Email contact for Avanti Customer services

[philjo]

What is the best email address to use to contact Avanti Customer Services ?

I booked an advance ticket on my phone via the Avanti site on 2nd August (only using Avanti site as I had an Avanti 10% discount code).

During the payment stage I think the signal momentarily dropped and it automatically reloaded a few seconds later. I then received 2 email confirmations with different booking references for the same journey. So I had 2 different tickets both booking the same seat.

I immediately sent an email to Avanti asking them to refund the second payment. I received an auto reply with a case reference number, but as yet have not received a response.

Thanks

 

[AlterEgo]

How long ago did the transaction happen?

 

[philjo]

How long ago did the transaction happen?

It was on 2nd August for a journey the following day. I sent an email to Avanti about 15 minutes later once I had seen the 2 emails with different reference numbers.

 

[MrJeeves]

Honestly, at this point just take it up with the Rail Ombudsman. You're past the 40 working days which the TOC has to reply to you now, and it will probably trigger a response.

 

[yorkie]

Yes, at this point, you definitely need to go to the Rail Ombudsman. Please let us know how you get on.

Avanti have been mistreating a lot of people lately and not only is the customer service poor, the Avanti website is riddled with problems and uses sub-standard suppliers (e.g. PICO4UK, which has a terrible reputation); other forum members have experienced issues with Avanti which have not been resolved promptly, e.g.

We could not connect to the services that deliver your tickets

This morning, I bought two tickets on the Avanti website, one for today and the other for tomorrow, as separate transactions. ToD as for cross London travel. Both purchases went through, and I got collection references for both. However, when I went to the station, they couldn't find the...

www.railforums.co.uk

(and many more)

Whether it's worth using the unreliable Avanti website for the offers (which appear to be done at the expense of good customer service), I'm not sure personally, but I think prospective customers should bear in mind how poor the website is, and how poor the customer service experience can be.

Had such a problem occurred with the forum ticketing site (which I doubt it would), I am confident you would have been refunded within a day or two. However, the forum's site benefits from a UK based customer services team and is backed up by actual experts; it's not practicable to offer such high levels of customer support and also offer discounts, cashback and other such schemes which I understand attract people to the Avanti website.

 

[gray1404]

Is a double charge for the same transaction the sort of thing a bank can help you with as well? When it's obvious a customer has been charged twice form the same transaction.

 

[MrJeeves]

When it's obvious a customer has been charged twice form the same transaction.

The problem is really that the services have been rendered twice, so they are two separate transactions in a sense.

 

[TUC]

And yet I still see social media posts saying that people should use TOC apps to buy tickets. I've no idea why. As the example above indicates, there's nothing inherently better about them.

 

[yorkie]

And yet I still see social media posts saying that people should use TOC apps to buy tickets. I've no idea why. As the example above indicates, there's nothing inherently better about them.

TOCs are desperate for people to buy direct, because they charge premium prices for premium journeys. Third party sites such as the forum's can save a lot of money for the most lucrative of passengers.

TOCs also know that some people are so swayed by small discounts, cashback and other perks that they will put up with poor customer service and higher overall prices for those premium journeys.

This is why LNER is so keen to spend so much taxpayers money with adverts featuring Eleanor desperately telling people to 'book direct'.

And, for the most part, it works, except for people 'in the know'.

 

[317 forever]

TOCs are desperate for people to buy direct, because they charge premium prices for premium journeys. Third party sites such as the forum's can save a lot of money for the most lucrative of passengers.

TOCs also know that some people are so swayed by small discounts, cashback and other perks that they will put up with poor customer service and higher overall prices for those premium journeys.

This is why LNER is so keen to spend so much taxpayers money with adverts featuring Eleanor desperately telling people to 'book direct'.

And, for the most part, it works, except for people 'in the know'.

It wouldn't surprise me if TOCs want us to use their websites so that we don't look at the Railforums website for example for split ticketing savings.