No admin fee for changing non-Advance tickets?

[churo]

I know that Crosscountry, and maybe a couple of others, let you change the day/times of Advance tickets without paying a fee.

Are there any companies that let you change (or cancel/refund) other ticket types (for example, off-peak return) without a fee? It's usually £5 from what I've seen.

Thanks.

 

[Sonic1234]

Chiltern let you refund non-Advance tickets up to 24 hours before travel fee free.

Their terms and conditions state "24 hours", in practice this is up to 23:59 the day before travel.

 

[Watershed]

In terms of train companies, the Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern websites/apps allow you to obtain a fee-free refund on uncollected tickets where you have chosen to collect them at the station ("ticket on departure").

This obviously doesn't apply to Advance tickets as they are non-refundable, and it also doesn't apply to eTickets, likely because of the perceived fraud risk (you could have travelled without the ticket being scanned).

If you wanted to change a walk-up ticket you would refund the old one and buy whichever new ticket you want.

The above policy also applies to third party retailer Ticketyboo. Meanwhile, Railsmartr will let you refund tickets even if they are issued in eTicket format although I believe there is a degree of backend validation on such requests.

 

[churo]

Thank you both for the helpful info.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Aug 2025 ==

In terms of train companies, the Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern websites/apps allow you to obtain a fee-free refund on uncollected tickets where you have chosen to collect them at the station ("ticket on departure").

Ah, is this definitely correct because I've just looked at the refund FAQs on the Great Northern and Southern websites and it says:

"If you bought your ticket from us and no longer want to travel we can refund your ticket less a £5 admin fee, up to a maximum of 28 days from the expiry date of the ticket."

I can't find anything on there about fee-free refunds* for uncollected tickets (*except for cancelled/rescheduled trains).

 

[Watershed]

Thank you both for the helpful info.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Aug 2025 ==


Ah, is this definitely correct because I've just looked at the refund FAQs on the Great Northern and Southern websites and it says:

"If you bought your ticket from us and no longer want to travel we can refund your ticket less a £5 admin fee, up to a maximum of 28 days from the expiry date of the ticket."

I can't find anything on there about fee-free refunds* for uncollected tickets (*except for cancelled/rescheduled trains).

No problem. It used to be called the "Rainy Day Guarantee", but it's now listed under Money Back Guarantee: https://www.southernrailway.com/help-and-support/money-back-guarantee

 

[churo]

No problem. It used to be called the "Rainy Day Guarantee", but it's now listed under Money Back Guarantee: https://www.southernrailway.com/help-and-support/money-back-guarantee

Thanks!

 

[CyrusWuff]

Not directly relevant here, but if you buy a walk-up ticket from a Ticket Office or TVM and a change of plans means you need to buy a new one (e.g. Changing the date of travel, or travelling at a time the existing ticket wouldn't be valid) you should be able to get a refund for the original ticket with no admin fee being applied.

This is documented in the Refunds section of Internal Knowledgebase and has to be undertaken at a Ticket Office operated by the same TOC as the original ticket was purchased from. As a rule, the refund and reissue have to be undertaken in the same transaction.

Depending on the TOC, it may be possible for them to use the value of the original ticket as a credit for the new one, with you just paying (or being refunded) any difference in fares, rather than having to refund the entire amount and pay again.