Changing a discounted online Advance to a different date at a ticket office

[Romilly]

I had an Advance for a journey on Virgin Trains East Coast this coming Sunday and needed to upgrade it to an Advance for the corresponding journey on Monday. I had bought the ticket online from the VTEC website and had therefore had the benefit of their 2% online discount. I tried to make the change at a London Terminal ticket office (not VTEC-operated) this morning, and the very helpful clerk was defeated by the fact that his system did not recognise the discounted price that I had originally paid.

So my questions are: (1) on another occasion, is there is a way around this problem that I could suggest; and (2) would I have had the same problem at a VTEC-operated ticket office?

In case it matters, I would add that I had a paper ticket - I hadn't opted for print-at-home. Also, I have now made the change via my online VTEC account, but on this occasion I would have preferred not to have to do that.

 

[Haywain]

I had an Advance for a journey on Virgin Trains East Coast this coming Sunday and needed to upgrade it to an Advance for the corresponding journey on Monday. I had bought the ticket online from the VTEC website and had therefore had the benefit of their 2% online discount. I tried to make the change at a London Terminal ticket office (not VTEC-operated) this morning, and the very helpful clerk was defeated by the fact that his system did not recognise the discounted price that I had originally paid.

So my questions are: (1) on another occasion, is there is a way around this problem that I could suggest; and (2) would I have had the same problem at a VTEC-operated ticket office?

In case it matters, I would add that I had a paper ticket - I hadn't opted for print-at-home. Also, I have now made the change via my online VTEC account, but on this occasion I would have preferred not to have to do that.

A VTEC office will happily deal with this, but you won't be getting the discount. You will simply pay the difference between the price already paid and the cheapest available fare, plus £10 change of journey fee.

 

[bb21]

Who did you use? EMT?

STAR requires you to select the fare to be excesses from the database which is probably why they can't find it.

Use a ticket office not using the STAR system like St Pancras Thameslink or East Coast.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Who did you use? EMT?

STAR requires you to select the fare to be excesses from the database which is probably why they can't find it.

Use a ticket office not using the STAR system like St Pancras Thameslink or East Coast.

A manual Excess Fare can be done on STAR. Also, in the more automated process the fare paid can be altered if need be, this latter process is how Single-Return Excess Fares are done.

 

[bb21]

A manual Excess Fare can be done on STAR. Also, in the more automated process the fare paid can be altered if need be, this latter process is how Single-Return Excess Fares are done.

I know that, but I have also been advised that certain TOCs do not like it, and staff can get in trouble for it. (EMT hint hint ) So it is best that the OP is told to go to a different TOC.

That is why despite Leicester ticket office being very good at everything they do, the one thing I have been told they were not allowed to do is to excess a single to a return. Very frustrating indeed.

 

[Romilly]

Thank you to everyone for these helpful explanations.

 

[dzug2]

Certainly some TOCs (FGW are another one) have a policy of not doing it. An inconsistently applied policy maybe.

 

[TEW]

I had to change the date on an Advance ticket bought on the FGW website with a 10% discount before. It took a fair while at the ticket office, but it was eventually done as a manual excess.