Unable to book ticket on demand

[londonbridge]

Firstly, when booking rail tickets online, I generally always select the option to collect them from a ticket machine. I usually nominate East Croydon as my collection station and have never had any problems booking and collecting them.

Anyway, I had been monitoring both East Coast and Grand Central websites for advance tickets for my trip to the North East in June. Grand Central advances for my dates went on sale yesterday and I managed to get the outward leg for £14.50, but missed the cheapest fares for the return leg. At that point East Coast had not released advances for my dates, so I continued to monitor the website.

East Coast advances for my return date were released this morning and I selected a ticket from Newcastle to Kings X for £15. Under delivery method I selected ticket on departure and nominated East Croydon to collect from as explained in my opening. The page came up with the usual "station you have chosen to collect from is different to the one you are travelling from" warning. Went to move on to the next page (enter payment details) and the "next" button would not respond. When I tried changing the delivery method to first class post for an extra quid, the button worked okay and took me onto the next screen where I logged into my account and completed the transaction.

To be honest I'm not overly fussed about paying the extra pound to have them post the ticket out, more I'm just curious as to why I was unable to select ticket on departure as I've never had this problem before.

 

[pinguini]

Perhaps there is a problem with the feature, because the feature is currently not in use at all if you were to repeat the process.

 

[yorkie]

I don't know why it didn't allow TOD, but I do know that postage costs of £1 are applied if your origin station doesn't have collection facilities.

To reduce this cost to a reasonable 40p, purchase a Dockyard (Devonport) to Devonport (Devon) child CDS. Ensure the date/time of departure is before your other ticket(s).

Free postage will then be offered, so a saving of 60p.

 

[pjnathanail]

I don't know why it didn't allow TOD, but I do know that postage costs of £1 are applied if your origin station doesn't have collection facilities.

To reduce this cost to a reasonable 40p, purchase a Dockyard (Devonport) to Devonport (Devon) child CDS. Ensure the date/time of departure is before your other ticket(s).

Free postage will then be offered, so a saving of 60p.

Why does this work?

 

[yorkie]

Why does this work?

Because there are no TOD facilities at Dockyard (Devonport).

 

[soil]

Because there are no TOD facilities at Dockyard (Devonport).

Would a child CDS from Matlock Bath to Matlock not further reduce this cost to a mere 30p?

 

[bb21]

Have you tried it? Does it work?

Neither Matlock nor Matlock Bath appears on the ToD list AFAIK.

 

[yorkie]

Would a child CDS from Matlock Bath to Matlock not further reduce this cost to a mere 30p?

Looks like it! Good find.

 

[pjnathanail]

Because there are no TOD facilities at Dockyard (Devonport).

Very clever! Could you add a railcard?

 

[ainsworth74]

Very clever! Could you add a railcard?

Of course, it's just like any other ticket.

 

[Crossover]

Would love to see the look on the faces of the railway folk who analyse station usage by tickets sold - I can see certain stations ticket sales going through the roof :P

 

[ainsworth74]

Would love to see the look on the faces of the railway folk who analyse station usage by tickets sold - I can see certain stations ticket sales going through the roof

I've been thinking it would be potentially amusing to get several people to buy tickets from a lightly used station every couple of weeks. For instance Teesside Airport to Dinsdale is £1.05 for a child single. Get four or five people to buy say ten or twenty of those over the course of a year and you'd double or even triple the 'usage' figures.

 

[Crossover]

Very clever! Could you add a railcard?

You can, but I don't think any will actually lower the price

 

[MikeWh]

Very clever! Could you add a railcard?

You could, but remember it's a child fare so probably only the F&F railcard would do anything, and only with an adult, which defeats the object really.

 

[bnm]

Minimum child fare of £1 on a F&F Railcard.