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Noticed an issue with TrainSplit (I’m unsure as to whether this affects RUK Tickets as well, which runs a slightly different version) where if you purchase a Travelcard for a point-to-point return journey, the return portion of the journey in the confirmation email states that the Travelcard doesn’t cover the service even though it does.
There was one other journey attached to this ToD booking. The journey this was bought for is Brighton to New Southgate and a Brighton to Zones 1-6 Weekend Super Off-Peak Day Travelcard route Thameslink Only was sold. The return portion is, of course, on the same day as the outbound being Saturday 26th August (yes, I know it’s a strike day!).
Is this feature available ? If so, I dont appear to be able to find it. Generally for instance I check if its cheaper to use a Derbyshire Wayfarer in my itinerary, but I have to do this by trial and error at present.
Thanks.
Unfortunately (with limited exceptions such as London's Day Travelcard which is a special case) we can't currently retail rovers and rangers so thus won't offer splits involving these. It's something I think Trainsplit would like to do in future, but it needs some rail industry regulations to change before this would be possible.
There's an issue with the size of search window that Trainsplit uses.
For example - I have just been searching for rail-sail tickets from London to Dublin Port Stena. I ask for connections leaving london after 0630 and it offers me these connections:
That's fine - but I want to see if there are any other options later in the day. So I press the right-hand arrow, to search over the next few hours, but I get this:
The problem here is that this could make it look like there are no further options that day.
In fact there is another connection, that leaves London at 1346.
It doesn't find it presumably because it has shifted the search window forwards by a smaller amount of time than would include 1346.
Even if you understand that this is what's happening, that right-hand arrow has disappeared. If you want to find that 1346 connection, you have to go back and change your search, and manually ask it to search from, say, 1300 onwards.
It would be better if it was stated clearly on the results screen, that this was the outcome of a search between X time and Y time, and if it then directly offered you to search within a subsequent window. Otherwise it's quite easy to miss options where there might only be a couple available in total throughout a day.
J37 is a rear facing seat for southbound journeys; this is correctly shown for all legs except York to Peterborough.
It may be related to the fact that the LNER seat maps are in reverse (i.e. forward is really backwards) and manual hacks need to be implemented by retailers to fix this.
I'm a little confused about what the difference is, between tickets.railforums.uk, and trainsplit.com.
I'd thought they were different front ends using the same ticket engine ... but if I go to tickets.railforums.com it seems I can sign in using my trainsplit.com account details.
So it seems my trainsplit.com account is the same thing as my tickets.railforums.com account?
Yet, something that exists in my basket at tickets.railforums.com doesn't exist in my basket at trainsplit.com.
The forum gets a portion of the takings from the former, and not the latter.
Occasionally, we'll turn on features on the RailUK Forums site before the main site.
I'm a little confused about what the difference is, between tickets.railforums.uk, and trainsplit.com.
I'd thought they were different front ends using the same ticket engine ... but if I go to tickets.railforums.com it seems I can sign in using my trainsplit.com account details.
So it seems my trainsplit.com account is the same thing as my tickets.railforums.com account?
I'm a little confused about what the difference is, between tickets.railforums.uk, and trainsplit.com.
I'd thought they were different front ends using the same ticket engine ... but if I go to tickets.railforums.com it seems I can sign in using my trainsplit.com account details.
So it seems my trainsplit.com account is the same thing as my tickets.railforums.com account?
Yet, something that exists in my basket at tickets.railforums.com doesn't exist in my basket at trainsplit.com.
It's exactly* the same thing, except the forum's site has forum branding and the forum recieves some commission on the sales; the forum is very much not-for-profit, has no paid staff and any proceeds go towards the running costs of the forum as well as reasonable expenses (for example providing fares workshops, which are always free of charge)
* Edit: except, yes, as mentioned above, our version of the site may be used to trial new features; so that is perhaps a good enough reason to use our site by itself
There will also be some further improvements in terms of even more optimised split points coming soon; I've found a lot myself but we do also appreciate members informing us if we are ever not finding the cheapest combination of tickets for any given itinerary. These changes apply to all versions of the site.
Maybe this should be explained more explicitly somewhere?
As an aside, maybe I was being stupid, but I couldn't actually work out how to create a new account (this was before I realised I already had one, because the two sites are basically the same thing).
If you go to "account" and you're not signed in, you get a page with this:
But if you click on "create account", you get taken to this
In other words you are just given the option to sign in, not to create a new account.
I guess the hidden explanation is that, with social authentication (Firebase) signing in and registering are equivalent because Firebase UI will automatically put you into the "creating a new account" flow if you enter an email address that's not already registered. I agree that that's not at all apparent from the wording the design agency put on that page.
I'll open a ticket to try and get it improved in the meantime, anyway.
I guess the hidden explanation is that, with social authentication (Firebase) signing in and registering are equivalent because Firebase UI will automatically put you into the "creating a new account" flow if you enter an email address that's not already registered.
I sort of thought that was maybe what was going to happen to me when I put in what I assumed was an unregistered email - it's not what happened but now I see why.
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By the way, just a bit more of a user perspective on the situation where it's the same account, with different faces depending on which URL you approach it from...
This kind of thing makes me feel really uneasy online, because it creates a feeling that I'm not entirely in control of what's going on. Especially when it's a site that takes payments and holds card details etc.
Generally I think most people expect that if they have an account with some kind of entity, then it's clear exactly what that entity is. If you are always basically within the same domain when dealing that entity (I know this isn't always the case) then that is reassuring, but at least, you'd expect the same branding, whenever you're signed into and using that account.
In this case I can be signed into & buying things with the same account, with the top of the page giving me no indication that this is the case - it can be either of these
And then there is the added potential confusion, that my railUKforums "forum" account is not the same thing as my tickets.railforums account. But the top of the page looks rather similar in either case:
I'm not quite sure what I'd suggest as a better way to deal with this.
If the ticketing site was labelled as something like trainsplit - railukforums portal then perhaps that would help people understand and fel confident about what they are actually using.
That's a good point - I'll add 'tickets' into the logo so there's a clearer distinction. The rest of the branding being similar is intentional - but I do take your point with the headers being a bit confusing at the minute.
In the page title (displayed in your browser tab header) - we do say 'Powered by TrainSplit' so we certainly don't hide who runs the ticketing backend.
That's a good point - I'll add 'tickets' into the logo so there's a clearer distinction. The rest of the branding being similar is intentional - but I do take your point with the headers being a bit confusing at the minute.
In the page title (displayed in your browser tab header) - we do say 'Powered by TrainSplit' so we certainly don't hide who runs the ticketing backend.
Often the tab header won't tell you much because it will look like this if you've got several tabs open
But also, saying "powered by" I think is potentially misleading, because this is different thing, from being an alternative interface for the same account.
For example, I know (I think) that some TOC ticketing engines are "powered by", for example the trainline engine. But in that case, if I am using a TOC site that uses the trainline booking engine, I am not using the same user account that I use if I am using the trainline site directly.
Thanks for your feedback - we'll certainly take a look at what we can do. Whist I personally think 'powered by' is fine in the context we use, it may well be that we can be clearer that it's linked with Trainsplit from an account management perspective.
There will also be some further improvements in terms of even more optimised split points coming soon; I've found a lot myself but we do also appreciate members informing us if we are ever not finding the cheapest combination of tickets for any given itinerary. These changes apply to all versions of the site.
On that point when I was fiddling with the above I seemed to get a better split (the above was not the cheapest fare I was trying to keep it all on one service) where a Doncaster connection to Grand Central was excluded resulting in a cheaper connection to Hull Trains instead. I will try to reproduce this tomorrow to see if I'm remembering correctly.
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For several weeks I had been trying to book tickets for a short stay at Manchester & Liverpool, for the end of October, from Newcastle.
I managed to get the return journey tickets several weeks ago (from Liverpool) for my wife and I for £27.90 which I thought was a bargain, but the outward journey (to Manchester on a Sunday, 29th Oct) was much more expensive so I decided to wait.
I had tried when the 12 week ahead date arrived, then 11 weeks etc etc but still without luck.
Last Friday, after speaking to a friend I heard there are engineering works taking place over my travel weekend, so trains would be affected badly. Worried about maybe not even getting a ticket, i thought I just better book that day. I managed to find an LNER ticket to Doncaster, for the two of us for £33, with the Manchester journey only £11.60. It was only £15 extra for first class, so i jumped at the chance.
HAPPY TIMES
I had left a reminder on my phone, so looked this morning on RailUK tickets (why ? who knows ) and to my surprise, my exact same journey, 2nd class would have been £28.60, or 1st class £54.60 .. and that's first ALL THE WAY
*** The moral ... always check and double-check RailUK tickets for great prices ***
Even this morning on the LNER site, the price is showing as £113 for the same '2nd class NCL - DON -MAN' journey
My friend was impressed as well. For a journey from Birmingham to Broome (to star t a rover ticket) the forum offered an advance of £11.40 compared to other sites which would only offer the £26.60 anytime single. I assume this is because trainsplit looks at more journey opportunities as this itinerary has slightly longer at Shrewsbury.
I would like to add my praise too - I always use it, and I even managed to convert a friend who previously used the dreaded trainline when he got his £60 return for £40 through splittickets!
On that point when I was fiddling with the above I seemed to get a better split (the above was not the cheapest fare I was trying to keep it all on one service) where a Doncaster connection to Grand Central was excluded resulting in a cheaper connection to Hull Trains instead. I will try to reproduce this tomorrow to see if I'm remembering correctly.
Are we not finding the itinerary? Feel free to send me the details and I'll look at it in detail on Saturday. In the meatime, you can play with advanced options to get the itinerary you want; if the itinerary is what you want but the fares aren't found, again please let us know.
My friend was impressed as well. For a journey from Birmingham to Broome (to star t a rover ticket) the forum offered an advance of £11.40 compared to other sites which would only offer the £26.60 anytime single. I assume this is because trainsplit looks at more journey opportunities as this itinerary has slightly longer at Shrewsbury.
The forum's site does not charge a booking fee, so the worst that will happen if you use us, is we'll charge the same as Avanti do, if there is no saving to be had.
For comparison, Trainline state the price of this journey as £48.60. When adding the ticket to the basket, a booking fee of £1.49 is added at this stage, but that still brings the total down to a level that is more than £30 cheaper than Avanti charge with no fee.
If anyone can find an example of where we are not offering the cheapest combination of tickets, on any given itinerary, please let me know the full details, and I'll get the relevant people to look into it.
Remember train companies don't want you to use us, as they want you to pay a lot more money for your journeys!
Are we not finding the itinerary? Feel free to send me the details and I'll look at it in detail on Saturday. In the meatime, you can play with advanced options to get the itinerary you want; if the itinerary is what you want but the fares aren't found, again please let us know.
Sorry - It's not clear because my post is three posts that got merged by the auto merge, but I had subsequently convinced myself that I was wrong, it's all good
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Trainsplit or the railuk version *do* charge a booking fee though don't they, when a ticket split is found? It's called a "share of saving" or similar but it's basically a booking fee. It is in fact true that the same combination of tickets (when a split option is found) can be bought from a TOC website for less. It's just that you have to assemble the various tickets manually.
Trainsplit or the railuk version *do* charge a booking fee though don't they, when a ticket split is found? It's called a "share of saving" or similar but it's basically a booking fee.
It is in fact true that the same combination of tickets (when a split option is found) can be bought from a TOC website for less. It's just that you have to assemble the various tickets manually.
It is in fact true that the same combination of tickets (when a split option is found) can be bought from a TOC website for less. It's just that you have to assemble the various tickets manually.
Just used the site for the first time having previously used trainsplit. Really pleased as the split ticketing saved a fortune compared to booking direct with Avanti. A couple of points for feedback:
- I booked for 4 adults and one child. It would be useful to have a price breakdown so I can easily see how much each adult/ child journey cost
- The 'download expense receipt' section does not work for me. I get the error message 'receipts.trainsplit.com can't currently handle this request.'
In what way is it not a booking fee? It's a fee charged for creating the booking.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it in principle. Trainsplit offers something that TOC websites don't, and charges a small fee for it. That's fine. But it's strange to say it's not a booking fee.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
