with them or collect at station free of charge.

This printing tickets at home is all very well but they don't work barriers which can be a pain for the passenger. From the TOC point of view how safe are they from a fraud perspective?

er no they have not.  They will charge you if you want a ticket sent to you that can be printed at home.  They are trying to encourage you to print at home whereever possible.

If the ticket you purchase cannot be printed at home then will still send free of charge.  This will for example apply for any ticket which works on FGW as they generally dont do print at home yet.

I was booking a train on an East Coast service so was going to be charged a ^1 if I wanted the tickets sent to me so I opted to pick them up at the station. I booked a ticket for another East Coast service last weekend and this charge did not apply so it looks like it has been introduced in the last couple of days.

As has been stated above (please read thread before posting, it's only polite) East Coast only charge mailing costs if the journey is also available as a print-at-home ticket.

Not all East Coast journeys can be print-at-home.

Hence why you were charged for the first and not for the second.

I did read the thread before posting thanks Chris (so don't be so cocky, it's only polite). I can only post what I experienced. One minute East Coast were sending me tickets without charging the next minute they were charging. How is one to know which journeys on East coast are print at home and which one's aren't?

Journeys on East Coast are print-at-home (as are CrossCountry trips from their website), other TOCs services aren't.