Advance tickets? T&C question. Also missing tickets!

[AndreInK]

This is complicated.

I bought two advance singles from take the train, from Whitstable to Taunton and back again. The outbound was fine but I accidentally booked the wrong month for the way back. Supposed to be 7th May outbound and 10th return but I booked 10th June (Silly me).

I read the T&C and it seemed to suggest I should book another ticket to replace the June one and then fill in the claim form and then would get a refund of the ticket value less £10. Is this correct?

So I booked a ticket for the return part of the journey, again through take the train.

Things have now been made more complicated because the replacement tickets have not arrived and I have realised that they wont. I got home two days ago to discover a card from the post man. It said I had a letter that had not had the correct postage on it. It said I could come and get said letter from the sorting office and I owed £1.50. I only had time to get to the sorting office today and when I saw the letter it had no return address on it and I felt it was probably some sort of advertising junk. So I told the postie I didn't want to pay £1.50 for something I thought was junk mail. He said it would be sent to a department they have in Belfast where it would be opened.

Upon return home I realised it was the train tickets. I don't know how they could have sent them without any postage but that must be what happened. I bought them on the 17th! But the depot is closed and I am fairly sure that by the time it opens again tomorrow they will be on there way to Belfast!

I emailed take the train and they have basically said 'we can't give you new tickets'. I strongly suspect that there is no way I will get them by the 7th May. But it is essentially their error and I'm not sure how to proceed.

 

[wellhouse]

You did not need to purchase a complete new ticket.

Changes to Advance Tickets can be made at most staffed stations before the departure of the booked train.

The difference between the price paid and cost of the next suitable fare for your journey is payable, plus a £10 administration fee per person, per single ticket for each change to a journey. If you change to a train on which a cheaper fare is available, the difference will not be refunded.

Please remember that you will need to present your original ticket(s) and reservation(s) as well as the new ones when you travel.

The Advance ticket you bought for the wrong month can not be refunded, only changed as described above.

I am not sure how best to deal with the tickets in the hands of the Post Office. Someone else here may have a suggestion.

 

[bb21]

With regard to the post that you declined, are you absolutely sure that it is from mytrainticket?

You can still change the tickets dated for June for travel on 7th May as described above. Advance tickets are not refundable but are changeable in your circumstance, for a fee of £10 per ticket plus any difference in fare. You can do it at any staffed ticket office. Just take your tickets along.

If eventually it turned out that the mail you declined indeed came from mytrainticket, and you could not make the journey you booked with those tickets, you then have every reason to ask them for a full refund plus the £1.50 you had to pay to receive the mail. Though I doubt they would have forgotten to put stamps on the envelope, as I believe that they use pre-printed postage paid ones.

If you cannot trace those tickets then it becomes a little trickier. One school of thought on this forum is that the retailer had responsibility to ensure that you receive what you paid for, so they could choose to obtain authorisation for you to travel on your booked trains if tickets are not received, but the tickets are not refundable so you could end up with two lots of tickets, one for May and one for June. It is also possible to argue that you are entitled to a full refund for the tickets not received, however I don't know how much they will be willing to budge.

 

[AndreInK]

With regard to the post that you declined, are you absolutely sure that it is from mytrainticket?

Though I doubt they would have forgotten to put stamps on the envelope, as I believe that they use pre-printed postage paid ones.

I phoned the sorting office this morning and was pleased to find a helpful postie who found the letter had not yet been sent to Belfast. I just went and picked it up and it is indeed my train tickets! How it got through their system I can only guess but the postie in the office when I went in to get them said it happens a lot with business mail, letters from council, solicitors and so forth.

However I forgot to ask for a cash receipt! But I did open it in front of the postie.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You did not need to purchase a complete new ticket.

Changes to Advance Tickets can be made at most staffed stations before the departure of the booked train.

The difference between the price paid and cost of the next suitable fare for your journey is payable, plus a £10 administration fee per person, per single ticket for each change to a journey. If you change to a train on which a cheaper fare is available, the difference will not be refunded.

Please remember that you will need to present your original ticket(s) and reservation(s) as well as the new ones when you travel.

The Advance ticket you bought for the wrong month can not be refunded, only changed as described above.

I am not sure how best to deal with the tickets in the hands of the Post Office. Someone else here may have a suggestion.

So I can buy cheap advance tickets from any staffed station? At the same price as online?

 

[yorkie]

So I can buy cheap advance tickets from any staffed station? At the same price as online?

Only if they have access to the central reservation system (the vast majority do). It's the same price online except where TOCs have promotional discounts on their website, for discounts on their own Advance tickets (such as EC a few percent off, TPE half price for 16-25 Railcard holders, Southern 10/20% off, etc).

 

[hairyhandedfool]

There are also a few tickets which are only available online and not at stations, the former Saver Half being an example, and I believe EMT have some online only Advance fares too.

 

[AndreInK]

Nothing is ever simple is it. The person I was going to visit on the 7th May can now no longer put me up. I think I can use the single from Taunton to Whitstable I accidentally bought originally, that has a travel date of 10th June. But now the ticket I bought to replace that one is worthless to me! But will 'they' accept the June ticket as a replacement booking for the May ticket even though I bought the June one before I bought the May one?

Advance tickets are often are great value but if you make a mistake or other people let you down they rapidly become expensive!

 

[island]

I'm afraid all the chopping and changing here has left me hopelessly lost. I would suggest you take all of the tickets to your nearest staffed station and tell them exactly when it is that you want to travel. They will either tell you that your tickets are valid or how much you need to pay to amend them.

 

[Deerfold]

Nothing is ever simple is it. The person I was going to visit on the 7th May can now no longer put me up. I think I can use the single from Taunton to Whitstable I accidentally bought originally, that has a travel date of 10th June. But now the ticket I bought to replace that one is worthless to me! But will 'they' accept the June ticket as a replacement booking for the May ticket even though I bought the June one before I bought the May one?

If you've bought an advance ticket and then amended it you cannot then travel using only the original ticket at the original time.

Advance tickets are often are great value but if you make a mistake or other people let you down they rapidly become expensive!

They can, yes. I used to use advance tickets every week to travel 400 miles paying around 20% of the flexible fare. I bought them the day they came out, but about 5% of them I ended up not using due to changes of plan - it was worth doing over time as I saved so much on the other tickets.

 

[barrykas]

If you've bought an advance ticket and then amended it you cannot then travel using only the original ticket at the original time.

To expand on that a little, when changing an Advance ticket the clerk SHOULD cancel the original reservation. FasTIS, for example, prompts for the NRS reference if you apply the change fee via the Excess screen, but not if you apply it as a separate supplement (or "Extra" in FasTIS parlance).

 

[AndreInK]

Thanks everyone!