Avoid Trainline for international bookings

[Nickt]

Mods: Please move this if in wrong forum.

Booked to go from Harrogate to Avignon via Eurostar back in May. Outward journey was easy, the return much less so. Arrived Paris Lyon on time and tried to get to Paris Nord and it rapidly became apparent that the transfer time set out in Trainline's itinerary is impossible to achieve without a Formula 1 racing car waiting for you. Missed our collection for Lille and therefore our booked Eurostar return. As a result we had to buy new tickets from Nord to Lille, new Eurostar tickets and have an overnight stay in Lille. It made the trip much more expensive. Trainline deny any responsibility saying that they act only as a seller of tickets and deny all liability. They claim to use 'industry standards' to establish transfer times.
My advice is not to trust them, they are clearly incompetent with itineraries and duck out of any liability for expenses resulting from their incompetence. I note they are part of the Virgin Group.

 

[Darandio]

I note they are part of the Virgin Group.

Not for nearly 20 years. Does it make a difference?

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

You are relatively new to the forum , so will forgive you missing the 1,234,543,45565,433,3455 threads saying exactly the same!

 

[Darandio]

You are relatively new to the forum , so will forgive you missing the 1,234,543,45565,433,3455 threads saying exactly the same!

To be fair i've rarely seen anything similar in terms of European itineraries, it therefore probably merits more discussion than your average 'Trainline are crap' thread! I'm just more confused about the Virgin comment and why it matters.

 

[30907]

The tightest connection I can find is on Trainline is 42min, which is also offered by DB who say "40min transfer by RER D" (and I suspect therefore by all other operators).
40min seems perfectly reasonable to me, at least at times when RER-D is running reasonably frequently, with the actual RER journey taking 8min.

 

[Nickt]

Not for nearly 20 years. Does it make a difference?

From Trainline's website: 1997 Trainline is set up by the Virgin Group with the mission of helping customers save money on train tickets. At first, we didn’t sell tickets on the web; only over a telephone line.

To be fair i've rarely seen anything similar in terms of European itineraries, it therefore probably merits more discussion than your average 'Trainline are crap' thread! I'm just more confused about the Virgin comment and why it matters.

Pleased to have so many folks who share my views. If all those who are unhappy with them stopped using Trainline they would have to improve their services or go out of business. The only way to get back at large corporations is by not feeding them ie not using their products or services, which is why I won't use anything which comes from the Murdoch empire, SKY and the like.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jul 2023 ==

To be fair i've rarely seen anything similar in terms of European itineraries, it therefore probably merits more discussion than your average 'Trainline are crap' thread! I'm just more confused about the Virgin comment and why it matters.

Thank you, I feel thoroughly patronised!

 

[Benjwri]

Pleased to have so many folks who share my views. If all those who are unhappy with them stopped using Trainline they would have to improve their services or go out of business.

This is entirely untrue. Trainline isn’t liked on this forum, for various reasons, but the majority of people I know use it, and do so because it is the best for them. It has to be admitted Trainline is very sleek, and the best app for most who don’t understand the complexities of ticketing and don’t want to work out restrictions etc.

I have no idea on its European tickets as mentioned here though. Are you able to show us your itinerary that it was expecting you to follow? It’s hard comment without actually knowing how long it gave you.

 

[Nickt]

I discarded the itinerary in rage and despair. IIRC it was 40 mins, which would be tight according to other sources.. We were at the back of a crowded train from Avignon and it seemed to take ages to get through the throng and out of the station!

 

[Darandio]

From Trainline's website: 1997 Trainline is set up by the Virgin Group with the mission of helping customers save money on train tickets. At first, we didn’t sell tickets on the web; only over a telephone line.

It's the 'About Us' page, in particular the 'Our History' section. It says nothing about them being owned by Virgin in 2023.

Thank you, I feel thoroughly patronised!

Not my intention! We do see many threads that are just generic bile towards Trainline, mostly completely valid too. Yours if true seems an interesting case and is of course worthy of investigation/discussion.

Yet i'm still confused why you singled out if they were owned by Virgin and why it would have mattered if they were in this particular case?

 

[156421]

You are relatively new to the forum , so will forgive you missing the 1,234,543,45565,433,3455 threads saying exactly the same!

Joined in 2013 how is that "new"?

 

[Nickt]

It's the 'About Us' page, in particular the 'Our History' section. It says nothing about them being owned by Virgin in 2023.



Not my intention! We do see many threads that are just generic bile towards Trainline, mostly completely valid too. Yours if true seems an interesting case and is of course worthy of investigation/discussion.

Yet i'm still confused why you singled out if they were owned by Virgin and why it would have mattered if they were in this particular case?

Darandio

As a relative newcomer I meant the patronised comment as a reply to Y Ddraig Coch.

I mentioned Virgin in the hope that others would consider not using any part of their empire. I shan't be using them again but will use my ticket office with real helpful people in it.

I did of course raise a dispute with Trainline who were adamant in their rejection of it. They justified it by saying they merely sold tickets on behalf of other companies. Would that stand up if Curry's rejected complaints over faulty goods? I know the answer to that one!

 

[BlueLeanie]

I discarded the itinerary in rage and despair. IIRC it was 40 mins, which would be tight according to other sources.. We were at the back of a crowded train from Avignon and it seemed to take ages to get through the throng and out of the station!

Can you not go into your deleted box or on the App's itineraries and recover it for us?

It's really weird, the RER line service run every 10 minutes and it takes 8 minutes to transfer. This is a transfer I do regularly, and it's never taken me more than 40 minutes to get off a train.

Don't CIV tickets come with guaranteed journeys if you miss a connection anyway? Plus you'll have your travel insurance.

This is all a bit weird.

 

[Nickt]

Thanks BlueLeanie. I was too trusting with Trainline - lesson learnt but I shan't be using them again - I should have checked the details of transfer twixt Lyon and Nord. To be clear, it didn't take us 40 mins to get off the platform, but closer to 10.

 

[duesselmartin]

An improvement suggestion to trainline would be that one can tinker with the transfer time in a similar fashion as the DB Navigator does.
I do like trainline for some international services although I always compare it to other sites.

 

[yorkie]

Mods: Please move this if in wrong forum.

Booked to go from Harrogate to Avignon via Eurostar back in May. Outward journey was easy, the return much less so. Arrived Paris Lyon on time and tried to get to Paris Nord and it rapidly became apparent that the transfer time set out in Trainline's itinerary is impossible to achieve without a Formula 1 racing car waiting for you. Missed our collection for Lille and therefore our booked Eurostar return. As a result we had to buy new tickets from Nord to Lille, new Eurostar tickets and have an overnight stay in Lille. It made the trip much more expensive. Trainline deny any responsibility saying that they act only as a seller of tickets and deny all liability. They claim to use 'industry standards' to establish transfer times.
My advice is not to trust them, they are clearly incompetent with itineraries and duck out of any liability for expenses resulting from their incompetence. I note they are part of the Virgin Group.

Can you provide the date of travel, date of booking and the planned itinerary please?

 

[Mainline421]

I agree you shouldn't use Trainline, but having done it 40 minutes is more than enough time for that transfer and would be offered by every journey planner. It's only 2 stops and takes 9 minutes on the RER.

 

[rvdborgt]

I've done platform to platform in 25 minutes for this connection multiple times. 40 minutes should be doable, although I'd be standing at the door before arriving in Gare de Lyon.

 

[richw]

If it took more than 40 minutes I’d suggest that was your error in navigating not the planner unless there was some form of disruption. Disruption wouldn’t be the fault of Trainline.
It’s an 8-9 minute journey with a service every 10 minutes on the RER.

It’s been nothing to do with Virgin since 2006 so slandering them is unnecessary and irrelevant.

Most recently owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts an American investment company who acquired in 2015 before floating on the stock exchange.

Wikipedia gives a good write up of its history of ownership.

 

[306024]

Seems an odd itinerary to start with if it involved changing at Paris and Lille, unless all Eurostars from Paris were fully booked. Looking briefly at the DB app I can't find any current journeys from Avignon to Harrogate that have less than an hour to cross Paris, so without further detail it is difficult to determine whether Trainline are at fault or not. As they say they use industry standard connection times, perhaps they aren't.

 

[jon0844]

All I see is someone who doesn't appear to like Virgin companies and thought Trainline was one.

 

[30907]

Don't CIV tickets come with guaranteed journeys if you miss a connection anyway?

That only applies where a train has been delayed.

Seems an odd itinerary to start with if it involved changing at Paris and Lille, unless all Eurostars from Paris were fully booked.

It is sometimes cheaper, or quicker if there is a gap in the Eurostar timetable.

BTW the man in seat 61 recommends allowing an hour for the transfer (if ES in not involved).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Trainline's European ticketing capability came from Captrain, a French ticketing operation, which Trainline purchased in 2016.
There is no connection at all with Virgin Group.

Trainline EU - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I don't know how much of this paragraph is still true, given Trainline's practice of adding a service charge.

Captain Train works through the carriers' own reservation systems for all searches and transactions; it acts strictly as an intermediary between them and passengers, and does not hold the tickets which it buys and resells. Prices are those charged by the carriers, with no added service charge; Captain Train receives a commission from the carrier on each ticket sale.

 

[4COR]

It is sometimes cheaper, or quicker if there is a gap in the Eurostar timetable.

Indeed - changing at Lille can be substantially cheaper if you have the time to spare. I'm doing the same in a week or so's time : £74 E* to Lille and then €24 for the TGV in 1st to Paris - this compared to £139 at time of booking for London-Paris through train; you can save £100+ on a single fare in this way in the right circumstances... SNCF Connect and Trainline will both offer itineraries with changes at Paris and Lille (as well as the direct Avignon->Lille TGV service - see below) so it's not that abnormal an itinerary.


Back to the topic - the shortest cross Paris connection I can see on Trainline from a quick search around is 1h26m, for an early service. You are recommended 45 min for boarding the E* at Gare du Nord (NB 30min absolute minimum...), so that leaves 44min to connect. SNCF Connect's planner for Avignon->London has in some cases, a slightly tighter schedule (!) - the image below shows an example with 9min for disembarking at Gare du Lyon, 3min wait for the RER Ligne D, 8min journey to Gare du Nord, and 16min wait before boarding the recommended minimum 45min E* boarding process - 36min total from arrival to start of boarding. (Note the SNCF site has issues with change of timezone!):



I would probably try and give myself a longer connection personally, esp if you need to get the Ile-de-France ticket for the RER, but there's no obvious way of specifying longer transfers without going and booking the trains individually. As @30907 says, the Man in Seat 61 site is the most useful reference here for any connections/timings - indeed for Avignon - London, he recommends getting the direct Avignon-Lille TGV service and boarding the E* there. See: https://www.seat61.com/France.htm#london-to-avignon-aix-marseille-by-train

 

[leytongabriel]

That only applies where a train has been delayed.

It is sometimes cheaper, or quicker if there is a gap in the Eurostar timetable.

BTW the man in seat 61 recommends allowing an hour for the transfer (if ES in not involved).

As a former Paris resident I would say the man in seat 61 is right. It can take a long time to change at Gare du Lyon, especially from the hall at the far end of the station from the RER. The D line isn't exactly delay-free so the qouted 3 mins wait on another posting seems pretty optimistic. And Gare du Nord is another big terminus with a good time needed from RER to Eurostar. I think at heart it's a question of whether you know the route or not and can bustle along or need to keep checking the signage and making sure, which seriously increases interchange time.

 

[Route115?]

If there is no RER D take an RER B and change to the RER A at Chatalet where there is Cross Platform Interchange. You should be fine as long s your arrival in Paris is on time. That said I would suggest that you allow yourself a longer interchange time.

 

[reb0118]

I realise that seating is allocated on TGVs but vacating your seat at the "correct" time to walk up as far to the front as possible before arriving at Gare de Lyon is good practice.