Free Postage

[Mikey C]

Bought some GWR tickets for travel in August yesterday.

I normally just collect from the machines at the station, but chose to get them mailed to me (they arrived today) as postage was free.

Is this just a GWR thing, but I was most surprised that the postage was free, as it does add to their costs.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Is this just a GWR thing, but I was most surprised that the postage was free, as it does add to their costs.

It's not just GWR. It might be easier to list the TOCs that charge.

Cross Country is one.

 

[mikeg]

Does the station of your ticket origin offer collection facilities?

Always used to be the case with EMT for example that if your local station has no collection facilities postage is free, otherwise is chargeable. I don't know if that is still the case.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Bought some GWR tickets for travel in August yesterday.

I normally just collect from the machines at the station, but chose to get them mailed to me (they arrived today) as postage was free.

Is this just a GWR thing, but I was most surprised that the postage was free, as it does add to their costs.

Others with free postage include Greater Anglia (Trainline based), c2c (WebTIS), GTR, Southeastern and London Midland (the last three all use Govia's On Track booking engine).

 

[SAPhil]

Others with free postage include Greater Anglia (Trainline based), c2c (WebTIS), GTR, Southeastern and London Midland (the last three all use Govia's On Track booking engine).

Last month I tried to buy tickets via GTR but there was a charge for postage - so I used GWR instead.

 

[Mikey C]

Does the station of your ticket origin offer collection facilities?

Always used to be the case with EMT for example that if your local station has no collection facilities postage is free, otherwise is chargeable. I don't know if that is still the case.

I never even got to that stage (I would have collected from one of the London termini anyway)

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Thanks for the other replies, I had no idea so many operators offered free postage

 

[les.]

TPE's site offer free postage too. You just pay the price of the ticket.

 

[JaguarLover101]

Arriva Trains Wales offer free postage aswell, makes me use them a lot more, not paying the extra £2 for Virgin to post them to me!

 

[Puffing Devil]

Virgin (West Coast) is free postage, if your journey starts from a station without a machine.

 

[Deerfold]

Virgin is free postage, if your journey starts from a station without a machine.

Virgin East Coast charge for all postage on their new booking engine.

 

[gray1404]

What is the latest a customer can book tickets before travel if they wish to use free postage?

 

[Puffing Devil]

Virgin East Coast charge for all postage on their new booking engine.

Fixed - West Coast is still free and now seems to offer mobile tickets from my Northern station

What is the latest a customer can book tickets before travel if they wish to use free postage?

No idea - they say allow 5 days for delivery. Maybe a little playing with dates will reveal all. Though you may want to consider the mobile option, if available, in extremis. I personally prefer paper.

 

[ashworth]

Thanks for all this useful information. I've always enjoyed free postage from EMT but my local station has just had a ticket machine installed and so now I would have to pay postage. It will be useful for when I need to book Advance tickets not priced by EMT.
It will still be best to use EMT and collect from the machine when booking EMT Advance tickets as you get £1 off each ticket when booking through their website. This will be a bit of an inconvenience because I regular book these online for an elderly relative and I will now have to go to the station to collect them for her from the machine if I want to get the discount and avoid postage.

 

[DelW]

What is the latest a customer can book tickets before travel if they wish to use free postage?

If you're too close to the date of travel, IIRC the web site doesn't offer tickets by post, usually that's five days as Puffing Devil mentioned.

Despite that, I've used FGW/GWR (and SWT which posts tickets from the same office in Crawley) quite a lot, and the tickets almost invariably arrive in the following day's post, even when booked late in the afternoon.