Administrative fees

[Cadarn]

Does anyone know the process by which any of our rail companies decide what should be charged for an administrative fee? I know that such matters are covered by the National Rail Conditions of Travel and these sorts of fees are ubiquitous these days, but the document says only that the company can charge a “reasonable flat fee”.


By way of a specific example, I recently changed a ticket while travelling with GWR, and while this was allowed, I was charged £10 for the privilege. I contacted the company and challenged the amount, but they were unable to tell me why or when this sum was arrived at. I don’t think £10 is reasonable when the entire process is automated. It just seems entirely arbitrary.


Can anyone shed any light on this?

 

[jfollows]

So a process which is automated should be free, even if its owner has spent millions of pounds devising and implementing it?

Do you also say that train travel should be free on trains with empty seats, because it doesn't cost the train operator any more to carry you?

You didn't say, but if your ticket is an advance ticket, you're booking a seat on a specific train at some point in the future, and you're allowed to change it for a fee when otherwise you would simply not be given any sort of refund if you chose not to use it. Again, a lot of money has been spent on the systems which enable booking of advance tickets.

 

[Watershed]

I agree that it seems somewhat questionable for retailers to charge £10 as an admin fee to change Advance tickets, especially if they have automated processes.

It's the maximum fee permitted by the NRCoT but the mere fact that the NRCoT permits it doesn't mean it's necessarily lawful. It could stand open to challenge as being excessive under consumer law, and that's exactly why the ORR recently concluded a review which forced the admin fee for refunds to be reduced to a maximum of £5.

If admin fees for refunds are £5, and since most retailers don't charge a booking fee, it seems illogical to be charging £10 just to do both things at the same time (indeed for some retailers the process is less complicated/involved than that).

So a process which is automated should be free, even if its owner has spent millions of pounds devising and implementing it?

It doesn't cost millions of pounds to implement a change of journey functionality. Sure, you might be looking at tens or perhaps, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds (depending on the scope of the functionality) - but once developed, the cost of keeping the functionality running is fairly minimal in comparison.

Being able to provide change of journey is part of creating an accreditable ticket issuing system (TIS), and thus largely a startup cost for selling tickets in the industry. Those one-off costs should be paid for by profits on ticket sales, as they will be incurred regardless of how many people decide to request a ticket change.

Moreover, a number of retailers lack "proper" change of journey processes and knstedt process it by means of "refund and replace". Since, as above, they can only charge a £5 admin fee for refunds and most do not charge a booking fee, how is it logical for £10 to be changed just because these two processes happen at the same time?

Do you also say that train travel should be free on trains with empty seats, because it doesn't cost the train operator any more to carry you?

That is slightly different, I would suggest. Some retailers offer fee-free changes so clearly it is not necessarily an issue of cost. All retailers must offer the ability to change a ticket, as part of the T&C's of a fare you have bought.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Does anyone know the process by which any of our rail companies decide what should be charged for an administrative fee? I know that such matters are covered by the National Rail Conditions of Travel and these sorts of fees are ubiquitous these days, but the document says only that the company can charge a “reasonable flat fee”.


By way of a specific example, I recently changed a ticket while travelling with GWR, and while this was allowed, I was charged £10 for the privilege. I contacted the company and challenged the amount, but they were unable to tell me why or when this sum was arrived at. I don’t think £10 is reasonable when the entire process is automated. It just seems entirely arbitrary.


Can anyone shed any light on this?

The official excuse runs along the lines that it discourages people from buying tickets for trains they never intend to use - to the detriment of those who want to travel on that train, who could be forced into buying a more expensive ticket as a result - and swapping them at a later date with minimal penalty.

It does, however, mean that if the original ticket cost less than the admin fee (where one is applied) it's cheaper to buy a new ticket than it is to change it.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

There are also costs associated with card payments (and reversals, refunds etc), as well as other fees associated with the ticketing infrastructure - changing an Advance ticket isn't cost neutral for anyone, and can actually cost a retailer money. Even if they have an automated process in place, that isn't free - it's presumably been designed and licensed from a supplier, and no doubt like any rail software, has some extra zeros.

Some TOCs/retailers absorb these because they think that overall it will drive more revenue/profit by having a USP etc.

I think the ORR also accepted that Advance tickets could be abused if the change fee was too low, undermining the product more generally.

 

[alistairlees]

The £10 Advance ticket Change of Journey fee is supposedly a feature of the product and was intended to act as a deterrent to changing the product; it’s not representative of the work required to change it. It’s not supposed to be in the gift of retailers to change - obviously some do though.

 

[Alex-B]

Does anyone know the process by which any of our rail companies decide what should be charged for an administrative fee? I know that such matters are covered by the National Rail Conditions of Travel and these sorts of fees are ubiquitous these days, but the document says only that the company can charge a “reasonable flat fee”.


By way of a specific example, I recently changed a ticket while travelling with GWR, and while this was allowed, I was charged £10 for the privilege. I contacted the company and challenged the amount, but they were unable to tell me why or when this sum was arrived at. I don’t think £10 is reasonable when the entire process is automated. It just seems entirely arbitrary.


Can anyone shed any light on this?

You've had a good few answers on why the charge exists. But you can also avoid paying the admin fee.

A few retailers don't charge the full fee, or charge a lower amount.

The main ones are:

• CrossCountry (a white label of Trainline) allows for changes to advance tickets to be completed on their website and app free, but charge for refunds of refundable non-advance tickets. Technically, it does a refund and replace behind the scenes. https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/customer-service/no-admin-fee
• Transpennine Express also allow for changes to all tickets to be completed free, but you have to buy a new ticket and fill out a form to get a refund of the cheaper ticket (before the departure time of the original ticket if it's an advance). Refunds of non-advance tickets are still charged an admin fee. https://www.tpexpress.co.uk/help/change-my-ticket
• Southern (and other TOCs from the same brand, like Great Northern and Thameslink) allow for refunds of non-advance tickets fee free, but only if you choose to collect paper tickets and apply for a refund before you collect them. They charge a fee for refunding e-tickets and collected paper tickets, as well as changing advance tickets. https://www.southernrailway.com/tickets/buy-tickets/money-back-guarantee
• The independent retailer Railsmartr don't charge any admin fees for any change or refund to any ticket type, whether fulfilled as paper or e-ticket. But to change an advance ticket you have to buy a new one and email them to request a refund (before the departure time of the original ticket if it's an advance). https://railsmartr.co.uk/faq_list/refunds-amendments/

There's probably some others but these are the main ones I know about.

 

[Adam Williams]

Sure, you might be looking at tens or perhaps, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds (depending on the scope of the functionality) - but once developed, the cost of keeping the functionality running is fairly minimal in comparison.

I'd have to politely disagree with this. The amount of time the refund rules have changed in recent years*, and the ongoing hassle caused by regular refund audits, the manual work required by needing to manually check printed ToD/scanned E-Ticket cases which need manual intervention [and the customers, mostly SRN-holders, who decide they just don't want to use the automated process] as well as the costs of upstream systems (payment gateways, fulfilment partners - cancelling an E-Ticket is not free for the vast, vast majority of retailers) make refunds a colossal time and money sink for any retailer that actually cares about doing them properly. That's before we talk about the basic software maintenance required of ensuring software is currently supported, responding to security vulnerabilities and changes in technology best practices and responding to current events (like industrial action).

*The "worst" example being when we were looking at logic that could do mappings from station NLC codes to local authority areas to Covid-19 restriction tiers and take into account when the tiers had changed vs the date-of-travel because the fee-free refunds stipulated by govt/RDG were only available in certain scenarios where the tier had changed after booking.....

 

[Sonic1234]

Wonder how much is spent dealing with questions and complaints regarding these fees, and how many get eventually cancelled (or refunded as a voucher) as goodwill?

 

[island]

It's the maximum fee permitted by the NRCoT but the mere fact that the NRCoT permits it doesn't mean it's necessarily lawful. It could stand open to challenge as being excessive under consumer law, and that's exactly why the ORR recently concluded a review which forced the admin fee for refunds to be reduced to a maximum of £5.

It is not in fact open to challenge on this basis. See section 64 (1) (b) of the Consumer Rights Act and OFT vs Abbey National & Others [2009] UKSC 6.